I would like to understand the lives and customs of Hannoverian citizens in
the 1800's, especially as I have been shocked to discover one married couple
born 1823 and 1824 respectively had several illigitimate children together
from 1845 until they married in 1854 when they had further children.
I know in England at that time that a father's permission had to be given
until the child reached the age of 26. Also a female working as a servant
in a large house could be dismissed for having a child or being married and
thus if the girl could hide the pregnancy the child would be secretly born
and would live with a relative. Maybe the clue lays with religion, the
bridegroom being from a Catholic family and the bride from an Ev. Lutheran
family (and never the twain shall marry?). From the 1852 census it can be
seen that 2 of the (illigitimate) children were living with maternal
Lutheran grandparents and recorded under their father's surname. None of the above explains why the couple didn't marry for several years after reaching 26. The grooms father was a miller and the bride's family were farm labourers with a small farmer thrown into the mix. Maybe one set of parents thought the other family were not of the same social class and beneath them?
Rena
Seems like "any of the above" to me. Plus one more.
It was not uncommon for an officially betrothed couple (in old Lutheran books of worship, you will find a Betrothal Ceremony) to have children. These children were NOT considered "illegitimate" in the sense we mean today.
Betrothal was a legal state of affairs, giving property rights to the woman just as marriage would. However, betrothal was considered a religious ceremony only. It had no civil legality at all. The property rights could have been "enforced" only if the betrothal contract was written, signed and witnessed. Otherwise, "enforcement" could have come only from social pressures put on the man if he broke the betrothal to settle property on the mother of his children.
It was NOT considered sinful for an officially betrothed couple to have children, even if they were not in financial circumstances to begin living together and had a civil ceremony. They had made all the same vows in the church, with the whole congregation as witness, as we make in a marriage ceremony, and the church considered the couple to have all the rights of marriage -- including a sexual relationship and bearing children. But marriage in the civil sense took place only when it was possible for them to "set up house" together. This is why so many marriages took place in the same week as emigration and the woman traveled under her birth name because that's how she had to apply for emigration since she wasn't married yet when she applied.
It's also the reason my great grandparents weren't married until after they came to America. I don't think they were prepared for a society in which they would not be recognized as a married couple, even though they had a child and even in the very Hannoverian town in which they settled. So they went to the next county and got married. I have reason to believe that they successfully hid the fact that they had never had a civil ceremony until after they arrived. Only the accidental finding of their marriage in the next county cleared up the parentage of their eldest son. Even the person who considers herself an expert on the family wasn't aware of this wrinkle and had been trying to figure out who the boy's mother was. Well, it was great-grandma all along.
Loretta
Photos: http://lorettasphotos.photosite.com
Videos: http://krumbar.neptune.com
Families: Artesia Twp., Iroquois Co., Illinois: Index to several prominent families
In my genealogical research I have discovered that many of my ancestors and
their siblings, both German and English, had illegitimate children or baptized
children within two or three months of their marriage.
I think the only reason we tend to find this "shocking" is because we who were
born and raised during the first half of the 20th Century were led to believe
that such things "never" happened in the "good old days", and that pre-marital
and/or extra-marital sexual activity was something new that was a symptom of
our decadent society in the last half of the century.
In fact, illegitimate births were much more common during some past centuries
than in our own. In some parts of what is now Germany during the 17th century
the illegitemacy rate is said to have been as high as 25%!
One factor that contributed to this situation was undoubtedly the abject poverty
in which the vast majority of the population lived. This made it extremely
difficult to marry and provide for a family. I was very surprised when I
started researching my Hannoverian ancestors and discovered that most of the
men didn't marry until they were well into their thirties, and the women were
usually nearly thirty.
Don Roddy
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