Jewish Birth and Marriage Registrations in 19th-century Cracow and What They Reveal about the Dynamics of Ritual Marriage

Abstract

The issue of the incomplete civil registration of Jewish marriages in areas of Poland occupied by Austria between 1772 and 1918 (the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria and the Grand Duchy of Cracow) demands closer analysis and clarification. Marriage records are very important in genealogy and historical demography; thus, irregularities in their registration rate can have a serious impact on the accuracy of data. Also, the legal status of a child (legitimate or illegitimate) can be an important factor that should not be neglected and need to be well understood. We collected data on the births and marriages of Jews from the city of Cracow and employed the procedure of family reconstitution to analyze families with parents who were officially married (legitimate), who had never married (illegitimate) and where marriage occurred years after the children were born (legitimized by subsequent marriage). This allowed the authors to study the dynamics of both the phenomenon of “ritual marriage” as such (when it appears, reaches its peak and vanishes) and of the families (how many and how often children are being born and when such marriage can ultimately become legitimized).

Keywords

• Jewish family
• Jewish marriage
• ritual marriage
• family reconstitution
• illegitimacy