GERMANY - Ten wives

[Rena]

I came across this snippet which may interest a few people:-

<<Larry Jensen's Genealogical Handbook of German Research notes that "On February 14, 1650, The Parliament of Nuernberg decreed that because so many men were killed during the Thirty Years War, . . . .The decree stated that every man was allowed to marry up to ten women. The men were admonished to behave honorably, provide for their wives properly, and prevent any animosity among them." vol. 1, page 155. >>

I'm now pausing for a very long think - did the vicar actually spell the bride's name incorrectly or was it another bride? 

Rena

[Rossi14]

Hi Rena,
I've never heard about that before, and honestly said, I can't really imagine they admitted that in Germany (or any other European country) with such a strong Christian background.
N.B.: some regions of Germany were completely depopulated after the war, in others more than 2/3 of the population died during the 30 years war. The population in the area of todays Germany is estimated at being about 5-10 Million people after the war. Most of the people were not killed in action, but died of starvation and starvation related diseases. Thus I doubt that the proportion of women surviving the war was much bigger than those of men.
Also, I saw quite a number of church records from the period after the 30 years war, and I never found a single case where a man was (legally) married to more than one woman simultaneously.

Rossi

[Berlin-Bob]

Just to "put this one to bed", so to speak.

The same subject was raised on 'our' german forum ^(*) and we finally discoverd that this is just an "urban myth".

I won't go into it here, as it was all in german, but .....

      It's a fake !!!



^(*)Topic: Bigamie-Erlaubnis in Deutschland 1650-1660 ??