Shotgun Weddings - Pregnant before marriage in the 1850's

nicholsonollie · 19-07-2014 10:15am #1

I am researching my family tree and found that one of my ancestors, Michael Nicholson (b Oct. 1820) married a Mary McManus in June 1850 in Athlone, Co. Roscommon. Six weeks later they had a son named James Nicholson.

My question is this, back in the 1850s how taboo was it to be found pregnant before marriage, but more importantly what happened after the child would have been born? Was it common for the couple to leave the area in shame, did they continue to live in the same place, did the church 'steal' the children away, or was it common for these people to emigrate?

Did people change their name as a result of the shame that it would have brought to their family?

Also would members of the family totally shun the couple to the point that parents/family of the couple would not put their names on marriage and birth records?

KildareFan · 19-07-2014 10:45am

Premarital pregnancy seems to have been very common. So far my family seems to have managed to achieve miraculously short pregnancies with babies appearing a couple of months after the marriage of many of my ancestors. There doesn't seem to have been any long term consequences as long as the couple married. Sometimes the birth was announced as premature, and then a lot of people wouldn't have remembered the exact date of marriage. The couples stayed around where they were married and went on to have lots of other children.

It's generally where children were born out of wedlock that problems arose, particularly if the mother was destitute and unable to support the child.

Jellybaby1 · 19-07-2014 2:45pm

For such a conservative and strait laced society, its amazing just how many hasty marriages there were. I often wondered why they took such a risk knowing the punishment that would befall them. Imagine the lad having to tell his parents that he had got his lady friend 'in trouble', or the girl having to tell her parents. I'd love to go back in time and ask my ancestors many questions.

Newstreet · 19-07-2014 8:03pm

I too have many premature pregnancies, sometimes only by a matter of weeks.

But I also have quite a few marriages after a child or two had already been born, and in one case, a marriage seventeen years after the first child was baptised, and with eight or nine children already produced.

Coolnabacky1873 · 19-07-2014 10:41pm

Connolly, S.J. 1979. Illegitimacy and Pre-Nuptial Pregnancy in Ireland Before 1864: The Evidence of Some Catholic Parish Registers in Irish Economic and Social History, Vol 6 pp. 9-24.

I don't have a copy of this article and can't remember where I read it (probably on JSTOR) but it might be of some interest to you.

ei9go · 20-07-2014 10:18am

Looking at pre 1837 Church records in Wales, I came across where the mothers name only is there and the child is referred to as "a natural child" or another one is where the fathers name is there also and "reputed to be" next to his name.

nicholsonollie · 29-07-2014 8:28pm

Thanks everyone for your responses. I have found alot of other relations that have their first child almost exactly 8-9 months after the marriage, which is a little suspicious alright.

Thanks Coolnabacky for the reference to JSTOR, although I didnt find the paper you referenced, I am after finding a whole load of other useful papers. (I had forgotten I had access to it!!)

Jellybaby1 · 29-07-2014 10:18pm

Cool, you might have seen the Irish Economic and Social History in a library. Is this it in the NLI catalogue? :

Irish economic and social history: journal of the Economic & Social History Society of Ireland, by Mike Milotte (25 volumes)

http://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000115129

Coolnabacky1873 · 29-07-2014 11:18pm

That's the journal alright. It would have been in the Shtates, either at New York Public Library or on one of the academic journal databases.

Murray007 · 29-07-2014 11:44pm

Pre 1960s birth control it was very common and dealt with by shot gun marriages literally and figuratively, grandmother (or aunt) pretending the child was theirs or the mother being institutionalised.

It was only in the mid 1980s, in rural Ireland as is my experience, that teenage girls were confident enough to go it alone or where the family supported. I accept this is a generalisation, the girls were seen generally as "loose" and the father were never challenged by the community when this happened. At the same time in the 80s we had the notorious cases such as the Kerry babies case at the Lovett case in Granard where girls/women were shamed into tragic consequences.

What strikes me in mY community that we knew of lots of short pregnancies in the 80s but the first girl who went along with the pregnancy without the father and marriage was a shocker. In 1984!!!!

Jellybaby1 · 30-07-2014 12:21am

Murray007 wrote: »

Pre 1960s birth control it was very common and dealt with by shot gun marriages literally and figuratively, grandmother (or aunt) pretending the child was theirs or the mother being institutionalised.

It was only in the mid 1980s, in rural Ireland as is my experience, that teenage girls were confident enough to go it alone or where the family supported. I accept this is a generalisation, the girls were seen generally as "loose" and the father were never challenged by the community when this happened. At the same time in the 80s we had the notorious cases such as the Kerry babies case at the Lovett case in Granard where girls/women were shamed into tragic consequences.

What strikes me in mY community that we knew of lots of short pregnancies in the 80s but the first girl who went along with the pregnancy without the father and marriage was a shocker. In 1984!!!!

The silence in the local area is still deafening to this day. Ireland's shame!

Shotgun Weddings - Pregnant before marriage in the 1850's

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