I wanted to comment on something in the last paragraph on Roy Johnson's webpage of photos of Unterluebbe #19. (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~schnake/house19.htm) He mentioned that Marieke Schnake and Ernst Kriete's first child was born about a month after the wedding. As Roy and I were discussing off-list, this sort of thing seems to have been fairly common. I came across a quotation from a dissertation on Lutheran marriage customs in the 16th century by T. F. Miller at the University of Virginia (_Mirror for Marriage: Lutheran views of marriage and the family, 1520-1600_; 1981 degree date). He claimed that due to the late of age of marriages, Martin Luther declared that an open engagement was as good as a marriage for purposes of a couple sleeping together. (After all, these people were beginning their "adult" lives at 14 or so, and often not being permitted to marry until they were in their late twenties--a long time for hot-blooded youngsters to wait.) I've also read that in England at the time of the beginning of civil registration around 1837, couples (especially the poor) commonly began living together as soon as the engagement was announced and did not set a wedding date until the bride-to-be became pregnant. Apparently there was a marriage tax to be paid and they wanted to put it off as long as possible. (This gave rise to a sort of misconception among British researchers that something like 60% of first-born children were conceived out of wedlock. Technically, yes, but in accord with the custom of the time.) Sometimes they even "neglected" to report births to the authorities in order to avoid another tax. I have a somewhat related question that is puzzling me. In Heinz Riechmann's Ortssippenbuchs _Die Familien der Kirchengemeinde Hartum_ (in Kreis Minden), the entry for the first-born child of one of my ancestors's sisters has the notation "Das Kind wurde während der Hochzeitsfeier der Eltern geboren. Sie hatten sich, nach hiesiger Sitte, seit der Proclamation als Eheleute betrachtet.". As I translate it, the notation says the child was born during the "wedding celebration". However, the marriage is shown as having taken place 27.9.1801 and the birthdate of the child is given as 24.11.1801, about two months after the wedding. Can anyone familiar with 18th--19th century German marriage customs tell me if the "Hochzeitsfeier" possibly refers to an extended period of observance following the wedding, rather than the wedding itself? Or might one of the dates be transcribed incorrectly? Thanks for any help. Dan Steffen _______________________________________________ Westfalen-L mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://list.genealogy.net/mailman/listinfo/westfalen-l
