In traditional Ukrainian society, the family was considered an obligatory and important stage of the life cycle. Economic independence, public authority, social prestige, the right to inheritance, the opportunity to be an equal member of society (for men) and to take part in ritual life (for women) were convincing grounds for marriage.


Obligations in the family were clearly divided into female and male. Among women's: care of the house and household plot, processing of agricultural products, gathering (berries, mushrooms), crafts and crafts (making threads, cloths), tailoring and its decoration (embroidery, sewing) and others. Men were attracted to hard physical work, which required complex tools and devices, for example, they worked in the field (plowed, mowed). Men's sphere was also considered construction work: repairing houses, fences, stables.


Tradition oriented girls to early marriage (15-18 years old), because being married meant taking the highest step in the female hierarchy. The guys in the search for a couple were in a much better position: they were mobile, could go in groups from one "evening parties" to others in their village, and could also visit youth meetings in other villages.


The mother, grandmother, sister and other women were most often engaged in children, but men, as a rule, stayed away from babies. The father's detachment from upbringing can be explained not so much by indifference, but by the fact that the traditional patriarchal society clearly divided the work into female and male, and nursing children was an exclusively female matter.