Early modern times were characterized by a great plurality of laws and a variety of legal models for inheritance and marital property transactions. The agreements laid down in marriage contracts orientated themselves towards the rules and regulation that governed matters of matrimonial property and inheritance transactions at the time. Marriage ...
(Show more)Early modern times were characterized by a great plurality of laws and a variety of legal models for inheritance and marital property transactions. The agreements laid down in marriage contracts orientated themselves towards the rules and regulation that governed matters of matrimonial property and inheritance transactions at the time. Marriage contracts were aimed at documenting property and assets and at mediating between legal norms on the one hand and, on the other, the interests and preferences of the persons involved.
Our paper focuses on eighteenth-century marriage contracts of the former Habsburg Empire. It is based on two studies: Gertrude Langer-Ostrawsky focuses on marriage contracts in the Herrschaft Fridau-Weissenburg in the Archduchy of Austria South of the River Enns (Erzherzogtum Österreich unter der Enns), which is present-day Lower Austria; Margareth Lanzinger has evaluated marriage contracts in the courts of Welsberg and Innichen in the County of Tyrol.
In both areas under investigation prevailed impartible inheritance, in Welsberg and Innichen by custom, in Lower Austria even by law. Marital property law regimes yet differed widely. The areas represent two basic European models for the use of marital property: the community of marital property (Fridau-Weissenburg) and the separation of it (Innichen and Welsberg). Marriage-based resource transfers and their administration - with regard to marriage gifts (Heiratsgaben) - as well as the surviving spouse’s situation varied according to the respective legal situations. Within the system of joint property, the conjugal couple’s position and the position of the widow was generally stronger while a separatist regime gave priority to the children or relatives. These two regimes resulted in extremely different remarriage rates of women. The joint marital property model lead to chains of remarriages of the widowed parent or stepparent, while the separation of property made the remarriage, especially of widows, difficult.
Marriage property arrangements are not irrevocably stipulated in marriage contracts, but they could be modified according to changing life situations – e.g. within last wills, property transfers contracts or widows’ contracts.
The different structures that were built by both the law and private agreements produced different dependencies and also various degrees of the power of disposal; they also produced different scopes of action as well as varying amounts of economic potential for women and men.
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