Cultural Identity as One of the Regulators of Legal Relationships in a Contemporary Russian Family

Introduction. Investigation of the legal activity in the frame of the family relationships seems to be especially relevant in the period of global instability and Westernization. The analysis of the present-day approaches to formation of the family relationships has revealed the dualism in legal universality and cultural identity in the different communities: although the vector of the current state policy of the Russian Federation aims at strengthening the traditional family values, the internal life of a contemporary Russian family often does not fit into this conceptual framework and develops in the direction of the sociocultural alterations of the society, thus, revealing the gaps in the existing legislation. The aim of this paper is to distinguish the aspect of cultural identity as one of the fundamental legal regulators of family relationships for improving the legal system in this field.

Materials and Methods. The leading method used in the research was a comparative approach based on comparing and analysing the legal and cultural family values in Russia and abroad, as well as on contrasting the traditional and modernist concepts of a family ideal. Additionally, application of the general scientific and specific scientific methods (systematization, historical method, abstract-logical method, axiological and legalistic approaches) allowed for a deeper investigation of the features of the family relationship development in the frame of a certain culture.

Results. On the example of the cultural specifics of the different states, the fundamental components forming the institution of a family and regulating the internal family relationships were identified, where the dominating ones were the socio-cultural norms, moral and ethical values and religious views. The analysis of the regulatory documents and relevant research papers enabled finding out the inconsistencies between the concept of supporting the traditional family relationships and the cultural values of the society. Having defined the boundaries of the cultural and legal regulators’ impact, we propose to implement the positive legal methods as a replacement to the radical autocratic approaches for achieving the cultural and legal consensus and developing the legal consciousness of a family.

Discussion and Conclusion. The multifacetedness of the cultural code of a nation requires making changes to the state government and legislative bodies. Therefore, the forward-looking research concepts in the field of the family legal relationships should aim at uniting the traditional legal and cultural approaches to formation of the family values with the modernized ideas of the civil society.

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