Marriage customs in the area that became Baden in 1650 to 1850 timeframe
When a man was ready to marry, how did he go about finding or meeting a woman who could become his wife?
Did they generally look for someone of a similar age? Did widowers prefer younger women?
How would he meet a woman from a different village or farm a few kilometers away?
Or, if she lived 45 -55 km away?
99% of my ancestors lived their entire lives in the village of Birndorf or on farms there.
A few men married women from nearby villages, or perhaps farms, less than 5 km away.
And my 2nd great-grandfather married a woman from Wyhlen, 46 km away. Their marriage record states that their intention was proclaimed three times in Wyhlen, apparently marriage banns at the Catholic church there. But how would he have ever met her? They had at least two sons before they married -- he claimed paternity in their baptism records.
Thank you for enlightening me.
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I've been researching people in the farming communities near Versmold, Westfalen, in that time period. They used the Hof naming system, and I'm not sure if that was also used in Baden.
What I have gathered from bits and pieces, here and there, was that the top priority was to marry someone with a similar status. Marrying up was of course desired, but not easy. If possible, they preferred to marry someone of a similar age. But I have seen times when old widows married young men. Since the older wife was likely to die first, my guess is that the young husband agreed to marry into a rich farm, with the hope of marrying someone his age later.
It was easier to find a potential spouse that lived near you. So most often that happened. I've heard that there were traveling peddlers who spread news from one place to another. So that was one way to discover someone appropriate to marry.
At some time, I forget when exactly, the Prussian government had a brilliant plan to limit population growth. They made marriage very difficult and expensive. So people just informally married, then registered the marriage when children came, or when they could afford it.
This very limited bit of information of their lives is what I have gathered so far. I'm also looking to improve it.
You might enjoy reading "Our Daily Bread: German Village Life, 1500-1850" by Teva J Scheer
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Thank you for your wonderful response. My research corresponds perfectly with yours. Additional points:
Market towns were another avenue for meetings.
About the children born before marriage: A few years ago when I made a trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, one of their experts who was from Germany explained that there were significant impediments to marriage due to laws requiring military service, taxes and other financial constraints, land ownership, etc. So they simply had children out-of-wedlock until they could finally marry. In my great-grandfather's baptism record in 1832, his father, in an extra paragraph following the baptism paragraph, acknowledged parentage and signed his name. He did this for his oldest son as well. The parents married in 1834. Knowing they were Catholic, I was quite shocked when I heard this. But it was a common practice, so I guess the church was either OK with it or couldn't do anything about it.
I also have seen where an older woman married a younger man.
Another shocker was that men sometimes took their wife's surname -- usually because of land ownership, large farms, that type of thing, which can complicate research.
The traveling peddler idea is a new one to me -- and may explain the marriage of my 2nd great-grandparents born about 46 km from each other. Although I'm also thinking that perhaps he just went from his small village to the larger town to find work or for some other reason traveled there.
Thank you for the book suggestion. It sounds very interesting. I'll see about getting a copy.
Thanks for your lovely response. I enjoyed reading it and I appreciate the insights.
Elizabeth
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"Knowing they were Catholic, I was quite shocked when I heard this. But it was a common practice, so I guess the church was either OK with it or couldn't do anything about it."
I have both Catholic and Protestant ancestors, and illegitimacy occurs in both. I don't think it would be fair to say that Catholics were stricter about this than Protestants- in fact many Protestant denominations had parish councils that summoned people accused of out-of-wedlock relations, drunkenness etc and publicly rebuked and humiliated them. When they survive, they records can be quite interesting (I have several Scottish ancestors who feature in them). But I've never heard of the Catholics having similiar institutions.
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Catholics have Confession, so perhaps they didn't need reviews by a parish council.
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Lutherans have Confession as well. I don't think it's worthwhile debating the different approaches of Catholics and Protestants towards illegitimacy. What we can agree on is that it happened in both religious traditions despite it being considered a very serious sin in both traditions.
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Men taking their wife's name comes from the Hof naming system.
In this system, the name of your farm is most important, not the names of your parents.
So if a man marries into a farm, he adopts the farm's name as his own. I have heard that the source of this is the way the farm leases were written. The name of the leaseholder was fixed. Anyone who took over the lease, also adopted the name. 'Johann Witte' became 'Johann Witte called Meier', and some time later, the Witte was dropped, and was 'Johann Meier'.
It makes it very complicated to trace ancestors. The same line keeps changing names. And people with the same name are not necessarily biologically related. Children can have a name that is different from the name either parent was born with.
There are some good writeups about the Hof naming system that can explain it in more detail.
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Very interesting. Thanks for sharing. Nice to know there was a system to it and not just random events. I haven't run across it yet in my research, but good to be aware of it. Thank you.
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Most of my German and Swiss ancestors lived in Otttenbach Switzerland or Graben, Baden. In Switzerland horses's were rare and their travel was very limited. Thus most married people who were in walking distance from the village. In Ottenbach there was pretty much a set number of surnames. Most people married people in their own village. Larry Jensen, genealogist, says he did a study and found only 3% of Germans moved our of their home town. The reason for this is because you had to get special permission to move and the new pastor/church had to take responsibility for you if you fell on hard times. Even today the local pastor keeps track of those in the village and takes some responsibility when difficulties arise. There were also guilds which were hard to get into and once you were apprenticed to a profession you tended to stay in the area where you had guild membership.
In Graben, Germany it is rare for people to marry beyond walking distance. It is done but rarely. Generation after generation marry spouses who's surnames are very familiar. Scholl's marry Kammerer's and Seuss's and Beckers' and Roesches. Even today when you walk through the Graben cemetery you find all the same surnames. Of course this is totally foreign to Americans but I have visited both communities and the surnames I found in 1600 are still very prominent in both Ottenbach and Graben today. Best regards, Kent
https://gatheringgardiners.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-scholls-of-graben-baden-germany.html
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Thank you for responding and offering the great details. Your contribution is very helpful. I love that you found the same surnames from 1600 still in the same locales. It would be fun to see if I have long-distance relatives still living in Birndorf.
My 2nd great-grandfather from Birndorf seems to not fit the norms you mention. He married a woman from Wyhlen in 1834, about 46 miles away. And then in 1846 he applied for embarkation from Germany to the U.S., but not before living in Basel, Switzerland for awhile -- or at least there is a record there which lists several of his children -- and I've found no baptism records for them in Birndorf. He's the first Moser male in 5 generations not to raise his children in Birndorf.
Previous generations fit the norms you mention a bit better with a few still taking brides from nearby villages. His father in 1788 married a woman from Waldkirch. His maternal grandfather in 1758 married a woman from Kuchelbach. His great-grandfather in 1710 married a woman from Dogern. All three villages are about 3 miles distant from Birndorf, so while not in the same village, the women's villages are within walking distance.
A couple of the men's burial records state their occupation as farmers, and also state they were citizens, while one burial record states he was a farmer from Oberalpfen, again about 3 miles from Birndorf.
Thanks, Kent, for your contribution. It has been most enlightening and helpful.
Elizabeth
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