Another social history question

[barbaramc]

I have had cause to go through every “Cotter” family in County Cork in the censuses and in so doing I have noticed a huge number of marriages where the ages of the husband and wife were vastly different, like a 40 year old woman married to a 20 year old man and visa versa.
My understanding is that after the famine, land, instead of being divvied up between the children, went to the oldest son, who would not marry till his father died.  This would explain the much older men marrying younger women.

I assume the older women marrying younger men were widows who remarried (often there were children with a different last name in the household) for help on the farm.

I fully understand that differences in age don’t necessarily mean that the marriage was unhappy, and I fully understand that romantic love as we know it wasn’t the main point of things,  but still, it seems desperate to me.  Were these marriages as sad as they seem.  Honestly, a 40 year old woman and a 20 year old man? She knows full well the burden of childbirth and probably doesn’t want any more kids, what about her poor husband? The 50 year old man marrying a 20 year old woman, what do they have in common?

And there’s proof that the situation was fraught—they left.  In vast never ending numbers, they left.

My question is, how does a society decide to move to primogenitary.  By the time of the famine it had become obvious in those nations practicing it that there were problems. And in the case of the widow remarrying, does the second husband inherit or is the land (or the lease on the land, I guess) held by her in trust for the eldest son of the first husband.  Whichever way it goes, what happens to the second husband or the eldest child of the first husband?

Are there any books that discuss this in depth?  Are there biographies or memoirs about these people? I just feel so sad for them; I would really like to know what they thought of their own lives.

[myluck!]

Most pre 1900 marriages were "arranged" or "made matches" to a large degree love and affection did not come into the arrangement

Women were not entitled to own land or monies once married so if widowed young sometimes her only option of a home was to remarry; even in wealthy families there are references to "the use of the kitchen" in wills to protect a widow from being left without any means of preparing food and eating by whomever inherited

Land would pass on as per law; so owned land as in a will or by inheritance usuallt the eldest son so the second husband would not come into the equation on this.

Leased land would depend on the wording of the lease.

Most men who were widowed remarried quickly to have someone look after the house and/or children.

In some poorer families the children were "sold" or "lent" to local farmers as a type of slave labour some were fortunate where the family was kind and treated them well and some much less so. "The Donegal Woman" by John Throne details his grandmother's life.

There are several papers on the subject and some book cover the topic especially covering the dowry and how much money, livestock or land changed hands for the "match"; it was seen as very important to bring new blood into the area as well (although long before a knowledge of genes and DNa there was an understanding of the dangers of close relationships)

[aghadowey]

It wasn't always the eldest son that inherited the family farm. Often the older son(s) or older children left home to find work and the youngest children were left at home to look after the elderly parents.

In regard to a second husband getting property of the first husband- my grandfather's uncle (younger son left at home) married late in life to a young girl (any previous attempts at romance had been soundly squashed by elder unmarried sisters still at home), had 3 children and died a few years later. His widow, left with 2 surviving children (a boy and a girl) and a farm, remarried a short while later. However, uncle's sisters went to court (Dublin, I think) to prevent any chance widow and her new husband would get family property. There was a settlement which provided for the children's education and the farm was let. The house and outbuildings were closed up until the uncle's son came of age.

[Sinann]

It's always a danger in assuming there were 'rules', while generally accepted that the eldest son would get the farm you will get endless examples of this not happening, and the same for the widows and widowers, my grand grandfather didn't remarry and kept all his children at home. (and so deprived my grandmother of an education but that's another story).
The difference in ages of couples is usually down to land. Land came first, it so often still does.
A good example of just how importand land is and how hard it was to get your hands on it is a statistic I heard recently on a programme about Irish farms.
I think I remember it correctly, a average field in Ireland changes hands every 500 years an average field in France changes hands every 75 years.

[Alison55]

This is an always interesting question. I have a case in my family where my great-great grandmother from Meath was one of six girls and two boys.  The family had some land, leased no doubt as they were Catholic and few Catholics were allowed to own land at the time.  The family is in both the Tithe Applotments and Griffith's Valuation.

All of the children immigrated to NYC except the youngest son who appears to have hung around waiting for the farm.  When his NYC siblings were becoming grandparents, he was just finally getting married and having children but he doesn't show up as having the farm until the 1911 census.

One of the sisters was forbidden to marry her true love because he didn't have a farm.  She ran away to NYC, the true love followed and they married there, living to a great age.

But in another line of my family, also in the T.A. and Griffith's, in County Kings (Offaly), it was the oldest son who got the farm and everyone else headed for NYC. In that case, my great-great grandfather wanted the land and was angry and depressed when forced to immigrate.  He never became a citizen. There are so many anecdotes.  I would like to see a scholarly study of this.