concept
Household search customs
household search
The informal, extralegal practice by which a landowning family's mistress or master could personally search servants and dependents (including strip-searches) on suspicion of theft, without warrant or recourse for those searched.
Reading notes
- The Commotion §6 делали обыск
A private, informal search conducted by the mistress of the house herself, without police or warrant. Landowning families treated their household staff and dependents as subject to search at the employer's sole discretion whenever property went missing -- there was no legal recourse for the person searched.
- The Commotion §13 Нас раздевали всех догола и обыскивали
The maid Liza reports, without any special emphasis, that the female servants were stripped naked and searched -- treated by the household (and by Liza herself) as an unremarkable feature of a theft investigation among servants, underscoring how normalized such violations were for those without social standing to object.
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