Orphanhood and Guardianship in Transylvania at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Case Study: Tutelage Files from Alba de Jos County
Orphanhood and Guardianship in Transylvania at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Case Study: Tutelage Files from Alba de Jos County

Summary/Abstract: The present study looks at the tutelage system in modern Transylvania. The case studies assembled here have allowed us to reconstruct the tutelage process comprehensively, from the death of the person who leaves under-age heirs behind and up to the stage where heirs come of age (at twenty-four) and consequently leave the system. Tutelage files are important sources for social historians: they reveal aspects of family life, the status of women and children, the state’s involvement in the protection of minors, as well as the management of material assets, succession, and bequests. The cases analyzed here have been extracted from the archives of the Orphanage Departament (Ro Sedria orfanală) of the Alba de Jos county, covering the period from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. Most of these documents were issued in compliance with Law XX/1877 that provided in detail for tutelage and trusteeship in Hungary. The case studies pertain to families with small and moderate incomes from Transylvania’s rural areas and reflect various family situations: the death of the father or of both parents, or the death of the mother and inheritance by the minor orphan of assets left down her lineage. The main issues we addressed were the procedure for setting up tutelage and the guidelines for its implementation. What were the control mechanisms applied to the tutelage system? Did the child’s well-being or the preservation of assets have primacy in the process? In addition, our case studies have allowed insights into related social aspects such as gender relations, perceptions of women in their role as natural guardians of fatherless children, degrees of social stratification once tutelage was set up and, more broadly, kinship in a traditional society.

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