Matrilocal Marriages in the Polish Villages in the 15th Century. The Case of the Union of Marcin Ruszel with Elżbieta from Dobrska Wola (Lublin Land)

Abstract

Patrilocal marriages were definitely predominant in the medieval Polish villages. Equipped with money and movables, a woman would leave her family home and move in with her husband. This was determined not only by the traditional norms governing peasant communities, but also by the dominant patriarchal family model. Matrilocalism pertained to a situation where there was no male heir in the bride's family. In that case, the spouse could count on taking over the farm from the father-in-law. This rare family model could also exist in the case of a remarriage of a widow who was a disposer of a farm left over from a previous marriage. The court records published below deal with a case of such a rare union recorded in historical sources and the complications that followed. The introductory section discusses several factors that facilitate the interpretation of the edited texts. Information about the village of Dobrska Wola, the people involved in the court proceedings was collected, and the method of publication was presented. A separate section was devoted to the issue of matrilocal marriages in the Polish countryside in the existing, yet scarce, historical literature records.