Marriage with Kinship - Patterns in a Regional Comparison

Until 1917, blood relations and relations through marriage (in-laws) up to the fourth degree were not allowed to marry according to canonic law. The laying down of this law goes back to the fourth Lateran council of 1215. This impediment to marriage could however be over-turned with the proper grounds by a so-called dispensation. The process of appealing was in-creasingly complicated and costly the closer the degree of relationship was. For 1st and 2nd degree dispensations, the Holy See (seat of the Pope) was responsible for granting dispensa-tions. In these cases, the arguments had to be that much better grounded. For this reason, the papal dispensations left behind a wealth of evidence in the archives: correspondence between the offices of the authorities involved (parish priests, deans, the Episcopal Consistorium), peti-tions, questionings of the bride, groom and witnesses, debates on unclear cases and more. Dispensation documents of this kind form the basis of the research project, which is dedicated to three areas: regional patterns, administrative processes and personal motivations. Relevant studies in various European countries and regions have established a considerable increase in marriages between the forbidden degrees in the time period from the second half of the 18th century to the end of the 19th century. Much evidence seems however to indicate that there were regional differences concerning the frequency of kinship marriages (whether between blood relatives or in-laws) as well as the kinds of partnership patterns. There could be a predominance of marriages between cousins of the first or second degree, or between brothers and sisters-in-law, for example. Current research and individual case results show that this was also related to property ownership, rights of inheritance and customs or practices of inheritance. This was also all part of a further interplay of other factors such as various social, economic and socio-political structures. By means of a comparative study in a very varied and transitional alpine area, in terms of culture and property structure, we can try to find regional patterns and what is behind them. The investigation is concentrated on the 19th century and its starting point is the Brixen diocese, which includes large parts of Northern Tyrol, Eastern Tyrol, Southern Tyrol (excluding the lowlands) and Vorarlberg and extends to the neighbouring dioceses of Chur, Salzburg und Trient/Trento. In the second part, the main focus is on the differences in the concrete ways in which appeals for dispensations were dealt with. A third central aspect is the investigation of the documentation of the appeals in order to find the motivations for marriages between blood and in-law relations, the framework patterns of the arguments put forward in the appeals and the concepts of kinship. The project follows gender historical and historical-anthropological approaches.