Genealogy Chat

Lindsay In my family it was about 1745 but I have read that it was quite common amongst small farmers - those who had several sons gave the farm to the first son to give him a grandson! This brings me to the peculiar practise of 'Bundling'. This took place apparently right into the early twentieth century.A young woman would become engaged and her parents would then allow the engaged couple to share a bed - but the girl would be tightly wrapped in blankets,or in some cases, even sewn into her clothes! Now, can anyone tell me what was going on in the minds of the parents, please? Had they never heard of scissors! (You can bet their daughter had). Also, more fascinating facts! Farmers didnt kick up much of a fuss if their unmarried daughter became pregnant and in fact would not allow a pregnant daughter to marry anyone 'unsuitable' i.e. undeserving of living on his Farm and just possibly inheriting it! They preferred to wait for a more suitable match, usually someone else with a farm too. There would be plenty of suitors for his daughter,and the small matter of a few illegitimate children could be easily overcome with a generous dowry, or indeed, promise of inheritance. I'm not talking massive landowners here, but someone who had, say, 20 acres. Interesting, isnt it! Marjorie

Sorry, forgot to reply to Maggie: A husband or wife being in an asylum was one of the few reasons accepted FOR divorce, so the reason was probably the expense and also the sheer scandal of having an insane wife. Most Victorians went to any lengths to disguise an insane relative, that was far worse than 'living over the brush' and having illegitimate children. Marjorie

What we consider shocking and what our ancestors did are different things. Before adequate access to information about contraception - and access to adequate contraception - people regarded having children as natural. In fact there was a lot of opposition to contraception information and I think people were prosecuted for providing it - even though it was to married women! Now we think of family planning as a civilised procedure. Illegitimacy was also more shocking in the town than in the country as far as I can gather. Keeping up appearances seems to be more important in the suburbs! nell

Lindsay, I think Peter answered your question. If you grew old without having children there was no-one to look after you when you became frail.

Personally i dont know where our ancestors found the time and energy to make the large families! The long working hours, not to mention the hard labour - you would have thought they would have been too tired for such things at bedtime - other than sleeping. lol Mind you, i suppose it was different during the winter months - most folks worked thru the daylight hours and went to bed when it got dark - and in the winter the hours of darkness were very long. lol