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Archiver > CHESHIRE > 2003-01 > 1041788971


From: (Amy Moseley Rupp)
Subject: Re: [CHS] X ON CERTIFICATES
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 11:49:34 -0600 (CST)
In-Reply-To: <003001c2b4d3$b54fcc00$2467e150@j3k4c7> from Donald Tomkinson at"Jan 5, 2003 03:59:09 pm"


What I find interesting is a 1848 cert in which the parties were oh,
18 at best and the wife eight months pregnant -- the husband a collier,
the wife the daughter of an agricultural labourer -- on that cert the
husband signed with an x, whereas the wife signed her name!!!! This
was in a registry office too -- I do not know why they travelled a bit
instead of marrying in their local church unless there was a prohibition
against marrying hugely pregnant brides, or the local vicar did not
approve of such a young marriage. There is no indication of parental
consent for either party, who gave their ages as 19 and 18 but based
on their baptismal dates and census data were probably more like 18
and 17.

The only difference that comes to mind is that the wife was a not-too-
distant cousin of the literary JEWSBURY sisters and perhaps her farming
family had educated their daughters well.

While this is indeed only a theory, it is musings like these that
bring names and dates to life and help me think about the *people*
these folks must have been.

--Amy

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