APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7
An overwhelming majority of its members passively resist the regime, lacking as they do legitimate political power or organization. Some, however, can become quite active in their resistance, as was the case during 1968 when workers united with students and intellectuals in support of the popular reform program and in opposition to the Soviet Union's interference in the nation's internal affairs.
Upward social mobility is based chiefly on education and political loyalty. In its early years, the Communist government denied members of the former middle and upper classes access to education, so that a large number of individuals of the lower class rose in the society to form the new middle and upper classes. Membership in the new middle and upper classes is not as secure as it was in the prewar period; social and economic position today depends to an unusually high degree on political fortunes that rise and fall with every shift or change in the Communist Party line.
3. The family
The prevailing family type is identical to that in most industrial societies: the single-family monogamous unit composed of father, mother, and unmarried children. Ties between this basic unit and close relatives tend to be weaker in the more urban and industrial Czech Lands, and stronger in largely rural Slovakia where close family relations resemble those in other East European countries. However, uniformity in family life throughout the country is being promoted by rapid industrialization, which has increased population mobility and shortened distances between town and village.
The family unit has usually occupied a single dwelling, but the postwar housing shortage has obliged many newlyweds to move in with parents. In Slovakia, partly because of tradition and partly because of the housing shortage, the three-generation household is more evident than in the Czech Lands. As a result of both this and a higher birth rate, the average Slovak household has four persons, as compared with three in the average Czech household.
In the typical Czech household before the advent of the present regime, the husband earned the family income and the wife took care of home and children. The mother often exercised decisive influence in household affairs, but the father remained, at least formally, the head of the family. Marriages were frequently the result not of a love affair but of an arrangement entered into by the couple and parents, with important consideration given to the groom's education, occupation, and income, and to the bride's trousseau and dowry. During the First Republic (1918-38), religious and civil marriage ceremonies had equal validity and divorce was legally recognized.
The traditional family pattern of life has undergone considerable change under the impact of communism. Marxist theories concerning the "emancipation of women," the sharp increase in the employment of women, and the state's assumption of greater responsibility in the upbringing of children all have combined to loosen family ties and weaken the authority of parents, especially that of the father. These changes, along with an acute housing shortage, have contributed to a rising divorce rate and a falling birth rate. The government has abolished any legal distinction between married and unmarried mothers.
Individuals become legally eligible for marriage at age 18; those between 16 and 18 must file an application that includes parental consent, and those below 16 are granted permission to marry only under exceptional circumstances. To be legal, a marriage must be contracted before an appropriate local governmental agency. A church ceremony may follow, but it carries no legal validity. Husbands and wives may retain their own family names or use the family names of either. Children bear the family name stipulated at the time of birth. Marriage to a foreigner without consent of the Ministry of Interior is prohibited.
Since 1963, family legislation has emphasized the welfare and upbringing of children. Largely with child care in mind, the government has decreed that "divorce should be an exception under socialism" and that all citizens must strive for the "maintenance of marital ties." Theoretically a divorce may not be granted if it would "severely affect" one of the partners or conflict with the interests of the children. Custody of the children in event of divorce is determined by the court, although the children are almost invariably entrusted to the mother.
4. Values and attitudes
The Czechs and Slovaks are a tenacious people. They are steadfast in purpose and will strive to achieve goals whatever difficulties stand in the way. Tenacity of purpose, however, does not mean achievement of goals through force or violence. They believe in the force of reason and prefer achieving goals through compromise rather than violence. They gained their independence in 1918 less through violence than through reasoned appeals to international opinion, and under the First Republic (1918-38) they created a democracy unique to Europe chiefly through compromise and negotiation. In the Czech character,
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7
