Year of mourning

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In legal history, the year of mourning , also waiting time or waiting obligation, describes the period within which a widow was not allowed to remarry.

The year of mourning had a further meaning in the fact that widows received his wages for another year after the death of their civil service husband. According to § 46 SGB ​​VI, a widow's pension is granted for a maximum of 24 months, but not in the event of remarriage.

In the year of mourning, women were expected to wear black or dark clothing and men to wear a black ribbon .

origin

The concept is based on Roman law . The next of kin had (during the mourning period tempus lugendi , from lat. Sad lugere =, in mourning his) under penalty of infamy to bezeigen mourning for the deceased by application of mourning, abstaining from participating in festivities and the like. While the period of mourning immediately allowed the widowed husband to marry again, the older Roman law did not allow the woman to do so before the expiry of 10 months in order to avoid uncertainty about the paternity of the children born by the widow after the death. This period was later extended to a full year of mourning ( annus luctus ).

Legal regulation

Germany

In Germany, according to Section 1313 of the German Civil Code (BGB) in the version dated January 1, 1900, a period of ten months was applicable. Exceptions were possible if the widow had given birth beforehand or could prove that she was not pregnant by her deceased husband . This could be done by examining a midwife . The premature marriage , however, was not invalid, so the year of mourning was only a suspensive impediment to marriage.

With the marriage law (EheG) of 1938, the right to marry was removed from the BGB. The 10-month waiting period was adopted unchanged in Section 11 EheG. The subsequent Act No. 16 of the Control Council (Marriage Act) of February 20, 1946 also contained the 10-month marriage ban in Section 8 . However, this was not subject to sanctions. A marriage contrary to the prohibition before the end of the waiting period could neither be declared null and void nor revoked. In addition, exemptions from the ban were granted almost without exception. It was therefore practically meaningless.

With Art. 14 § 13 of the Law on the Reform of Child Law ( Kindschaftsrechtsreformgesetz - KindRG) of December 16, 1997, § 8 EheG, with the law on the reorganization of marriage law (Marriage Law Act - EheschlRG) of May 4, 1998, repealed the existing EheG altogether . The marriage law was reintegrated into the BGB.

For the territory of the GDR , the marriage law of 1938 was suspended by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the dissolution of the High Commission of the Soviet Union in Germany on September 20, 1955. Neither the regulation on marriage and dissolution of marriage (EheVO) of November 24, 1955, nor the family code of the German Democratic Republic of December 20, 1965 contained a marriage ban corresponding to the year of mourning.

Austria

The Austrian General Civil Code of 1811 limited the period in marriage law (Sections 44-136) to six months for the non-pregnant widow, with the option of shortening it to three months. This dispensation required the approval of the authorities (so-called political marriage consensus). No new marriage should be concluded before three months have elapsed. In the event of a violation, the new marriage was valid, but the woman had to forego what is known as the profit from the previous marriage, and the husband could not contest the marriage.

After Austria's annexation in March 1938, the National Socialist marriage law of July 1938 also applied there.

With the law of June 26, 1945 on measures in the areas of marriage law, civil status law and hereditary health law, the ideologically determined regulations of the marriage law in Austria were repealed. The remaining part of the marriage law was acc. § 2 R-ÜG transferred to the law of the Second Republic . Since then, the reform legislator has fundamentally redesigned family law in many ways. In the currently applicable version, the provisions of Sections 11-14 EheG no longer exist.

Web links

Wiktionary: year of mourning  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Waiting time Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon , 1905
  2. ^ Period of mourning Pierer's Universal-Lexikon , 1857-1865
  3. ^ Brockhaus year of mourning , 1911
  4. ^ Franz Leske, W. Loewenfeld: The marriage law of the European states and their colonies Berlin, Carl Heymanns Verlag , 1904. Section I. German Empire, waiting time p. 9
  5. ↑ Law for the standardization of the law of marriage and divorce in Austria and the rest of the Reich (marriage law) of 6 July 1938 (RGBl. I p. 807)
  6. ↑ KRABl. P. 77
  7. ↑ Draft law of the federal government of a law to reorganize marriage law ( Marriage Law Act - EheschlRG), BT-Drucksache 13/4898 of June 13, 1996 p. 13
  8. ↑ BGBl. 1997 I p. 2942 , PDF
  9. ↑ BGBl. 1998 I p. 833 , PDF; Law on the reorganization of marriage law (Marriage Law Act - EheschlRG) (G-SIG: 13020397) ( Memento of May 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Basic information on the process in the DIP documentation and information system
  10. ↑ GBl. DDR I p. 849
  11. ↑ GBl. DDR I p. 1
  12. ↑ Sabine Engelhardt: The unsuccessful regulation of the law of faulty marriage by the marriage law 1998. Humboldt University Berlin, 2004. Appendix with legal texts
  13. ↑ Law of July 4, 1872 (RG.B1. No. 111)
  14. ^ Franz Leske, W. Loewenfeld: The marriage law of the European states and their colonies Berlin, Carl Heymanns Verlag , 1904. Austrian national territory, waiting time p. 60 f.
  15. ↑ StGBl 1945/31
  16. ^ Introduction ( memento of May 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on marriage and child law, Verlag Österreich , accessed on May 27, 2016
  17. ↑ Consolidated Federal Law: Entire Legal Provision for the Marriage Act, RIS , version dated May 27, 2016