Házasság és öröklési gyakorlat Szőlősardón, 1770–1890
Marriage and Inheritance Patterns in Szőlősardó, 1770–1890

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses the marriage and inheritance patterns of Szőlősardó (Torna county), a protestant Hungarian village in the hilly countryside region of northeastern Hungary on the basis of parish registers (births from 1726, marriages from 1764, mortality form 1772), tax registers (1715, 1720, 1828), urbariums (i.e. tax-conscriptions of the landlords regarding their taxpayer peasantry, 1593, 1711, 1771), population censuses (1850, 1857, 1869), land register of partition and consolidation (1869–1871) and other nominal sources. The study analyses the spatial aspects of contemporary social processes by the identifi cation of economic space, and the domiciles of families and clans. Between 1771–1890 the marriage practices of Szőlősardó fundamentally corresponds with the early and general marriage pattern that is characteristic of our region. In the protestant villein population, women got married at the average age of 21, and by the age 25 the majority of women was married at least once. From the 1780s on, the age for first marriage for men was typically 23 years, but increased to 25 promptly after the enfranchisement of serfs. Before the 1880s the there is a discernible secondary peak in the age distribution of first marriages at the age of 32–33, due to the delayed marriages of the discharged soldiers. Marriage alliances were established with protestant villein villages within 15 kilometres. The choice of domicile after marriage the patrilocal model is prevalent. Sons of farmers becoming sons-in-law stayed in their village with a few exceptions. the number of sons-in-law marrying into and settling in farming families was insignificant. Endogamy in the nineteenth century was not evenly proportioned, but a gradual intensifi cation is apparent (from 25–30% to over 90%). The same trend can be observed for both sexes and all the four clans examined here. The similarity of lifestyles was a more important factor in the choice of marriage partners than the affi lition to a certain social estate. The number of mixed-faith marriages was low. The examination of the parish registers and censuses conducted for diff erent ends (local aspect), as well as genealogies, allowed the reconstruction of the domiciles of the ancestry of clans localised to 1869 down to the seventeenth century, from which time the continuity of settlements is certifi able. This way, the process of the spread of clans became traceable too. The newcomers and the cotter-turned landowners mainly settled in the upper end of the village (Felvég). Before the 1860s, the kinship exogamy was breached only once, however, from 1865, András Parti Porcs married all his fi ve sons to members of the Porcs clan. The two most important clans, the Rákis and the Porcses lived at the opposite ends of the village and never settled into the midst of one another. The analysis of the inheritance of land is made diffi cult by the occasional comprehensive or partial re-division of urbarial land (land which be

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