Electrooptical and dynamic properties of poly(L-glutamic) acid-cationic surfactant and poly(L-lysinium hydrochloride)-anionic surfactant polyelectrolyte complexes in chloroform and isopropyl alcohol were studied. The optical anisotropy of the repeating unit, the Kerr constant, and the time of orientational relaxation of complex molecules were determined. It was shown that, as opposed to poly(γ-benzyl-α,L-glutamate), whose molecules orient in the electric field due to the occurrence of the permanent dipole moment, electric birefringence in solutions of polypeptide-surfactant complexes is of a deformation origin. It was demonstrated that equilibrium electrooptical properties of complexes may be described within the framework of a model which assumes that the external field-induced dipole moment is due to the displacement of surfactant ions along the generatrix of the α-helix. The time needed to attain the induced dipole moment was found to be commensurable with the time of the orientational relaxation of complex molecules.