The females, as in all barbaric countries, were exposed to every indignity.  All the hard labor of life was thrown upon them.  When the husband died, the widow was compelled to cast herself upon the funeral pile which consumed his remains.  It is said that this barbarous custom, which Christianity abolished, was introduced to prevent the wife from secretly killing her husband.  The wife was also regarded as the slave of the husband, and they imagined that if she died at the same time with her husband, she would serve him in another world.  The wives often followed their husbands to the wars.  From infancy the boys were trained to fight, and were taught that nothing was more disgraceful than to forgive an injury.

A mother was permitted, if she wished, to destroy her female children; but the boys were all preserved to add to the military strength of the nation.  It was lawful, also, for the children to put their parents to death when they had become infirm and useless.  “Behold,” exclaims a Russian historian, “how a people naturally kind, when deprived of the light of revelation can remorselessly outrage nature, and surpass in cruelty the most ferocious animals.”

In different sections of this vast region there were different degrees of debasement, influenced by causes no longer known.  A tribe called Drevliens, Nestor states, lived in the most gloomy forests with the beasts and like the beasts.  They ate any food which a pig would devour, and had as little idea of marriage as have sheep or goats.  Among the Sclavonians generally there appears to have been no aristocracy.  Each family was an independent republic.  Different tribes occasionally met to consult upon questions of common interest, when the men of age, and who had acquired reputation for wisdom, guided in counsel.

Gradually during the progress of their wars an aristocracy arose.  Warriors of renown became chiefs, and created for themselves posts of authority and honor.  By prowess and plunder they acquired wealth.  In their incursions into the empire, they saw the architecture of Greece and Rome, and thus incited, they began to rear castles and fortresses.  He who was recognized as the leading warrior in time of battle, retained his authority in the days of peace, which were very few.  The castle became necessary for the defense of the tribe or clan, and the chieftain became the feudal noble, invested with unlimited power.  At one time every man who was rich enough to own a horse was deemed a noble.  The first power recognized was only military authority.  But the progress of civilization developed the absolute necessity of other powers to protect the weak, to repress crime, and to guide in the essential steps of nations emerging from darkness into light.  With all nations advancing from barbarism, the process has ever been slow by which the civil authority has been separated from the military.  It is impossible to educe from the chaos of those times any established principles.  Often the duke or leader was chosen with imposing ceremonies.  Some men of commanding abilities would gather into their hands the reins of almost unlimited power, and would transmit that power to their sons.  Others were chiefs but in name.