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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: coombs on Friday 29 January 21 22:53 GMT (UK)
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I, as I am sure many other do in FH, will find lots of instances of brides being pregnant at the time of marriage, some of them just pregnant, and others in advanced stages of pregnancy.
I was just discussing this on another thread about my several times great gran who married in May 1784, and gave birth to her first child on the 15th July 1784. Conception date about October 1783, and married at 7 months pregnant. She lived in Bethnal Green, her dad was a Bethnal Green weaver. The man she married in 1784 was also a Bethnal Green weaver 9 years her senior. The child born in July 1784 is my direct ancestor, who later became a cotton winder, and herself was 7 months pregnant when she married in 1806. Like mother, like daughter. ;D
I know most instances the groom probably was the father, as in a shotgun wedding, but there was a percentage of pregnant women who found a man to marry who was not the blood father, so as to try and look respectable. Maybe she had a fling with a man or a trial marriage that did not work out. Or he took fright at fatherhood and did a moonlight flit and was never seen again by the woman who was expecting his baby.
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but there was a percentage of pregnant women who found a man to marry who was not the blood father, so as to try and look respectable.
Well ... she would have to be a pretty damn good cook for a man to knowingly and willingly take on another man's child.
Regards
Chas
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Nothing has changed over the years! :D
Annie
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My wife's maternal great grandmother was married on 31st January 1887, and produced her first child on 10th February 1887. She was 17. Her husband was a friend of her older brothers.
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One of my direct ancestors was illegitimate, in fact his mother had 2 children before her marriage. I thought nothing of this until a few years ago I came across another set of marriage banns for her. They were from before the birth of her 1st child and they were to the man she later married.
So I will always be wondering what happened, were they his children, if they were I could have grown up with a completely different surname. A question which will only be answered by a DNA match.
Nic
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Many years ago whilst having a few drinks in the pub my uncle told my dad that he had been at their parents wedding. Dad thought his brother was blethering and a bit tipsy.
Fast forward a few years to when I started researching my family history. Yes, my uncle had been quite correct. They married on 7th October 1912 and he was born on 12th January 1913.
Dorrie
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The kettle was often on in the Vestry !
A Midwife attended my wedding, not out of necessity but she had delivered me and always attended “ her “babies’ weddings if possible .Home births the norm in those far off days.
My brother in law was making his speech as best man ,so said” Well I have heard of shotgun weddings but this is ridiculous!”
Viktoria.
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I think a lot of it was a trial marriage, or they waited until a pregnancy took place, or they could not afford it when the bride to be announced she was expecting, and had to wait a bit until the bride was further into her pregnancy before they tied the knot.
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There's also the case of bound apprentices, many of whom were prohibited from marriage until bond conditions had been met, which was usually age 21 or after 7 years. It might be several years after that when they could afford to marry.
Colin
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My 3x-great-grandparents got married less than two weeks after their first child was born. They had him baptized on the same day they were married, but in a church in the next town over. I wish the documents were date-stamped, LOL. I'm guessing the baptism was done after the marriage.
That child died at the age of 13, so we'll never know for sure (not that it matters to me, except out of curiosity).
Regards,
Josephine
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There's also the case of bound apprentices, many of whom were prohibited from marriage until bond conditions had been met, which was usually age 21 or after 7 years. It might be several years after that when they could afford to marry.
Colin
That is a thought, my ancestor may have served an apprenticeship as a weaver in London. No known record in the Register of Apprentices 1710-1811 but it may have been a pauper apprenticeship. I don't think Bethnal Green poor law records survive for 1770-1784 though.
And yes, in other cases, that may have delayed a wedding, then they had to find the funds for a wedding. I think weddings back then were much more low key than today but still had to be paid for.
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Now that has made something possible in my family.
Maternal grandparents.
Both aged 18 Born 1866.
He an Apprentice Blacksmith.
She a Heald knitter ( threads on the heddle of a loom that raised alternate treads .)
Baby born two weeks before the wedding.1884,
Another eleven followed at intervals up to January 1910.
Perhaps they could not marry sooner because of his indentures , but the baby made that imperative.
Ah well -They “ made a go of it” a saying hereabouts when something is a lasting success.
Viktoria.
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brides being pregnant at the time of marriage, some of them just pregnant,
One of my ancestors may have been "just pregnant" when she married in 1757, unless the baby, born 8 months later, was premature. The baby would have been baptised at home within a few days of birth as parents were both Catholics. They married after banns. Bride was 6 years older than her husband; he was only 18.
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I have read that at many times over the past, there were serious housing shortages, so young couples had to wait for their own place. Pregnancies happened anyway. Some parents would welcome the couple to share their home, if they married. Other couples waited it out and only married when a place to live became available, baby or no baby.
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My ancestors Samuel Auber/Obey and Elizabeth (Nee Newman) had a son in March 1773, and they married in November 1774. The son was baptised as if the parents were married in 1773.
I too have found a set of banns for a couple a few years prior to their wedding, they were together a long time before they actually wed, but as others have said, housing shortages, apprenticeships delayed things.
I have several who were about 3 to 4 months pregnant at the time of the wedding. She announced she was expecting, so they had to walk up the aisle. As said, a shotgun wedding. 2 direct ancestors wed in Lambeth in February 1866, their first set of banns read on 21 January. The bride was 3 months pregnant at the time the first set of banns was called, and 4 months when she wed the groom.
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They were often just being practical. With no pensions, social services etc, working class people needed to have children so that they would hopefully have someone to support and look after them in old age. So some couples wanted to make sure of fertility and would wait until there was a pregnancy before tying the knot.
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I think I must have a record in my tree in order to legitimise the birth...
John & Margaret married 1 Jan 1907, son John born 3 Jan 1907
Annie
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Well, my grandparents really left their marriage to the last minute!
The marriage was held in London the day before their first son was born. Husband was son of a well-to-do family from Brighton. Wife was a lowly shop-girl working in the family Department Store.
I think the boss had dismissed her, and she had gone up to live in central London. Her own family came from North London.
I have a distinct image in my mind of bride's father standing beside them with a shot-gun, making sure hubby didn't do a bolt at the altar, and leave his daughter and her family in total shame.
As it was, hubby and his new wife and newborn baby were banished to the colonies (Australia) by his father, within three months of the birth. They cut him off almost completely.
It was a very hard life for Grandma, as it was in the middle of the depression, and there was no work to be had in the city. He would be away for months at time, leaving her to look after their family of now four children on the meagre funds he was able to send back to her. I have a letter from him to Grandma, asking for her to send him some shirts and pyjamas, as the work crew were living in tents in the cold winter months.
Sadly Grandfather died only 11 years after emigrating, and poor Grandma was stranded here with no means of support and no family here to help her. I remember Dad telling us that she used to take in washing, and also got off the tram one stop early so she could save a ha'penny to spend on her children. There was lots of tales of eating tripe, brains and lambs fry for dinner, and of course bread with dripping.
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I don’t get it, that the ‘ deed’ having been done ::), that punishment helped at all.
Marry ,yes in those far off days before ( as it seems to an oldie like me) girls were paid for having children out of wedlock!
The girl needed financial help and support .
Both she and the young man had to face up to responsibilities .
Surely there was more chance of the marriage working if uncritical help and support was given, anyone will tell you of the joy grandchildren bring and why deny yourself that because of social mores.?
Nothing could be undone by harsh treatment .
It is an anomaly or an alonomy ::) to me that in the days when girls knew very little of “ the facts of life “ and even went to their marriages totally
ignorant ,that those who had a baby before marriage,were condemned yet now when the average Primary School child knows quite a lot ,girls get benefits if they have a baby ,even though contraceptives are readily available unlike previous generations.
But the world keeps turning and marriage is a relatively new institution
when you think how long humans have inhabited the earth.
I mean, men did need to know to whom they were leaving their best club!
Viktoria
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I think bridal pregnancies was a combination of either a shotgun wedding from the bride's father, or just doing the decent thing once the woman announced an unexpected pregnancy, or waiting until a pregnancy to secure a marriage.
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One of my great grandmothers married in Lancaster on 25th July 1903 and gave birth in Bolton on 9th August. We reckon she caught the fast train. :)
A pair of my ancestors married in 1807 just a month after the birth of their THIRD child. Father is named on the baptisms of all three, and there's no obvious previous marriage for him.
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my grandparents married in the September and the following January their first child - my uncle - was born.
a great aunt married in the October 1910 and had her child in the following December. She was 43 - groom 44. !
another aunt (farming family) pregnant at the altar told me it was done deliberately as farmers wanted to make sure their wives could have children - mmm??!
friends of my parents celebrated their Diamond wedding a year early becasue their first child was born 5 months after their actual wedding. The happy couple were blissfully unaware that everyone knew of their 'real' marriage date.
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I know a couple who married in 1839 but had their first child in 1834, the father's surname given as their middle name for the 1834 birth.
Also my great grandparents had a child in November 1895 with the father's middle name as a surname, and they finally married in September 1896.
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another aunt (farming family) pregnant at the altar told me it was done deliberately as farmers wanted to make sure their wives could have children - mmm??!
My farmer GF picked a good 'un. A widow with only 1 child from 10 years of her 1st marriage, she produced 8 more in the first dozen years of her 2nd marriage, only 1 girl, and they all survived. Her child-bearing hips may have added to the attraction of her handsome looks and bright eyes.
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A couple in my tree married in their mid fifties, after they’d had 6 children. Their youngest child was was 12 when they finally got around to it.
She described herself as “wife” on the census throughout their time together. I’ve not so far found any evidence of him having another wife preventing their marrying.
A rootschatter once said to me “perhaps she was trying to save for a stupendous wedding hat, but children kept coming along!”
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"Well ... she would have to be a pretty damn good cook for a man to knowingly and willingly take on another man's child. "
My great grandfather married my great grandmother when she was six months pregnant with another mans child. How can I be sure? Her mother registered the babe and declared that the husband was not the father!!
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There are evidently so many different potential explanations for the 'bridal pregnancies' mentioned here.
I think what it certainly demonstrates is that in the past there were rather more views about intimate relationships before marriage, 'living in sin', 'saving a girl from disgrace' etc than the standard view many of us were brought up with
Don't you find, (from the Victorians' influence on the previous generation?), views generally used to be:
"sex before marriage is unforgivable and cannot ever be justified and I would never have done it, and nor would anyone else in my respectable family, how do you dare to even suggest it......
and
women who indulge in sex before marriage are wanton, harlots, should be locked up to prevent contaminating other women, and certainly not supported or encouraged, except if you treat them with disdain ever afterwards
and
men who indulge in sex before marriage, well that's only to be expected. Boys will be boys"
History is not so much 'facts' as 'what you say about it'
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Oh ,how true,Igor,
As the man on TV recently said about the RC Church’s attitude in Ireland,girls were locked in nunneries and their babies taken away, but the priest whilst condemning the girls never sought out the men!
And we could ask ,what might he himself have been up to!
Viktoria.
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Let’s refer to the females as women or young women, not girls. The men involved are not called boys, even if they were teenagers.
Viktoria, not picking on you in particular, its use is ubiquitous, it’s just that words do make a difference in how we think of things.
Women are much more than breeders, having a lot of children might have been a boon to a husband, but for women it meant long months of pregnancy, nursing, risking her life in childbirth, and running a household that likely wore her out.
Like many of us here, many of my female ancestors bore many children, and I am thankful to have been born into a time where childbearing was a choice, and modern conveniences and a modern husband meant I could actually enjoy being a mother.
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As I said, Diana -
History is not so much 'facts' as 'what you say about it'
One of the huge benefits of family history research is that it gives you the opportunity to 'stand in someone else's shoes' and see what happened from another point of view.
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As I said, Diana -
History is not so much 'facts' as 'what you say about it'
One of the huge benefits of family history research is that it gives you the opportunity to 'stand in someone else's shoes' and see what happened from another point of view.
You are absolutely right! Family history can teach us many things.
I know it was hard work for men in the past too, but they could at least go to the pub and cut loose once in a while! Women were generally judged more harshly.
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As I said, Diana -
History is not so much 'facts' as 'what you say about it'
One of the huge benefits of family history research is that it gives you the opportunity to 'stand in someone else's shoes' and see what happened from another point of view.
You are absolutely right! Family history can teach us many things.
I know it was hard work for men in the past too, but they could at least go to the pub and cut loose once in a while! Women were generally judged more harshly.
When I first started to research my ancestry I was lucky enough to find an online mention of a female's name that I was looking for.
It was an entry in a parish register that she should marry forthwith for "fornication. No mention of the other participant.
The most children being born to one couple in my OH's ancestry was eighteen living children. I don't look upon them as a burden to either the mother or father because there was no state pension at that time and children's wages in later years were the couple's pension pot.
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Let’s refer to the females as women or young women, not girls. The men involved are not called boys, even if they were teenagers.
Viktoria, not picking on you in particular, its use is ubiquitous, it’s just that words do make a difference in how we think of things.
Women are much more than breeders, having a lot of children might have been a boon to a husband, but for women it meant long months of pregnancy, nursing, risking her life in childbirth, and running a household that likely wore her out.
Like many of us here, many of my female ancestors bore many children, and I am thankful to have been born into a time where childbearing was a choice, and modern conveniences and a modern husband meant I could actually enjoy being a mother.
It depends on ages, but I was quoting the man ,who born to a young woman,a girl really ,and was taken from her at days old to be adopted.
They were his wordsI quoted,” but the priests never went after the men”.
Viktoria.
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Let’s refer to the females as women or young women, not girls. The men involved are not called boys, even if they were teenagers.
Viktoria, not picking on you in particular, its use is ubiquitous, it’s just that words do make a difference in how we think of things.
Women are much more than breeders, having a lot of children might have been a boon to a husband, but for women it meant long months of pregnancy, nursing, risking her life in childbirth, and running a household that likely wore her out.
Like many of us here, many of my female ancestors bore many children, and I am thankful to have been born into a time where childbearing was a choice, and modern conveniences and a modern husband meant I could actually enjoy being a mother.
It depends on ages, but I was quoting the man ,who born to a young woman,a girl really ,and was taken from her at days old to be adopted.
They were his wordsI quoted,” but the priests never went after the men”.
Viktoria.
That makes sense in reference to what you were talking about. Some of the single mothers were girls, of course, 16 or even 15. My grandmother was 19, borderline, but I think of her as a young woman. My mother of course was affected by the norms of the time and probably one reason she was happy to emigrate. Not that it was much different here, but she did not share the information.
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Let’s refer to the females as women or young women, not girls. The men involved are not called boys, even if they were teenagers.
Viktoria, not picking on you in particular, its use is ubiquitous, it’s just that words do make a difference in how we think of things.
Women are much more than breeders, having a lot of children might have been a boon to a husband, but for women it meant long months of pregnancy, nursing, risking her life in childbirth, and running a household that likely wore her out.
Like many of us here, many of my female ancestors bore many children, and I am thankful to have been born into a time where childbearing was a choice, and modern conveniences and a modern husband meant I could actually enjoy being a mother.
Hear, hear.
Our ancestors did have it really hard, women especially. If she was expecting again, she still had to run the house while the husband went out to work, I guess the older children started to help around the house aged 5 or 6, or earlier, to ease the pressure.
The bridal pregnancy in our ancestors days tells a story, that sex before marriage was rife, and probably not as condemned as perceived to be.
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Not all the women stayed at home after they married and had a family.
Two of my great grandmothers had large families, kept the house and worked in the Jute Mills in Dundee in the late 1800's. It must have been an extremely hard life for them. Both of them helped in their later years to look after grandchildren to allow their mothers to work. One in particular looked after her bedridden daughter and her two children after the husband was killed in WW1. At the same time she took in another grandson after his father was killed in WW1 and the mother deserted the boy. I have a great deal of admiration for her. She is the lady in my Avator.
Dorrie
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Not all the women stayed at home after they married and had a family.
Two of my great grandmothers had large families, kept the house and worked in the Jute Mills in Dundee in the late 1800's. It must have been an extremely hard life for them. Both of them helped in their later years to look after grandchildren to allow their mothers to work. One in particular looked after her bedridden daughter and her two children after the husband was killed in WW1. At the same time she took in another grandson after his father was killed in WW1 and the mother deserted the boy. I have a great deal of admiration for her. She is the lady in my Avator.
Dorrie
These women were heroes.
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I don’t think my point that many pregnancies pre marriage were of young girls ,did anything minimise the recognition of the heavy burden of work and childbearing that were the norm for the average woman in those days.
My mother could remember women
returning very soon to work after having a baby ,daughters took the babies to the mill and the mothers fed them during what was their lunch break.
My grandmother often nursed young babies when their mothers had to go back to work, she was usually feeding one of her own anyway.
Between 1883 and 1910 she had twelve babies.
We don’t know we are born!
Viktoria.
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You are right Viktoria in saying we don't know we are born these days.
My great granny (Mary Malcolm) married on 15th October 1879 at the age of 19 and had her 1st baby on 23rd December 1879. She went on to have another 14 between 1879 and 1906.Two of whom were stillborn (as listed on burial register which was given to me by a cousin and confirmed by Dundee City Archives.) Only six of her brood outlived her.
Dorrie
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Not all the women stayed at home after they married and had a family.
Two of my great grandmothers had large families, kept the house and worked in the Jute Mills in Dundee in the late 1800's. It must have been an extremely hard life for them. Both of them helped in their later years to look after grandchildren to allow their mothers to work. One in particular looked after her bedridden daughter and her two children after the husband was killed in WW1. At the same time she took in another grandson after his father was killed in WW1 and the mother deserted the boy. I have a great deal of admiration for her. She is the lady in my Avator.
Dorrie
Went back to look at her photo, Dorrie. She manages to look cheerful despite it all.
Thank goodness they had that resilience, otherwise we'd not be here ourselves.
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Regarding terminology. The correct word for women and girls in Lancashire is lass. She might be a young lass or an "owd lass".
The mother of a great-grandfather was a young lass, aged 18 when he was born without a named father. Her mother was 18 when she had her first child, 2 years before she married the father. Her mother married aged 19, 6 weeks before birth of her first child, eldest of 13. 18 year-old bride of the illegitimate GGF was pregnant. Their son's 19 year-old bride was pregnant. Those 5 women produced a total of 43 children, 28 of whom survived childhood. The mothers all did paid work, mostly in mills, while bringing up their children.
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Thank you IgorStrav. We believe the photo was taken not long after her husband passed away in 1913. Family stories say he was a drunk and a wife beater so she must have been quite relieved to bury him.
What may bear this out is the fact that he was buried beside his brother in law and not with his parents and children who pre deceased him. There was plenty of room for him in the family plot at the time. Mary herself lies with her in laws and children in Dundee.
Dorrie
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The most children being born to one couple in my OH's ancestry was eighteen living children. I don't look upon them as a burden to either the mother or father because there was no state pension at that time and children's wages in later years were the couple's pension pot.
This is the point I made earlier on which most people seem to have ignored. It explains why working class couples often waited for a pregnancy before marrying.
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One of my ancestors married Sept 1864, first child born Dec 1864, baptised Sept 1865. I think that might have been to make the baptism "respectable"
The birth was registered in Colchester, Essex, but the baptism was in Garvestone Norfolk, mothers birth place.
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The most children being born to one couple in my OH's ancestry was eighteen living children. I don't look upon them as a burden to either the mother or father because there was no state pension at that time and children's wages in later years were the couple's pension pot.
This is the point I made earlier on which most people seem to have ignored. It explains why working class couples often waited for a pregnancy before marrying.
I don't think anyone has ignored your explanation as such. We do get that working class people often waited for a pregnancy before walking down the aisle.
For instance, my ancestors wed in rural Suffolk in July 1845 and their first baby was born October 1845, meaning the bride was 6 months pregnant at the time of her wedding.
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There are many cases of people marrying soon after being widowed wether with or without children
It was an advantage for a man to get married
Not just for the cooking + the legitimate sex !
Some of the men who married a pregnant woman may not have known that they would be taking on another man's child
Only DNA can show whether the biological ancestor was the husband or another man .
I have a few cases where widowers with married their housekeepers .
In one case a child born to the couple before marriage was then legitimised but also the housekeeper s previous daughter came to live in household as " neice"and after the husband's death was acknowledged as daughter of the widow on the next census
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Some of the men who married a pregnant woman may not have known that they would be taking on another man's child
Only DNA can show whether the biological ancestor was the husband or another man .
Out of 100% I wonder how common that was for the man to marry a pregnant woman but was not the father of the child, either through the fact she had slept with more than one man at around the time of conception etc? I am hoping that was the exception rather than the rule.
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There was also a knobstick wedding, which is where the parish overseers and officials forced the pregnant single woman to marry the man known or believed to be the father. I think shotgun weddings was where the father of the pregnant woman made the man who was the father or was believed to have done the deed to marry the mother.
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There was an old Manx Law, that stated that a woman pregnant because of rape or violation, would be offered a ring, a sword and a rope.
It was then her choice as to punishment - marriage, beheading or hanging.
The Law dated from 1577.
(source: A Second Manx Scrapbook by WW Gill, 1932)
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Having looked at dates of marriage of ancestors and siblings in my own tree, it was very common for the bride to be pregnant anyway. They estimate about 30% of brides were pregnant in the 1700s and 1800s.
I also have a marriage on the 4th May 1913 in rural Suffolk, and their first child born the following day.
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KG. I wonder how many false accusation cases there were on Manx
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If marriage was chosen could it later be annulled or ended in divorce .
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KG. I wonder how many false accusation cases there were on Manx
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If marriage was chosen could it later be annulled or ended in divorce .
Firstly, the "ring, rope, sword" punishment was the result of a court case.
Secondly, just as in England, divorce was never an option for the vast majority of people.
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My wife's parents were married 23 hours before she was born, as the first child, in 1953.
Regards
Chas
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Also you wonder how many times a couple married due to a pregnancy but the bride then had a miscarriage or stillbirth, and the seemingly first child was born over a year after the marriage, it was only the first surviving child, or even a woman thought she was pregnant but it was a false alarm, as Jack Duckworth in Coronation Street said about his 1957 marriage. "flaming false alarm" he said.
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There was an old Manx Law, that stated that a woman pregnant because of rape or violation, would be offered a ring, a sword and a rope.
It was then her choice as to punishment - marriage, beheading or hanging.
The Law dated from 1577.
(source: A Second Manx Scrapbook by WW Gill, 1932)
It take it that the punishment was applied to the man, not to the unfortunate woman?
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There was an old Manx Law, that stated that a woman pregnant because of rape or violation, would be offered a ring, a sword and a rope.
It was then her choice as to punishment - marriage, beheading or hanging.
The Law dated from 1577.
(source: A Second Manx Scrapbook by WW Gill, 1932)
It take it that the punishment was applied to the man, not to the unfortunate woman?
It’s hard to see that wasn’t a punishment for the woman too.
What if you did not want to see them killed, but also didn’t want to marry them!?
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Good point, mckha489.
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As said, DNA may one day determine what percentage of the men who married pregnant women before the 1900s was the father of the baby or if it was actually another man. I say it is about 2 to 3%, same as NPE rates of children conceived within marriage where the father was actually another man.
But if yours was to fall into the small 2 to 3% minority, then the man who raised the child was the real father. And sharing the same surname, as they inherited their surname as well as raised by them.
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My maternal grandparents were born in 1883 and 1885 respectively.
Both lied on their marriage in November 1902, with grandfather saying he as 19 instead of 17 and grandmother saying she was 20 instead of 19. My first questioning on that was why they had lied?? They were married in her church, family were there as her eldest sister was married immediately before her. So everyone knew their real age! They were also married after Banns.
She was a real Victorian lady, very insistent on correct behaviour ........ but obviously there had been some incorrect behaviour because when i looked again at the date and then compared it with my mother's birth certificate ....... grandmother was 2 months pregnant. e never celebrated any wedding anniversary for them, not even their 50th which was in 1952, about 2 years before she died.
I was informed when researching OH's family that many farming families did not really mind if the sons married women who were pregnant or had children while single because it showed that the woman was fecund, and thus there would be children to look after the elders when the time came.
OH's gt gt grandfather William and his wife Jane had 20 children who all survived, although both parents died about 3 weeks apart when the youngest child was about 8 years old. They were farmers and every child was shown on censuses as being a worker after reaching a certain age (eg dairymaid, farm labourer), without also being identified as a child of the family. The older children looked after the younger, with the 7th born (4th son) being responsible for the youngest after the parents died. The parents were married on 14 Dec 1831, and their son was born on 26 May 1832.
The last child, no 20, was born on 19 May 1860. There was a maximum of 2 years between the births.
I found it a little interesting that fewer than half the children married!
A descendant of the wife's family who helped me sort out that family said she was quite surprised to see Jane was "so early" in her pregnancy, because all the other brides in that family had the midwife "waiting at the door of the church"
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Ooooh, that even beats me with the midwife coming to my Wedding
reception !
Unnecessary I might add for another ten months .
She just called in to see one of her babies( she had delivered me.) get married.
Viktoria.
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I have a couple who married when the bride was 2 months pregnant but they had their first set of banns read a month before they married. So the bride may not have known she was pregnant when they were arranging the wedding and arranging to have the banns read.
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Years ago, when I first started this I was surprised but extremely delighted to find that my very nice but generally snooty great aunt must have been several months pregnant with my uncle, her first child.
Zaph
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Years ago, when I first started this I was surprised but extremely delighted to find that my very nice but generally snooty great aunt must have been several months pregnant with my uncle, her first child.
Zaph
As the saying goes, often children of couples were born in wedlock except the first. 2 out of 3 of my London female ancestors were in the family way when they walked down the aisle.
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Years ago, when I first started this I was surprised but extremely delighted to find that my very nice but generally snooty great aunt must have been several months pregnant with my uncle, her first child.
Zaph
Same here when I realised my grandmother was pregnant with my mother when she married.
I was equally surprised and delighted that this very nice but proper lady had actually lied about her age at her marriage, as had her equally upright husband.
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As the saying goes, often children of couples were born in wedlock except the first. 2 out of 3 of my London female ancestors were in the family way when they walked down the aisle.
I think we've all found that, and are far more accepting of it, than my mother or previous generations were.
My grandparents never celebrated their 50th anniversary, or any other anniversaries so far as I know, and I have wondered if that was because they were afraid that people would count the months. Although my parents never made any great deal about any of their anniversaries, even their 25th, no parties.
There was always a family story that my brother had horrified my mother when he asked if he was born before or after their marriage ........... parents were married on 28th August and brother was born on 9th August the following year! He never lived that down!!!
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Just had a look at my lines going back a few generations and it looks like about half of the brides were pregnant when they went to the altar.
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Many years ago , in the 1970s, I recall a neighbour telling my mother that her just-married daughter was expecting a baby.
She went on to say that "the doctors have told Janette that her baby is going to be a special six-month baby, not a nine-month one." ;D
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Many years ago , in the 1970s, I recall a neighbour telling my mother that her just-married daughter was expecting a baby.
She went on to say that "the doctors have told Janette that her baby is going to be a special six-month baby, not a nine-month one." ;D
love it! :D
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I often wonder how many women who were pregnant when they married, claimed that their baby was premature. I know one of my Aunts did.
Carol
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I often wonder how many women who were pregnant when they married, claimed that their baby was premature. I know one of my Aunts did.
Carol
I bet most of them did!!
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I often wonder how many women who were pregnant when they married, claimed that their baby was premature. I know one of my Aunts did.
Carol
That was a good idea but would only work if they wed in the first couple of months or so of the pregnancy. If they wed when the bride was in a more advanced stage of pregnancy then they could not hide it. I guess the parents may have fudged the date to say they married a year before they actually did. But as bridal pregnancy was very, very common then makes you wonder why some seemed ashamed to admit they married when they were expecting their first child.
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I would image that this was quite a common occurrence during the war years.
Carol
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I would image that this was quite a common occurrence during the war years.
Carol
It was quite to very common for hundreds of years! Especially in some areas.
Many brides were pregnant, sometimes far advanced, when they got married in faming communities, for example. It seems that even children born to a previous liaison were welcomed by many parents of sons in farming families. Why? Because it showed that the bride was fecund, and there would be children to look after the grandparents later in life.
Many of OH's ancestors from farming and milling families married brides who were at least 2 months pregnant, and often 5 or more months.
There was also the practice of "bundling" in which a courting or engaged couple were allowed to get together under covers in a box bed or corner of the living area. They weren't supposed to go "so far", but ..........
Female servants often found themselves pregnant by the master or son of a family, from all classes. Not very many married the man. If there wasn't much money, the girl would just be cast off. If the man was more wealthy, the lords of the manor, etc, then she may be sent away with money OR a marriage arranged with someone indebted to the "lord".
I honestly don't believe that the war made things any more common, especially theWW1 and WW2. Except of course for those poor souls were raped by occupying armies.
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Also the more marriages I find in my tree, again, around 40% of the of the brides were pregnant when they wed, maybe a month to almost 9 months pregnant, going by the date of birth of the child. Just reiterates how huuuuuugely common bridal pregnancy was.
I found a new marriage in my tree in Suffolk in October 1809 and the bride was about 4 months pregnant at the time. Her first husband had died in March 1807.
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This is really cutting it fine .....(from a distant branch of my family)
Married 22nd May 1869, baby born (and baptised) 23rd May 1869
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My great grandfather's brother wed on the 4th May 1913 and their eldest was born on the 5th May 1913.