To think very few women would marry their deceased sister’s widower?

[Albless]

My friend was always aware that his grandfather had been married twice, and that the first wife died. His grandmother was the second wife, and his DF was the only child of that second marriage. There were some children from the first marriage.

Some family history research has revealed that his grandfather’s first and second wives were sisters. Two years after the first wife died, the widower married his sister-in-law. The law allowing this to happen was only passed in 1907, about 20 years earlier.

My friend is not particularly interested in family history. But I was really taken aback when he said marrying a dead wife’s sister is probably more common now than it used to be!

I completely disagree - I think very few women would have any interest at all in marrying their brother-in-law if their sister died.

He thinks I’m wrong. I said I’d put it to MN.

AIBU?

Ok he was, he isn’t anymore.

Were there less men in 'olden days'? Men were dying in battle but women were often dying in childbirth. Would it not have evened out?

In the post WW1 era there were a lot of spinsters because so many young men died on the Western Front.

However I am intrigued by this law. Please can you name the piece of legislation as I am not aware that there was ever a legal impediment to marring someone with whom you share no genetic connection. In the 19th century it was common for siblings sisters to marry sibling brothers.

It used to be very common. There weren't nearly as many places for women to meet men.

I have several cases in my family tree of people marrying a cousin or niece of a first wife (usually deceased 1st wife, but could be after divorce). Also one case of marrying the heavily pregnant servant 3 days after the wife died (I still suspect poison).

Also, in the Old Testament there is something about an obligation to marry your deceased brother's wife. I was under the impression that this was the basis (along with international politics) of Henry VIII's marriage to his older brother's widow Catherine of Aragon.

It used to be common in order to keep property etc in the family for the sake of the children.

However I am intrigued by this law. Please can you name the piece of legislation as I am not aware that there was ever a legal impediment to marring someone with whom you share no genetic connection. In the 19th century it was common for siblings sisters to marry sibling brothers.

I don't know about in the UK, but I know various European territories that used to ban quite a lot of marriages - godparents and godchildren was quite a common one in Catholic countries, parents-in-law and children-in-law you get quite a bit too.

Here’s the background Genevieva.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deceased_Wife%27s_Sister%27s_Marriage_Act_1907

It was a huge debate in the Victorian era - it gets a couplet in Iolanthe.

My Granny did this.
Her husband died and she married his twin brother.
They went on to have 10kids, in addition to the 4 from her first marriage.

Thanks. Also just seen the 1560 link (which is obviously post-Henry VIII)

But no, Henry VIII didn’t marry his brother’s widow. His late brother’s fiancée perhaps.

@SmileTolerantly - I get your logic.

Can we just agree that Henry was a spoilt, murdering man-child?
(Just finished reading The Mirror and the Light and am taking it personally; he killed Mark Rylance Thomas Cromwell!)

@isabellerossignol

Were there less men in 'olden days'? Men were dying in battle but women were often dying in childbirth. Would it not have evened out?

I think it would be more even than expected. I think it's more that there would have been less men willing to marry a woman who already had children, and societal pressure on an unmarried woman to do the right thing by her sister's children.

Men died in wars, and also in industirial accidents, but childbirth and TB killed women (TB killed more women than men). The average age of living for men and women grew a gap in the late 1800s and 1900s when childbirth got safer and families smaller and better control of TB

My Gr-grandfather married his maid after the death of his wife. I always thought that was pretty perverse but reading this thread it makes sense that he probably did it so the maid could look after the children she was already familiar and presumably fond of.

Henry vIII married his dead brother’s wife. Then believed god was punishing him for it but not giving him a son and thus set up the established church in response.

The other way round, my grandmother dated 2 brothers at different times and married one who was killed in the war.

I have no doubt if the other hadn't moved away and married he would have offered to marry her, as he always carried a torch for her.

You’ll get no argument from me on the evilness of Henry and the general fanciability of Mantel’s Cromwell.

Was common but don’t know anyone who would now. In fact I’m not sure it’s right?

*woman, obviously.

I'm glad you put that as I'd started to think there were a lot more odd things going on than marrying your dead spouse's sibling!

Two of the Jackson 5 married, and had children with, the same man.
He used to be married to his mother’s sister
My gran married her second husband

You’ll get no argument from me on the evilness of Henry and the general fanciability of Mantel’s Cromwell.

@SmileTolerantly - all that grey velvet and still solidity!

Doesn't this happen at the end of Tess of the D'Urbevilles? (Sorry, spoiler alert!)

The infuriating total bellend Angel gets to marry the younger "unspoilt" sister, to make him less sad about Tess.

My neighbours have done this. They are originally from Pakistan.

Until 2005 it was unlawful in the UK for a man to marry his mother in law/woman to marry father in law.

This happened in my family. Mum died, dad married her sister. This was in 1994. So my cousins became my step-brothers.

However the same thing had happened a generation before. My mum's sister was actually her cousin / step-sister.

Torn the family apart.

My grandfather married a widow who had a daughter. They had 2 children but she died. He then married his step daughter and had 8 children with her. My aunt and uncle did not know until they were adults that their mother was in fact their step sister.