Mąż córki, wspólnik teściów czy zagrożenie dla rodziny? O roli zięcia w lwowskiej rodzinie mieszczańskiej na podstawie testamentów z lat 1541–1560

Abstract

A husband of the daughter, an associate of the in-laws or a threat to the family? On the role of the son-in-law in burgher families on the basis of testaments from 1541–1560 In the article the author examines questions relating to the position of sons-in-law in the early modern burgher families in Lviv. The conclusions of the article are based on sixteenth-century wills. As ego documents — personal documents — the wills contain information about private relations with the various relatives, serving as an irreplaceable source for research into the norms of family life. The problem of the relations between sons-in-law and the family of their spouses has not been previously tackled in the literature on the subject. Most authors have focused on analyses of the functioning of molecular families, leaving aside the relations between more distant relatives by blood or marriage. Yet sons-in-law are, apart from spouses and children, the family members most often encountered in last wills. The author’s analysis of the wills indicates that neither betrothal, nor marriage or payment of dowry put an end to contacts between the son-in-law and the in-laws. One the contrary, in burgher families sons-in-law often became associates in economic activities, representing the interests of not just their wives, but also their in-laws. At the same time, it seems significant that husbands of daughters were best captured in wills where there were no adult male descendants in the family, which enabled them, to some extent, to assume filial powers and privileges. At the same time, the son-in-law’s high position within the family may have made his father-in- law — the testator — who was in conflict with him fear for the future of both his widowed wife and his orphaned children. Thus the position of the daughters’ husbands was not strictly defined by custom, and their role as well as influence in their spouses’ families depended on various factors, including whether the family was part of urban society, whether there existed personal ties or other male relatives.