All Cossacks make their own wine, and drunkenness is not so much a general tendency as a rite, the non-fulfilment of which would be considered apostasy.

The Cossack looks upon a woman as an instrument for his welfare; only the unmarried girls are allowed to amuse themselves.

A married woman has to work for her husband from youth to very old age: his demands on her are the Oriental ones of submission and labour.

In consequence of this outlook women are strongly developed both physically and mentally, and though they are--as everywhere in the East--nominally in subjection, they possess far greater influence and importance in family-life than Western women.
Their exclusion from public life and inurement to heavy male labour give the women all the more power and importance in the household.

A Cossack, who before strangers considers it improper to speak affectionately or needlessly to his wife, when alone with her is involuntarily conscious of her superiority.