Bridal pregnancies?

[Forfarian]

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?

[mckha489]

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!?

[Forfarian]

Good point, mckha489.

[coombs]

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.

[sylvia (canada)]

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"

[Viktoria]

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.

[coombs]

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.

[Zaphod99]

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

[coombs]

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.