Child engagement

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Children Engagement refers to an engagement between underage children , with their parents an arranged marriage prepare - as opposed to a child marriage , which before reaching the marriageable age is closed. Often goods are exchanged during the engagement party (as bride price , morning gift or dowry ) in order to confirm the binding nature of the engagement contract .

Child engagements and so-called “cradle marriages” used to be widespread in Central Asia. The Uzbeks still use the "Jetek Tschirtisch", a form of child engagement in which two small children of different sexes are promised to each other. The name comes from the custom of tearing the two children's clothes at the corresponding ceremony.

Among the small Kadar people in northern Nigeria in Africa, most marriages are between men and women who were engaged to each other as children. The father of the bride or groom arranges such a child engagement when the girl is three to six years old. About ten years later, the engaged couple lived together. If the Kadar girl has been impregnated by another man in the meantime, the future husband does not care.

history

Child engagements were sometimes used as part of an aristocratic “ marriage policy ” in order to link territories and their ruling families through marriage alliances and thereby secure or expand political power.

For example, a child engagement took place in 1496 between the five-year-old heiress Maria von Jülich-Berg and the six-year-old Johann von Kleve-Mark at Burg Castle in what is now Solingen . 14 years later, the wedding was celebrated in Düsseldorf on October 1, 1510 , as the so-called "Klever Union". The engagement of the children paved the way for the merger of the states of Jülich-Berg with Kleve , Mark and Ravensberg to form the united duchies of Jülich-Kleve-Berg and made Johann von Jülich-Kleve-Berg the most powerful prince in West Germany from 1521 .

See also

Web links

  • Helmut Lukas, Vera Schindler, Johann Stockinger: Child engagement. In: Online Interactive Glossary: ​​Marriage, Marriage, and Family. Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna, October 1997, accessed on December 24, 2013 (detailed remarks, with references).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lukas, Schindler, Stockinger: Child engagement. In: Online Interactive Glossary: ​​Marriage, Marriage, and Family. University of Vienna, October 1997, accessed December 24, 2013 .
  2. ↑ Marion Linska, Andrea Handl, Gabriele Rasuly-Paleczek: Introduction to Anthropology of Central Asia. (PDF; 517 kB) Lecture notes, Institute for Cultural and Social Anthropology, University of Vienna, January 2003, p. 124 , archived from the original on October 7, 2009 ; Retrieved December 24, 2013 .
  3. ^ Wilhelm Janssen:  Johann III. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 493 ( digitized version ).