The painting "Unequal Marriage" by Vasili Pukirev (1862) was surrounded by legend. It was said that after looking at it, older men who were planning to marry young women gave up their intent.
The painter's work is an open and courageous denunciation of the Russian society of the time. In particular, the custom was condemned (universally in vogue in the not too distant past and still present today in some countries) whereby young girls were often forced into arranged marriages with men much older than them.
The painting was highly successful and generated heated debate in the press, with its supporters praising it for representing a serious theme of modern life, unlike the usual genre scenes, which tended to be nostalgic or sentimental.
The canvas is based on an episode that actually happened and is full of details. The same painter - who was rumored to be romantically linked to the bride - depicted himself on the far right with his arms crossed, as a sign of opposition to what he is witnessing. Two old women appear half hidden in the crowd: one can be seen between the groom and the priest, the other can be seen behind the religious man: it is probable that they are the groom's deceased wives. The priest himself is hunched over and partially in shadow, perhaps to symbolize some sort of divine condemnation of this union.
However, the figure of the young, beautiful and sad bride is illuminated. Under the oblique and inquisitorial gaze of her almost-husband, she mechanically performs the ritual and keeps her gaze turned to the ground, her eyes red from crying. We can only imagine her state of mind but perhaps these verses come to our aid:
As if, once the sentence was pronounced, frozen they were escorting you from the luxurious prison of doubt to the gallows, and to the dead, -
when the veil your eyes had sewn - a creature gasped - "Pity" - What anguish was then the most atrocious - To die, or to be alive?
(Emily Dickinson)
📌Vasili Pukirev, The Unequal Marriage (1863)., State Tretyakov Gallery - Moskow
