This morning I awoke to the sound of chirping and caroling.\u00a0 The local birds were keen to be heard, long after the dawn chorus, a pleasant, relaxing start to the day.\u00a0 However, it didn\u2019t give me the energy to deal with my bed mate.\u00a0 I awoke practically nose to nose with the cat.\u00a0 She\u2019d cried briefly during the night followed by her appearance very close to the book I was reading.\u00a0 I believe in picking my battles and I wasn\u2019t ready to exert myself to battle with the cat and deal with her subsequent attitude. \u00a0I ignored my better judgment and allowed her to remain.\u00a0 That had happened once before and before too long she\u2019d retreated to her normal position further down the bed.\u00a0 I need to develop my ability to be covertly objectionable so that she moves on her own accord.\u00a0 She held her ground last night and was still there when I left the house about 1pm.<\/p>\n
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Recently Big Sister and I were talking about community norms.\u00a0 I told her of an odd one I\u2019d read about in a genealogical dictionary.\u00a0 It was about a husband\u2019s ability to dispose of his wife by placing a halter over her head, parading her in a market and selling her to the highest bidder. \u00a0It was such an odd piece of information that I returned to the book to see what I\u2019d forgotten reading.\u00a0 It was reported that the practice was considered a simple means of ceasing a marriage for poor people and that the woman was usually bought by her lover.\u00a0 I was left wondering how often it occurred against the woman\u2019s will, what <\/p>\n Odd laws, known as the Sumptuary Laws restricted clothing people could wear and were effective for between and one and two hundred years. \u00a0They were designed to restrict certain kinds of clothing to the nobility.\u00a0\u00a0 The Oxford Dictionary of Local and Family History mentions one method whereby laws were enforced.\u00a0 It writes of a period during the reign of Queen Elizabeth First,<\/p>\n In 1566 four \u201cfour sad and discreet persons\u201d were stationed at the gates of the City of London to watch for people who might be wearing prohibited styles of hose.<\/em><\/p>\n It didn’t mention what happened if people were found wearing prohibited styles of stockings.\u00a0 They would have fun trying to enforce similar dress codes today. \u00a0However, there are always constant expectations about clothing for people in certain circumstances. \u00a0There are numerous articles about appropriate work wear etc. \u00a0When I was at boarding school our dress for the end of year balls for senior students was always critically evaluated; modesty being the key concern, while the length of our uniform was always under scrutiny during the revolutionary mini skirt period. \u00a0Hat and gloves were mandatory when leaving the school premises.\u00a0 Now sounds like the Dark Ages. \u00a0\u00a0A little more recently, yet still long ago, when employed as a nurse educator my boss was perturbed that my quality brown leather handbag was not the regulation navy model.\u00a0\u00a0 Nothing was said about my teaching ability for which I was employed for 40 hours a week, but criticism was made of something I slung over my shoulder at the beginning and end of the day.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have done a little more research into the family of one of my English great grandfathers.\u00a0 He appears in the 1841 census with a variety of family members, including father, woman I\u2019ve now identified as stepmother (wife number 3), half siblings and two unknown children with the same family name.\u00a0 Not sure I will identify the 2 unknown kids unless I trawl though the families of his father\u2019s numerous siblings. \u00a0My great grandfather appears in the following census with his stepmother as the only family member.\u00a0 He was reported as a steward and maltser, ie someone who processes grain to become available for the production of alcoholic drinks.\u00a0 A few years later he is in Melbourne selling land and doing land surveys, some of which can be seen online.\u00a0 He was identified as a surveyor during his lifetime in Melbourne.\u00a0 \u00a0His father had died a few years before the 1851 census.\u00a0 The two half siblings appear living together in another part of England along with one of the unknowns who was 17 at the time.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t been able to find the other one.\u00a0 The half siblings are recorded as \u201cdealers in Berlin wool\u201d, a kind of embroidery although I\u2019m not clear if they were selling the thread or embroidering articles for sale.\u00a0 The eldest male half sibling, living separately in 1841, took up his father\u2019s occupation of land steward.\u00a0 He appears living in a county far away complete with large family, and in one census with retinue of staff which wouldn\u2019t have shamed Downtown Abbey.\u00a0 In the census prior to his death he is 75 years old and living in a smaller house with 3 unmarried children and 1 servant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This morning I awoke to the sound of chirping and caroling.\u00a0 The local birds were keen to be heard, long after the dawn chorus, a pleasant, relaxing start to the day.\u00a0 However, it didn\u2019t give me the energy to deal with my bed mate.\u00a0 I awoke practically nose to nose with the cat.\u00a0 She\u2019d cried […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[87,98,86,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animals-2","category-australia","category-family-history","category-melbourne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1622"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1627,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622\/revisions\/1627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kerry.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhappened if she wanted out of the relationship but had no lover and what happened to the children of the marriage and any produced during the new union.\u00a0 The recorders in parish registers had the habit of stating that a child was born illegitimate, \u201cin fornication\u201d or \u201cbase born\u201d.\u00a0 Fathers of illegitimate children were pursued by parish officials to ensure that they supported the children instead of them becoming a claim on the parish.\u00a0 I was so fascinated by a subject that I\u2019d never head of previously that I consulted the internet. \u00a0Wiki has an extensive discussion of it.\u00a0 http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wife_selling_(English_custom)<\/a> It also mentions that prior to the 1753 Marriage Act, marriage was unregistered, not requiring a formal ceremony and implied by the consent of both parties; the age of consent being 14 and 16.\u00a0 Seems we are lucky in having access to some very early marriage etc records which were not mandatory.\u00a0 That was also mentioned in the genealogical dictionary which contains snippets of all kinds of odd information. \u00a0A Scrabble player would benefit from reading it as it contains vast quantities of odd words still in use in specialized corners of English usage.<\/p>\n