Bridal pregnancies?

[brigidmac]

There are many cases of people marrying soon after being widowed wether with or without children

It was an advantage for a man to get married
Not just for the cooking + the legitimate sex !

Some of the men who married a pregnant woman may not have known that they would be taking on another man's child

Only DNA can show whether the biological ancestor was the husband or another man .

I have a few cases where widowers with married their housekeepers .
In one case a child born to the couple before marriage was then legitimised but also the housekeeper s previous daughter came to live in household as " neice"and after the husband's death was acknowledged  as daughter of the widow on the next census

[coombs]

Some of the men who married a pregnant woman may not have known that they would be taking on another man's child

Only DNA can show whether the biological ancestor was the husband or another man .

Out of 100% I wonder how common that was for the man to marry a pregnant woman but was not the father of the child, either through the fact she had slept with more than one man at around the time of conception etc? I am hoping that was the exception rather than the rule.

[coombs]

There was also a knobstick wedding, which is where the parish overseers and officials forced the pregnant single woman to marry the man known or believed to be the father. I think shotgun weddings was where the father of the pregnant woman made the man who was the father or was believed to have done the deed to marry the mother.

[KGarrad]

There was an old Manx Law, that stated that a woman pregnant because of rape or violation, would be offered a ring, a sword and a rope.
It was then her choice as to punishment - marriage, beheading or hanging.

The Law dated from 1577.
(source: A Second Manx Scrapbook by WW Gill, 1932)

[coombs]

Having looked at dates of marriage of ancestors and siblings in my own tree, it was very common for the bride to be pregnant anyway. They estimate about 30% of brides were pregnant in the 1700s and 1800s.

I also have a marriage on the 4th May 1913 in rural Suffolk, and their first child born the following day.

[brigidmac]

KG. I wonder how many false accusation cases there were on Manx
+
If marriage was chosen could it later be annulled or ended in divorce .

[KGarrad]

KG. I wonder how many false accusation cases there were on Manx
+
If marriage was chosen could it later be annulled or ended in divorce .

Firstly, the "ring, rope, sword" punishment was the result of a court case.
Secondly, just as in England, divorce was never an option for the vast majority of people.

[Kiltpin]

My wife's parents were married 23 hours before she was born, as the first child, in 1953.   

Regards 

Chas

[coombs]

Also you wonder how many times a couple married due to a pregnancy but the bride then had a miscarriage or stillbirth, and the seemingly first child was born over a year after the marriage, it was only the first surviving child, or even a woman thought she was pregnant but it was a false alarm, as Jack Duckworth in Coronation Street said about his 1957 marriage. "flaming false alarm" he said.