Women, Dowries, and Patrimonial Law in Old Regime Romania

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http://jfh.sagepub.com/content/34/2/189The online version of this article can be found at:

DOI: 10.1177/03631990083307322009 34: 189 originally published online 15 January 2009Journal of Family History

Angela Jianu1830)

Women, Dowries, and Patrimonial Law in Old Regime Romania (c. 1750

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Angela Jianu is Open Studies tutor at The Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of Warwick. Herrecent work includes a study on Women, Fashion, and Europeanisation in the Romanian Principalities17501830, published in Women in the Ottoman BalkansGender, Culture and History (ed. AmilaButurovi, Irvin C. Schick, and I. B. Tauris; London, 2007) and an essay on the only known diary by anearly nineteenth-century Romanian woman (Elena Hartularis Story: The Presentation of the EmotionalSelf, in Enjeux conomiques, politiques et militaries en Mer Noire, XIVeXXIe siclesEtudes lammoire de Mihail Guboglu (ed. Faruk Bilici, Ionel Candea, and Anca Popescu; Editions Istros, Braila,Romania, 2007). She is currently completing a book on East-Central European political exile after therevolutions of 1848.

Journal of Family History, Vol. 34 No. 2, April 2009 189-205DOI: 10.1177/0363199008330732 2009 SAGE Publications

189

WOMEN, DOWRIES, AND PATRIMONIAL LAWIN OLD REGIME ROMANIA (c. 17501830)

Angela Jianu

This study explores the legal aspects of dowry provision in the RomanianPrincipalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in the period 17501830. Drawing onthe periods law codes, dowry papers, testaments, and court records, it high-lights the legal and emotional difficulties created by the affective/patrimonialnexus within couples, families, and stepfamilies in a society where divorce andup to three remarriages were allowed by both church and state. A growing body

of research into the history of the Romanian family is suggesting that the pre-scriptions governing dowry provision in the late eighteenth and early nineteenthcenturies and the consequent exclusion of dowered girls from the family inheri-tance led to increased cohesion within the nuclear family and to the legalempowerment of women, while providing economic security to divorced women,widows, and children.

Keywords: Romania; Old Regime; women; dowries; codes of law; patrimoniallaw

The Romanian society of the ancien rgime may not have been more conflict-proneor more litigious than others, but it has been noted how often individuals and fami-lies went into court to defend their interests.1 Marital and patrimonial relationslove and land, inextricably boundwere more often than not at the center of courtcases in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The written records ofsuch cases, but also many dowry papers and testaments, show the legal and emo-tional difficulties created by this affective/patrimonial nexus within couples andfamilies. In a society where church and state authorized divorce and up to threeremarriages, it is not surprising that, starting with the eighteenth century, emphasis

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190 JOURNAL OF FAMILY HISTORY / April 2009

in the written law codes came to be placed less on the penalties for breach of moralityabduction, rape, marital misconduct, bigamy, etc.than on the need for accuraterecordkeeping and on standardizing the rules affecting dowry provision and inheri-tance. It was often the case, for instance, that the families resulting from second or

third marriages contested, in complex protracted lawsuits that cost money and some-times lives, the rights of children from previous ones. The need for pricing dowryitems and keeping neat estate records became therefore a priority.

The seventeenth century was a turning point in the history of the Romanian family.The transition from an inheritance system that privileged male primogeniture to a moreegalitarian approach, the legal empowerment of women in dowry matters, and thegradual emergence of the nuclear family ensured that couples and individuals had agrowing control over their choices and a clearer awareness of their identity vis--visextended families, lineage, and even social group and class.2 The eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries continued this trend, chiefly via the written law codes compiled in the

eighteenth and early nineteenth century to complement the prescriptions of common lawand traditional legal practices, which will be discussed later in this article.

DOWRIES: GIVERS AND RECIPIENTS

The law codes in use in the period considered required fathers and brothers to providefor their daughters and sisters who reached marrying age.3 In the absence of close malekin, any male relative, acquaintance, trustee, the widowed mothers, and even the ruling

prince, had to offer suitable dowries; that is, dowries that helped girls make suitablematches with men of equivalent status and rank. In this way, church and state, as dispens-

ers of law, justice, and order, attempted to preserve the class status quo, on which socialstability rested.4 Dowry lands, money, and other assets were meant to help the youngcouple set up their new household and make investments, but ultimately the dowryremained a womans sole property and provided economic security to divorced wives,widows, and especially children in case of parents separation or death.5

DOWRIES: FORM AND CONTENT

As can be expected, dowries are formulaic documents,6 usually starting with:Dowry list (izvod de zestre) that I/we give, (with Gods mercy), to my/our daugh-ter/son/sister and continuing with the items given, often with their value inmoney, and ending with the signatures of the offering relatives and of their witnesses(three according to the usual format, although the extended family and a priest usu-ally took part in the dowry negotiations). The givers often made it clearfor pos-sible contestation purposesthat the dowry items were offered freely. Althoughthroughout the seventeenth century the dowry list was essentially a contractualagreement between father as giver and daughter as ultimate beneficiary, theIpsilantiCode of 1780 introduced a new prescription requiring the male recipients to addtheir signatures, thereby certifying that all or only some of the items were given. Atthe end of a dowry list given in 1798 by a Moldavian noble family to their daughter,a short paragraph was appended twenty years later (!) probably by a rather mean and

property-conscious husband: 6 pairs knives I have not received, 12 iron frying pansI have not received, 6 iron pots I have not received, 6 trays they have not given, 2candle-stands they have not given, 1 washing basin and jug they have not given,



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1818, August 10, tefan Iscescu etrar.7 In 1815, the same tefan Iscescu gavehis own daughter, Zmaranda, in marriage and, ever the cautious guardian of his

property, he warned at the end of the dowry list: For the above mentioned assets, Ideclare with due fear of the Almighty God, that I have given everything, and if my

son-in-law Encachi will ask for more from my son, saying that I owe him moneyor things, let him not be believed, because I swear upon my soul that I do not owehim money or other expenses.8

More routinely, however, dowries concluded with blessings for the new couplefrom the dowry givers. If, however, a warning was considered necessary, the stan-dard eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century dowry would state that claims by

bride, groom, or their descendants should not be taken into consideration. The warn-ing could sometimes take the extreme form of a malediction, a device well knownin Romanian ancien rgime legal practice, the variants of which need further inves-tigation.9 By appealing to moral sense and to fears of eternal damnation, the curse

functioned as a sort of protective seal meant to deter further claims and counter-claims that could lead to ruinous and lengthy court litigations. Here is an examplefrom a 1777 Moldavian dowry: and whoever would be tempted to claim these fromthe children, let them be cursed by the Good Lord and his chaste Motherfor thesehave all been given in fear of God. . . . And so I sign myself: C. Baot Ban.10

The dowry given in 1780 by the Moldavian vel Vornic (high-ranking boyar) NicolaeRoset (Rosetti) to his daughter Ileana is typical both for the lack of subjective and bio-graphical elements and for the kind of items the daughter of a well-to-do and respectableeighteenth-century family could expect at the start of her new life: a list that itemizes richermine and sable furs, expensive jewelry and a great range of household items concludes

with two estates, Vorotetile and ercanii . . . 8 acres of vineyard on top of Vitneti, 15Gypsy souls [i.e., individuals], 15 mares and one stallion, 250 lei [Romanian currency]for good bed linen, 1,000 lei for a carriage, 1 horse and other things, and blessings fromGod and from us.11 Both the Oriental-style clothes and the Gypsy slaves as essentialdowry items can be read as evidence of the grip of traditional values and conservativeinertia on late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Romanian upper-class members.The mixture of Turkish-named silks and Asian furs remained a well-defined presence indowries throughout the period, reluctantly giving way to the occasional trendy, Western-or Central-European parasol or silk gloves, especially after the 1790s. This suggests thateven when European clothes had almost completely replaced the Turkish female ward-robe around 18201830, the rich old Ottoman fabrics and garments retained enough oftheir monetary, sentimental, and symbolic value for them to be passed on to daughtersand granddaughters.12 As for the Gypsy slaves, they continued to be donated individuallyor collectively well into the 1840s and close to 1855, the year of their official emancipa-tion. It is almost touching to see the stubborn persistence with which the boyars keptthinking of their privilegessub specie aeternitatis. At the end of a prosperous-lookingdowry offered by a Moldavian boyar to a female cousin in 1822, he gives, for legal

purposes, detailed explanations about the previous owners of three donated Gypsyslaves, and adds: . . . for these three Gypsy souls, let them be for ever slaves to mycousin Ecaterina and to her descendants generation after generation.13

In this study, dowries are considered from the viewpoint of their economic func-

tions within the family as well as from that of the patrimonial rights women had bothduring and after the marriage. The discussion will also refer to womens (and chil-drens) rights of inheritance (mainly with respect to access to the dowry) and to the



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ways in which property claims and counter-claims could affect family relations.Seventy-two dowry papers from 1740 to 1830 and twenty-seven testaments, inven-tories, and property litigation documents from 1726 to 1836, from both Wallachiaand Moldavia and mostly from elite families, have formed the documentary basis of

this discussion.

THE LAW CODES

By the time Phanariot14 legislators started their work, a number of legal codes werealready available to judges in both Principalities: in Moldavia, Cartea romneasc denvtur (The Romanian Book of Teachings,also known as Cartea romneasc de

pravile mprteti) of 1646 and in Wallachia,ndreptarea legii (The Correction ofthe Law) of 1652. To these were added, in Phanariot times,the Sobornicescul Hrisov(The Synodal Decree 1785, Moldavia) and the Pravilniceascacondic (The Ipsilanti

Code, 1780, Wallachia) followed by Codul Callimah (The Callimachi Code, Moldavia,1817) and Legiuirea Caragea (The Caragea Law, Wallachia, 1818) initiated byAlexandru Mavrocordat [Gk. Mavrokordatos], Alexandru Ipsilanti [Gk. Ypsilantis],Scarlat Callimachi, and Ioan Caragea [Gk. Karatzas] respectively. Use was also made inMoldavia of Andronache DonicisManualul juridic, a law handbook of 1814.15 The lastlegal provisions relevant to the period under study were those of the Russian-sponsoredOrganic Regulations (Regulamentele Organice, 1831, Wallachia; 1832, Moldavia),Romanias first modern quasi-constitutions.

Broadly speaking, these codes operated a synthesis of common law, Roman-Byzantine law, and legal practices arising from occasional princely decrees, and,

according to Byzantine tradition, did not abrogate each other, but were in force con-comitantly until 1865, when they were supplanted by the Civil Code. This pluralityof simultaneously valid written laws (pravile) gave judges considerable freedomof choice and interpretation. This, and the fact that the authority of the chose jugeas a juridical category was not in use, explains why, throughout the early nineteenthcentury, juridical practice was persistently ambiguous and arbitrary, and litigant par-ties routinely took part in a protracted series of trials, mistrials, and retrials.16 Thearbitrariness was enhanced by another feature of the Romanian ancien rgime legalsystem, namely the position of the prince as supreme judge, the authority that gavefinal sanction to a decision of the court in the stateDivan. In practice, this meant thatthe will of the prince as representative of divine justice overrode common and writ-ten law, as well as legal precedents set by previous princely decisions and decrees.17In Wallachia, especially after the reforms initiated by Prince Alexandru Ipsilanti andthe publication of thePravilniceasca Condic (The Ipsilanti Code) in 1780, the stateincreasingly intervened in matrimonial and patrimonial matters alongside and incompetition with the ecclesiastic tribunal, although, in practice, the prince almostalways deferred to the metropolitans authority. This churchstate juridical overlapon the one hand and the corruption and confusion reigning at the lower administra-tive echelons on the other, made the entire legal process a very convoluted affair.18Starting with the 1820s through the 1830s, the competences of the secular and theecclesiastic instances became more clearly delineated: the church was in charge of

marriage and divorce, while the state started to assume control in litigations overdowry, testaments, inheritance, and property resulting from the breakup of families,although in practice boundaries remained blurred.19

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Of the Phanariot Princes, Constantin Mavrocordat (active between 1739 and1743 in both Principalities) and Alexandru Ipsilanti (active 17741780 in Wallachiaand 17861788 in Moldavia) were probably the most vigorous reformers in mattersof law. The former took measures toward an increasing professionalization of the

judges and attempted to replace the fees they exacted from plaintiffs and defendantswith state incomes. Written records of each case were to be kept in special registerssent monthly to the prince. The Wallachian Metropolitan Neofit Cretanul [Neophytosof Crete], closely involved in the reformist projects of Constantin Mavrocordat inthe 1740s, initiated the creation of an ecclesiastic tribunal as an institution in its ownright. In 1777, Metropolitan Grigore created a Metropolitan chancellery, staffedwith seven civil servants in charge of keeping accurate and daily written records ofall court hearings.20

Reading through the Romanian law codesfrom the 1640s (the Moldavian Carteromneasc de nvtur, the Wallachian ndreptarea legii) to 1818 (the Moldavian

CallimachiCode and the Wallachian Caragea Code)one notices a steady refinementof dowry and inheritance legislation, undoubtedly under the impact of an increasingnumber of litigations in this area. As property, especially landed property, becameincreasingly important and as nuclear families came to have a clearer sense of their cohe-sion and solidarities, legislators had to devise neater categories to define both collectiveand individual patrimonial rights. What follows is a brief outline of this legislation.

As early as 1652, for instance, the ndreptarea legii [The Correction of the Law]prescribed that the husbands role was only as an administrator of the dowry assets, whilethe wife remained the sole owner. In case of the husbands death, the widow had pre-emptive rights over her dowrys worth from her late husbands remaining wealth before

other claimants or creditors (Articles 265-6). However, the main beneficiaries of thedowry were the children, an aspect that appears to be the cornerstone of dowry legisla-tion throughout the period. A womans proved adultery, for instance, resulted in the lossof her dowry and prenuptial gifts in favor of children, husband, or the womans father,in this order. In the event of a womans death, likewise, the dowry was allocated in thesame order. If either or both spouses died childless, the womans wealth was divided intothree parts: one went to the surviving spouse, if any, the second to any surviving parents,and the third was used for commemorative services (for the soul of the dead) or wentto charity (cutia milelor) (Art. 272). Subsequent legislation only refined this basicoutline, placing an increasing emphasis on the need to value dowry assets and to keepaccurate copies of these as well as of husbands wealth inventories (IpsilantiCode,Wallachia, 1780, Section Pentru zestre, Art. 1)

Thus, for instance, according to the sameIpsilanti Code, a widow had to draw upan inventory of her late husbands wealth and of any items missing from her dowrywithin six months of her husbands death (Section Pentru motenire, Art. 8) and,if childless, she could claim the third part of her husbands movable assets if she didnot remarry within a year of his death (Section Pentru trimirie, Art. 2). This latter

prescription was not just an arbitrary rule meant to control and reward a survivingwifes faithfulness from beyond the grave, but a practical way of ensuring that anychildren born posthumously within that period were likely to be the late husbandsand inherit accordingly. A childless or infertile widow took back her dowry and the

prenuptial gifts (darul dinaintea nunii).The Callimachi Code (Moldavia, 1817) and the Caragea Code (Wallachia, 1818)

further refined the dowry and inheritance rights of the spouses and children, bringing



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them in line with new legal practices and with the new political climate. Both codescontinued to reinforce the already prominent rights of the children to their mothersdowry, but also seemed to point in the direction of greater rights for the husbands.Both stipulated, for instance, that the brides parents and the groom with his family

could negotiate so-called tocmele cstoreti oraezminte cstoreti, nuptialcontracts whereby the sides could opt to change the standard rules of dowry provi-sion and inheritance. They could agree, for instance that, in the event of the wifedying without children, her husband rather than her parents could get her dowry(Callimachi Code, Section 31; Caragea Code, Par. 23, 24).

Apart from introducing a certain amount of flexibility in the couples patrimonialrights, the codes also became much more detailed with respect to the uses to whicha woman could put her dowry and other possessions she might have had. While thehusband remained the administrator of the dowry assets, the woman could use themto pay her own debts, buy land that brought increased revenue to the family, support

children from previous marriages as well as parents and siblings, and buy relativesback from slavery or bail them out of jail (Callimachi Code, Section 32, Art. 1641a, b, c). To these, the more politically conscious Caragea Code added that she coulduse her own wealth to help her husband obtain a political function or title (cin

politicesc) (Section 16, Art. 34), a stipulation that seems to give official and legalendorsement to the gift-centered culture of the Phanariot rgimes and to the exist-ing practice of the venality of offices. Another hint at the possibility that women mayhave, at that time, started to meddle in areas traditionally forbidden to them, was thestipulation that if a woman conspired against her husband, she was to lose half of herdowry (Caragea Code, Section 16, Art. 42).

The two codes also refined the rules that governed the rights of inheritance overa womans dowry and other wealth categories that had previously been left out ofthe legislators remit. Thus, the paraphernalia (orexoprica)gifts made to thewife during the marriage, the source of which she had to declarewas, like herdowry, her own property and its usufruct belonged only to herself and her inheritors,even though the husband may have administered it (Callimachi Code, Section 33).The counter-dowry, a gift made at the wedding by the grooms parents, was claimed

by her children or her inheritors at her death, but its usufruct remained the husbands.If, on the contrary, it was the husband who died, the wife claimed the counter-dowry(Idem, Section 34, Par.1676, 1678). In cases where no counter-dowry had beengiven, the surviving wife claimed not only her dowry, but also a third part of her latehusbands total wealth, the so-called ipovolon, or widow(er)s rights (Idem,Section 34). The theoritra, a virginity gift offered by the husband on the day afterthe wedding, went to the woman in case of divorce, or to her children or inheritorsin the event of her death (Idem, Section 35).

It seems obvious that, throughout the eighteenth century, the codesprobably themain contribution of the Phanariot Princes to a Romanian Enlightenment ethosmade increasingly bold attempts at providing judges with neat and clear-cut defini-tions and categories. These gradually took matrimonial jurisprudence well beyondthe catechismal moralizing of the earlier seventeenth-century compilations ofRoman-Byzantine law into a secular-oriented system of law fit for a more reasonable

and humane age. Out went the limb-chopping and the churchs intrusions into theintimate lives of couples in which, for instance, the 1652 ndreptarea legii overin-dulged, and in came the complex rules and clauses pertaining to dowries, usufruct,



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and widow(er)s rights. In a society where most livesincluding among the eliteswere economically precarious, church and state were increasingly concerned withkeeping the poor off the streets and forcing families to provide as best they could forthe divorced, the widowed, and the orphaned, who would have otherwise become a

burden on the state budget.In practice, however, things were much complicated by the persistence of com-

mon law and of oral legal traditions, which, added to the lacunary nature of thearchives, make the historians task highly difficult. The rules of endowment andinheritance became increasingly complex during the period considered, and this isreflected in the very intricate lawsuits that opposed spouses, in-laws, and childrenagainst stepfamilies and other inheritors or creditors. That such conflicts could bevery traumatic can be seen from some of the cases that follow. Because they aretaken in isolation and concern families about which little information is otherwiseavailable or known, the dowry litigation papers, testaments, and inventories dis-

cussed here may not reveal as much as we would like about the precise nature of thepower structures constituted within families. Likewise, because the documents arefew in number and not evenly distributed regionally or chronologically, it is impos-sible at this stage to point to regional patterns or to trends in time. They may, how-ever, show how law operated in practice and what kind of arguments were invoked

by litigants and lawyers. Most of the cases mentioned refer to the rights women andtheir offspring had over the dowries rather than over the couples joint or acquiredwealth, which would have to form the object of a separate study.

DOWRIES, WIVES, AND CHILDREN

That a wifes dowry was forbidden territory for her husband is in evidence as early asthe seventeenthcentury in a letter of endorsement of the Moldavian Prince ConstantinDuca confirming a boyars ownership over parts of land belonging to his brother-in-lawwho had sold parts of his wifes dowry.21 In 1779 in Wallachia, a court of high-ranking

boyars ruled that the daughter of a late merchant could not pay her fathers outstandingdebts out of her late mothers dowry, but only from any inheritance that her father mayhave left.22 Husbands of whatever status who had sold assets from their wives dowriescould find themselves in prison, as happened in the same year, 1779, to Nicolae, the sonof a etrar (a lower-ranking boyar) who, from prison, suggested a donation of a vine-yard and one male Gypsy slave to compensate his wife, Ecaterina, for her loss. Beingsummoned to court, the defendant and his wife both agreed to the exchange, providedthe local authorities checked and found the vineyard in good working condition. Thewife was represented in court by her own brother, who acted as hervechil (Tk. vekil)as was often the case for women, children, and other legally incompetent persons, butalso for collective juridical persons, such as, for instance, monasteries.23 (However, notall of the documents mention explicitly the presence of the vechil, and in some casesthe women seem to be able to speak for themselves in court. Why this should happenremains as yet unclear).

Two cases from 1777, both in Wallachia, demonstrate the centrality of children toall dowry matters and show that, in the event of the mothers death, surviving chil-

dren could claim her dowry even as adults. The first, set in the world of small arti-sans in Bucharest, concerns Zamfira, a young married woman, who brought hermaternal aunt Ilinca to court, claiming that the latter had abusively taken away her



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sisters (Zamfiras mothers) dowry after the death of both Zamfiras parents. Thecase is interesting not only because, many years after the events, the court ruled infavor of the daughter, but also because it is a showcase for the legal procedure fol-lowed in such litigations. In the first instance, Zamfira sent her complaint to the

Prince, who instructed one of the members (the vtaf de copiia court clerk incharge of all legal matters related to children) of theDivan (the assembly of nota-

bles) to bring the sides in front of an ecclesiastical court headed by the Metropolitanof Wallachia. After a convoluted series of accusations and counter-accusations, andin the absence of evidence or witnesses, the court decided to resort to its ultimatestrategy, the oath, a procedure used when all other legal means failed. Ilinca wasasked to swear in church that missing dowry items cited by her niece were not in factin her possession. In his report (anafora) to the Prince on March 11, 1777, theMetropolitan presented his decision, which the Prince approved on May 6 of thesame year. The court decided to resort to the oath, which it always did in a sort of

judicial desperation, on the assumption that Ilinca, a God-fearing middle-classwoman, would not endanger her soul with a false oath.24 The outcome in this case isnot documented, but we may assume that Ilinca in effect did not dare compromisewith a serious spiritual matter such as a church oath.

In the same year, another adult daughter, Ancua Buzescu, from a boyar milieu,lodged a complaint with the countrys Divan against her remarried father and hissecond wife, whom she accused of keeping in their possession a Gypsy slave and afew items from her late mothers dowry. This time the boyar court could pass itsdecision on the basis of written evidence presented by the plaintiff, namely a copyof the deceased mothers dowry list. The daughter took back her Gypsy slave, while

the district authorities (ispravnicii de jude) were to investigate her other claims,on the order of Prince Alexandru Ipsilanti, appended to theDivans report.25

A Wallachian court hearing of 1780 had Lucsandra, a young orphaned boyarsdaughter, in opposition to her aunt and guardian, Zoia, the wife of a lower-ranking

boyar. The girl, now married, wished to retrieve some of her late mothers dowryassets, and the court of boyars headed by the Metropolitan ruled in her favor, oncondition that she repay her aunt for the expenses incurred with her upbringing andher wedding.26

How central children, even if they did not survive early childhood or even birth, wereto dowry and inheritance claims is demonstrated by a Moldavian case of 1806, whichopposed the middle-ranking boyar (sptar) Manolache Donici and the MonasteryDoljeti for ownership of the estate Dumenii. After her first husbands death, Ecaterina,Manolaches stepmother, being childless, had donated the estate to the monastery. Later,however, she had married Donicis father and had eleven children by him. She subse-quently gave the same estate as a dowry to one daughter who died childless and later toa second daughter who also died without posterity, the estate being thus finally left to thewidowed father. The court decided that the monastery had no claim to this estate because,according to law, Ecaterinas first letter of donation, made while she was a childlesswidow, was rendered null and void by her subsequent marriage and the birth of hereleven children. Prince Alexandru Moruzi decided, on the basis of the evidence pre-sented, that Manolache Donici was entitled to his late stepmothers land, as all her eleven

blood children and her second husband were now dead. As a gesture of goodwill, theboyar was advised to make another donation to the monastery for the good of the soulsof his stepmother and her dead inheritors.27



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When a man died leaving outstanding debts, the elder of the merchants guild(staroste de negustori) was normally entrusted with the task of drawing up andvaluing a precise register of assets and debts, so that the wealth could be auctionedand divided among the rightful inheritors and creditors. When, for instance, the

Wallachian Constantin Micunescu (presumed to be of the boyar class) died in 1777,his remaining assets amounted to 10,784 thaler, out of which his widows dowry and

prenuptial gift represented as much as 3,903 thaler, duly returned to her before anydebts were paid. The age of the surviving children is not mentioned and, in this case,their interests were only considered after those of their mother and of their fatherscreditors, presumably because the dowry was supposed to serve for the upkeep of

both widow and children.28

When a couple had children but none of them survived for long after the mothersdeath, the dowry was usually divided into three: one part went for the good of thedeceased soul (i.e., payment for commemoration rites), the second to the widower, and

the third to the closest blood relatives of the dead woman, as evidenced in two Wallachiancases of 1777 and 1783.29 Expenses for the wifes illness were covered by the husband,as the law required, but the cost of the funeral was met by her parents, as they were theultimate recipients of her dowry. In the absence of children, in cases of a womans deathor divorce, the dowry went to the womans parents or next of kin.

As widows, women enjoyed, if not greater property rights than when married, atleast a greater autonomy and authority in terms of household management and theeducation of children. The documentary evidence shows that the implicitly preferredsolution was for widows not to remarry and to devote the rest of their lives to theadministration of the wealth and to the upbringing and marriage of children,

although there were generally no testamentary clauses demanding obligatory renun-ciation of a second marriage. Many dying husbands left their wives as executrices oftheir wills and heads of their households, and many women enjoyed a measureof freedom in the way they used their dowries and other wealth left after the deathsof their husbands. Thus, for instance, in 1797 and 1808 in Wallachia, Neaga, a mer-chants widow, gave written pledges to contribute to the upkeep of a hospital and achurch and adjacent school she had founded together with her late husband. Themoney was to come from the revenue of lands she had donated to the hospital as wellas from her own money, presumably her dowry. The two written letters, signed andsealed by Neaga with her own seal (which suggests a degree of administrativeautonomy at least), were, as in many similar cases, contracts that ensured not onlythe perpetuation of the couples remembrance through charitable acts, but also a safehaven for a childless widows last years and an assurance that commemoration riteswould continue to be performed in the church endowed by her.30

The same concern for the welfare of the testators soul after death is in evidencein a later Wallachian testament of 1840, of the probably young and ailing boyar ladyCatinca Sltineanu, who divided her wealth between her mother and her husband,only five years into marriage. In so doing, she mentioned an interesting prescriptionfor the disposal of dowries in wills, for which I could not identify as yet any clausein the legal codes of the period, namely that the law only allowed her to disposefreely of half of the dowry, the other half having to go to the surviving mother. With

no children of her own, the young Catinca left her best clothes and her bridal bedlinen to her two beloved nieces, and entrusted both mother and her belovedhusband to bury her in her chosen ground and pay for her commemorations. As a



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final act of redeeming charity, the husband was also instructed to liberate Marica, theGypsy slave who had attended Catinca from childhood, and give her money andsome of her mistresss clothes.31

Coming back to widowhood, this brought indeed some degree of freedom, but with

it came also a greater amount of responsibility, which was not always dutifully dis-charged. And just as dowry-squandering husbands could be penalized, an inheritance-squandering widow was likewise liable to prosecution, which shows once more thatchildren, the survival of the family, and, for boyars, a concern for possible social declinewere the main issues in dowry and inheritance arrangements. In a letter of 1781 from theWallachian Prince to the panel of trustees appointed after the death of a pitar (low-rank boyar), the trustees were advised that the widow, Ilinca Lehliu, made rather liberaluse of her dowry and of her husbands inheritance, incurring debts and endangering herthree childrens future. It was recommended that in the future she was not to be allowedto make any sales or enter any contract without the trustees permission. Likewise, her

eldest son and daughter were to be entrusted to two relatives for upbringing, while heryoungest child was to be temporarily left in her care.32

Repeated marriages (up to three, as allowed by the Eastern Orthodox Church) createdcomplicated relationships between the stepfamilies, and often led to merciless competi-tion over property, especially between widows who tried to secure the welfare of theirchildren and suitable marriages for their daughters. Some of the stories of such conflictsare particularly gruesome, and raise interesting legal issues.

In December 1777, the Wallachian postelnic (high-rank boyar in charge offoreign relations and protocol at court) Sandu Vrzaru returned home from a busi-ness trip to find his young wife, Blaa, unexpectedly dead in childbirth, already

buried, and the house emptied of many possessions, including the young womansdowry assets. Following his complaint addressed to Prince Alexandru Ispilanti, thecommittee of high-ranking boyars appointed to investigate found out that the youngwifes stepmother, Catrina Deleanu, had instructed her Gypsy slaves to commit thetheft before the husband returned. Summoned to court by the court clerk (zapciu deaprozi) and asked to swear an oath, the stepmother admitted the theft and presenteda written pledge to return the stolen goods. The court ruled that only the husbandcould inherit on three legal bases: first, the late wifes deathbed wishes, confirmed underoath by witnesses; second, the fact that the couple had had a child, albeit it did notlive; and third, the fact that Catrina Deleanu was only a stepmother and not a bloodrelative of the young woman. The Prince approved the courts decision, granting theloser a right of appeal in front of the Divan.

A follow-up to this story occurred in January 1778, when the indefatigable wid-owed stepmother, having a young son herself with the late Blaas father, was chal-lenged in court by Blaas married sister, Joia, over the late fathers inheritance.The report to the Prince is one of the rare examples of legal documents mentioningexplicitly the delicate negotiations that judges had to perform sometimes betweenthe written codes and customary law:

. . . investigating the case, we wish to inform Your Highness with this anaphora that,according to the law, although the girls have a right to make claims over the estate

of their father equally with other siblings, the custom of the land, which is observedin this country, renders the written law null and void, so that a married daughter will



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have to be content only with the dowry that her father has bestowed on her, and hasno other claims over the inheritance, with the exception of cases when her fathervouchsafes to leave her something in his will.

The courts decision, approved by the Prince, was that Joia could only be entitled toher late mothers dowry assets, the remaining wealth of the father belonging right-fully to his second wife Catrina and her young son. Both cases make it clear that only

blood children were entitled to their mothers dowry.33

FAMILY STORIES

Although not the topic of this study,34 testaments are mentioned here solelybecause they often referred indirectly to womens dowries and to their uses in theevent of wives or husbands death. In contrast to the often fleshless content of

dowry lists, testament sometimes unexpectedly tell family stories and throw muchneeded light on the actual rapports of family members in conflict and, more rarely,in harmony. Rather than being mere lists of cutlery, cattle, household utensils, jew-elry, and Gypsies, testaments often provided men and women with a chance to settlescores, reward love, penalize misconduct, and gain a measure of control over poster-ity. They could also often be meditations on the vanity of human life and attempts inarticulo mortis to save ones soul. As such, they are eloquent less for the legal thanfor the human detail.35

The 1781 testament of Blaa, daughter of the late stolnic (third-class boyar)36Toader Carp, is a story of two marriages. With some bitterness, after a full list of herdowry gifts, she speaks of her impoverished first husband, the serdar (third-class boyar) Vasile Scrlet, who, during a twelve-year-long, childless marriage, soldor otherwise squandered her golden diamond ring, her diamond earrings and a dia-mond cross, her horse-drawn carriage, cattle, and silver jewelry (all of which shelists meticulously). However, although, as she recounts, she and her second husbandspent a lot of money and time on court cases against her first husbands inheritors torecoup her lost dowry assets, some of the remaining cattle were sold, she explainswith rueful self-righteousness, to pay for commemoration and duties and othercharities for the soul of the deceased. The second husband, the pitar IanachiMavrichi, who showed compassion and care in my illness and weakness is espe-cially remembered and rewarded with a gift of Gypsy slaves. Anastasia, his daugh-

ter from a former marriage, raised with great love by her stepmother Blaa, wasnamed executrix of her will. It goes without saying that, with the jewelry, cattle, andGypsies given to her stepdaughter came the duty to pay the funeral expenses, as wellas to perform the much-coveted services in the year after death, all, she adds,according to the list I am going to append. A good name for posterity as well as ahealthy soul in heavens good books was, as always with Romanian testators, essen-tial: . . . I give Ioni the Gypsy son of Nastasia to my stepson Costachi so that hewill remember me, and I give Ioana the Gypsy sister to Ioni and daughter to

Nastasia to my stepson Dimitrachi, so that he too remembers me. Even the insol-vent and ineffectual first husband finds a niche in Blaas will: I give Maria the

Gypsy to the church of Jijia, where the body of my late first husband lies buried.The will ends with the customary curse against any of her kin who might betempted to change my will, as well as with the testators signature and seal. 37



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The 1785 testament of the widowed Ruxanda Carp (from Moldavia) starts with along introduction on the transitoriness of human life before recounting another storyof insolvent husband and embattled widowhood. This time the wife consented to thesale of her dowry assets, including lands, for the payment of her husbands debts,

and the tone is sad rather than vindictive as she narrates how, after eighteen years ofmarriage, the husband decided to end his life in a monastery, not without leavingsome outstanding debts. As a final compensatory gesture, however, Dumitru Carpdonated his family estategiven to him as dowry38to his wife. The beneficiariesof Ruxandas willmainly in land and Gypsiesare Irina, a niece, and Costache, ahardworking adopted son, who are instructed to agree amicably on any future saleof land or house. The niece thus rewarded possessed, according to her aunt, theinestimable merit of being meticulously observant of all that was to be done forthe souls of my husbands late parents and for our own souls and mindful of all theChristian duties.39

A poignant later testament is the will drawn in the 1830s by the Moldavian Vellogoft Vasile Razu. Highly devotional in tone, the text reads like a sermon

preached to his children and heirs about what is due to both the heavenly and theearthly powers. They should love God, the boyar advises, but also give due honorto the lord and master of this Country chosen by Godknowing that power is givenfrom above and the master is but His representative on earthyou should submit tohim, listen to him, and faithfully serve him. . . The children are advised to showcompassion to servants and behave like parents, not like masters, and are enjoinedto abstain from litigations over the inheritance or, he threatens, they will be deprivedof my fatherly blessing.

The testament contains a particularly glowing and emotional tribute to his wife,Catrina:

I have also considered for my much beloved spouse Catrina, with whom I havelived for over 30 years, and by whom I had daughters and sons, who has honouredme with her honest life, and with wise economy has governed my household,always looking after me in my grave illnesses and especially now in old age keepingwake by my side with great care; our union and her companionship bringing suchsweetness in our life together, I could not show myself ungrateful for so much loveand kindness that she has shown towards me and my children; and, especially as shewas a daughter of boyars, and brought a dowry and some money into the marriage,

and as I had to settle abroad, all of these considering, I gave her a part of all that ismine. . .

Vasile Razus unusually emotional testament concludes with a plea to his wife,Catrina, and his eldest son, Iancu, to watch over the education of the younger son,Mihai:

And I am addressing you, my beloved spouse and oh, my beloved son Iancu, endea-vour, as he is too young, to teach him the value of good deeds, and look after himin his youth, for youth may tempt him into base things, endeavour to keep him awayfrom these and keep him on the path that leads to virtue and good fortune. Thus I

beg you and this is my wish, and so may you have my blessing. Vasile Razu VelLogoft.40



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Farewell message, manual of education, homage to a good wife, spiritual guide,Vasile Razus testament summarizes a way of life that must have featured in theworld picture of at least one section of Romanian ancien rgime society.41 Based oncompassion, virtue, thriftiness, civic responsibility, but also imbued with a sense of

the dignity that the boyar title implied, Vasile Razus prescriptions are, one mightsay, an aristocratic variant of what is commonly thought of as a decent, honest,

bourgeois way of life. How pervasive such a view was in boyar circles and howactively it was pursued by the Romanian noblesse de robe (i.e., the tiny fractionof boyars with court and civic functions) is difficult to judge. However, as the dis-cussion on the law codes and the sample of primary documents presented here sug-gest, it would appear that the ecclesiastical and the secular authorities of the periodworked quite consistently toward bringing order both to the social and to the reli-gious dimensions of human life. While the insistence on the posthumous goodhealth of the soul to be obtained through the correct rites and the fact that the

Metropolitan and the Prince were still the ultimate guarantors of order and justicepoint to a traditional, paternalistic society, the legal attempts to protect the familyand the need for good management of money and households both by men andwomen sprang from a desire to reconcile Christian spirituality and the secular pur-suit of material gain and welfare. This amounted to a holistic vision of a religious,moral, and well-administered polity of individually responsible citizens. In such asociety, women still performed the traditional roles of supportive spouse and nurtur-ing mothers, but the documents show that sometimes, through the death of the hus-

band, they were socially elevated to become heads of households in their own right.In this role, they had to use all their stamina and resourcefulness to ensure the sur-

vival of their families both in economic and in spiritual terms.

CONCLUSIONS

Research into the jurisprudence of the family and legal practices in ancien rgimeRomania is now actively being conducted by a number ofmainly Romaniansocial historians and is starting to produce extremely promising results. The lines ofenquiry are being refined to distinguish more clearly between regional (Wallachianvs. Moldavian) and class (upper vs. lower class) norms and practices, as well as toaddress gendered attitudes in the ways communities, the church, and the state han-dled moral, matrimonial, and property issues.42 In this context, the present study is awork-in-progress account of the main issues and themes involved, as well as a

pointer toward future explorations.The legislation in force during the period under study (circa 17501830) placed

dowry provision in the hands of a womans male relatives or acquaintances. This,together with parental and church control over choice of spouse, would seem tomaintain womens marital lives in the firm and almost absolute grip of a male/eccle-siastic order, within a relatively benevolent paternalistic system. However, the factthat a womanprovided she was faithfulretained sole ownership of her dowry,wedding gifts, and virginity gift, and that a husband could be prosecuted, penal-ized, and even imprisoned for selling or donating dowry lands or items without

consulting his wife, provided a measure of economic security for women and theirsurviving children, the main beneficiaries of dowry assets. At the same time, a



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certain relaxation in the formerly stricter church-sponsored rules for separation anddivorceas well as the very availability of divorceprovided women with somefreedom of opting out of oppressive or abusive marriages. More importantly for thediscussion of dowry arrangements, women, passive as wives-to-be, gained a certain

amount of economic independence once they got married, by virtue of the fact thatnot only could they sue a dowry-squandering husband, but they also could, in certaincases carefully specified by the law codes, use some of their dowry wealth for pay-ing off their own debts or for looking after ailing spouses, children, and parents.This, in conjunction with a concern for status, explains why so many boyar fathersagonized over the dowries they had to provide to marrying daughters. As suggested

by one of the case histories, a wife also enjoyed the right to dispose of her dowry asshe wished in her will. It would seem that the Callimachi and the CarageaCodes(Moldavia 1817; Wallachia, 1818) introduced the innovation of marital settle-ments (tocmeli cstoreti), which allowed parents, brides, and grooms to make

prenuptial arrangements about, for instance, who would inherit the dowry in case ofdeath, but such cases require further study. Finally, as widows, if they did notremarry after the legally prescribed one years mourning (anul jelirii), womenhad full control over the household administration and over their childrens educa-tion and daughters endowment.

Although divorce (as opposed to annulment orsparation de corps, practiced inWestern Europe) was available in ancien rgime Romania, in the early stages of afamilys breakdown, the church attempted mediation and conciliation, recommend-ing initially the integrity of the family, largely on the basis of Christian moral values.Cases of divorce heard by the ecclesiastic tribunal were handled with a mix of what

has been termed a policy of mercy43

in the face of human frailty and a firm eco-nomic strategy for keeping divorced, dclass, or abandoned women and orphanedchildren away from the states treasure chests and off the streets.

At this stage, one cannot point to clear trends and shifts in Romanian ancienrgime legal practices and one should recognize that it is premature to talk of lib-eralizing trends in the application of matrimonial and dowry legislation. One can

point, though, to the fact that, especially after the Callimachi and the CarageaCodes, the emphasis was increasingly placed on a standardized and neatly catego-rized jurisprudence, and less on the moral values underlining individuals legalrights. This, and other factors, led arguably to the gradual erosion of the traditionallyclose links between church and state in matters of law.

Romanian society of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century was politicallyand economically very precarious: underdevelopment, corruption, wars, foreign(Ottoman or Russian) military occupation, unstable political rgimes, disease, andnatural disasters contributed to a climate of anxiety in which men and women of allclasses must have found it difficult to remain morally upright. They grappled tenta-tively with issues of morality, legality, duties and rights, church and state, public and

private spaces, in a traditional, transitional society struggling toward a clearer senseof its own identity and of its own institutions. However, the language some of themused shows concerns that went beyond mere human acquisitiveness and mundaneself-interest, and touched on issues of affective family bonds and Christian spiritual-

ity in a besieged world where such aspirations might have been obscured by thedemands of mere survival.



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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am particularly grateful to Dr. Violeta Barbu and Dr. Constana Vintil-GhituleScufrom the Nicolae Iorga Historical Research Institute in Bucharest (Romania) for

their generosity in providing valuable research material and in making the results oftheir own work available to me. They are among the pathbreakers in the recentrevival of social and family history in Romania.

I also wish to thank Dr. Jane Rendall and Dr. Geoff Cubitt from the University of York(UK) for the support they kindly gave me through years of postgraduate research.

NOTES

1. This article draws on material from my unpublished PhD thesis, Women and Societyin the Romanian Principalities, 17501850, The University of York (UK), 2004. In thecourse of this study, the designations Romania and Romanian Principalities (Wallachia

and Moldavia) are used interchangeably. Romania is used anachronistically for ease ofreference, as the name was not actually used before 1862. The names used in the period stud-ied (17501830) were Valahia and Muntenia for Wallachia and Moldova for Moldavia.The term Moldo-Wallachia was used as well, especially by French speakers. Throughoutthis period, both Principalities were tribute-paying dominions under Ottoman suzerainty, and,from 1774 onward, under a Russian protectorate. The names of ruling princes are given intheir Romanian variants, as used in the period: e.g., Rom. Ipsilanti rather than Gk.Ypsilantis.

2. Violeta Barbu, De la comunitatea patrimonial la comuniunea de destin: Zestrea nara Romneasc n secolul al XVII-lea [From Patrimonial Community to DestinedCommunion: The Dowry in Seventeenth-Century Wallachia], in De la comunitate la

societateStudii de istoria familiei din ara Romneasc sub VechiulRegim [From Communityto SocietyStudies in the History of the Family in Ancien Rgime Wallachia], ed. V. Barbu(Bucharest: Institutul Cultural Romn, 2007), 22.

3. TheIpsilanti Code, chap. Pentru zestre, par. 5; theDonici Manual, chap. 33, par. 1.For the modern editions used in this study, see below, note 12.

4. For legislative attempts to curb ill-matched marriagesfor instance between nativeboyars and Greek merchants seeking upward mobility, or between boyars and nonboyarssee Constana Vintil-Ghiulescu, Ordinea domestic i ordinea public ntre Stat iBiseric (17101834) [Domestic Order and Public Order between State and Church,17101834], inDe la comunitate, ed. V. Barbu, (Bucharest: Institutul Cultural Romn, 2007),174-244, 188-91.

5. In Moldavia, dowries could be given not only to daughters but also to sons. Out of theforty dowry documents listed by L. T. Boga for Bessarabia (the Moldavian area between therivers Prut and Dniester, secured by Russia in 1812 and part of the future Soviet Moldavia)for the years 1734 to 1844, four were dowries given to sons, a feature that Boga considers asoriginating in Moldavian unwritten customary law. See Documente basarabene, ed. L. T.Boga, Chiinu: Extras din Buletinul comisiei monumentelor istorice, 1928), vol. 1, Prefa,II. For dowries given to sons, see also Doc. 7/1839 in Documente botonene, ed. N. Iorga,(Bucharest: Buletinul Comisiei istorice a Romniei, 1927), 6:31-34; and Iorga,Anciens docu-ments de droit roumains (Paris-Bucharest: Imprimerie Datina Romneasc, 1930), 2:295.There is evidence for dowries given to grooms in seventeenth-century Wallachia, but thesemay have been simply counter-dowries or prenuptial giftsa practice possibly imported fromTransylvania. Cf. Barbu, De la comunitatea patrimonial, 70-71.

6. The format that gradually imposed itself for dowries in Wallachia was created byMetropolitan Antim Ivireanu [Antim of Iviria] around 1700. Cf. Constana Ghiulescu,Zestrea ntre norm i practic. ara Romneasc n secolul al XVII-lea (I) [Dowries



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between Legal Norm and Practice. Seventeenth-Century Wallachia], Studii i materiale deistorie medie, XVIII (2000): 213.

7. Boga, ed.,Documente basarabene, 1:13. For other dowries listing items not givensee, ibid., 13, 17-18.

8. Ibid., 21-22.9. For a short study on the use of malediction in governmental and ecclesiastical docu-ments from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuryin a Wallachian contextsee CristinaCodarcea, La maldiction dans les anciens documents de la Valachie (XIVeXVIe sicles),

Revue des tudes sud-est-europennes, XXXII, 1-2 (1994): 53-61. More recently, AndreeaIancu has analyzed the legal and symbolic value of malediction in testaments. See her studyBinecuvntarea i blestemul prinilor n discursul testamentar (Bucureti, sfrit de secolXVIIInceput de secol XIX) [Parental Blessing and Malediction in TestamentsBucharest,Late EighteenthEarly Nineteenth Centuries], Studii i materiale de istorie medie, XXI(2003): 57-70.

10. Studii i documente, ed. N. Iorga (Bucharest: Editura Ministerului de Instrucie Public,

1904), 7:152-53.11. Uricarul, ed. Theodor Codrescu, (Iai: Tipografia Buciumului Romn, 1889), 11:249-50.12. For the link between modernization and shifts in dress codes in nineteenth-century

Romania, see my study Women, Fashion, and Europeanisation in the RomanianPrincipalities17501830, in Women in the Ottoman BalkansGender, Culture, and

History, ed. Amila Buturovi and Irvin C. Schick (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 201-30.13. Boga, ed.,Documente basarabene:Foi de zestre 17341844, 1:29.14. The term Phanariot rgimes refers to the period (1711/41821) when the Romanian

Principalities were ruled by Ottoman-appointed Princes (Hospodars) selected from membersof wealthy Greek and Levantine families living in the Phanar quarter of Constantinople.

15. I have used the modern editions of the legal codes, as follows:ndreptarea legii (1652),(Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romne, 1962);Pravilniceasca condic(1780)ediie critic (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romne, 1957);Sobornicescul hrisov (1785)ediie critic (Bucharest: Editura Academiei RepubliciiPopulare Romne, 1958); Codul Callimachi (1817)ediie critic (Bucharest: EdituraAcademiei Republicii Populare Romne, 1958); Legiuirea Caragea (1818)ediie critic(Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romne, 1955); Manualul juridic allui

Andronache Donici (1814)ediie critic (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii PopulareRomne, 1959). They were all edited by collectives under Andrei Rdulescu.

16. Departamentul de cremenalion. Din activitatea unei instane penale muntene(17941795) [The Criminal Department. The Activity of a Wallachian Penal Court 17941795],ed. Ligia Livad-Cadeschi and Laureniu Vlad (Bucharest: Nemira, 2002), 10.

17. Ibid., 12.

18. Cf. Vintil-Ghiulescu, Ordinea domestic, 197.19. Ibid., 225-26.20. For the various names used in the period to designate the ecclesiastic tribunal in

Wallachia and for bibliographic references relevant to its operation, see Vintil-Ghiulescu,Ordinea domestic, 180, note 16. The registers of the Wallachian Metropolitanate are auniquely rich archival source for the study of the family in Romania.

21. Surete i izvoade [Documents and Records], ed. Gh. Ghibnescu (Iai: Editura ViaaRomneasc, 1914), Doc. LIX, 8:68-69.

22.Acte judiciare din ara Romneasc, 17751781 [Legal Documents from Wallachia,17751781], ed. Gh. Cron, Al. Constantinescu, A. Popescu, Th. Rdulescu, Ctin. egneanu,Bucureti, Ed. Academiei (Bucharest: Ed. Academiei Republicii Socialiste Romnia, 1975),

Doc. 693, 749.23. Ibid., Doc. 744, 799.24. Ibid., Doc. 302, 330-31.



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25. Ibid., Doc. 454, 502-03.26. Ibid., Doc. 816, 880-81.27. Boga, ed.,Documente basarabene: Hrisoave i cri domneti 16071806, 14:92-96.28. Cron et al., eds.,Acte judiciare, Doc. 250, 273-74.

29. Ibid., Doc. 251, 275, andRegeste i documente, ed. I. Filitti (Bucharest: Lupta, 1938), 2:7.30. Iorga, ed., Studii i documente, 16:79-82.31. Filitti, ed., Regeste i documente, Familia Sltineanu (17121862), 2:21. Cf. also

Catincas dowry of 1835 quoted in the same collection.32. Cron et al., eds.,Acte judiciare, Doc. 922, 981-82.33. Ibid., Doc. 458, 507-08 and Doc. 461, 511-12.34. For a study of testaments in the Romanian ancien rgime, see Andreea-Roxana Iancu,

Motenirea prin testament: ntre voina individual i solidaritatea de familie (Bucureti,sfrit secol XVIII-nceput de secol XIX) [Inheritance by Testament: Between IndividualWill and Family Solidarity, Bucharest, Late EighteenthEarly Nineteenth Centuries], inDe lacomunitate, ed. V. Barbu (Bucharest: Institutul Cultural Romn, 2007), 245-94.

35. More on attitudes to death in Violeta Barbu, Sic moriemur: The Discourse uponDeath in Wallachia during the Ancien Rgime, Revue roumaine dhistoire, XXXIII, 1-2(1994): 101-21.

36. There were three classes of boyars.37. Boga, ed.,Documente basarabene, Testamente i danii 16721858, 3:15-19. For the

use of the curse as legal procedure, see above, note 9.38. For dowries given to sons, see above, note 4.39. Boga, ed.,Documente basarabene, 3:20-2.40. Ibid., 82-85.41. For the entire text and analysis of a similar document, see Gheorghe Lazr, Familie

i sentiment n Vechiul Regim romnesc. Note pe marginea testamentului lui Radu GoranOlnescu [Family and Sensibility in the Romanian Ancien Rgime. Observations on the LastWill and Testament of Radu Goran Olnescu], Studii i materiale de istorie medie, XXI(2003): 47-56.

42. From a growing body of research, here is a selective list. For the seventeenth century,see Violeta Barbu,De bono coniugaliO istorie a familiei din araRomneasc n secolulal XVIIlea (Bucharest: Meridiane, 2003. For the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, see

Bonnes et mauvaises moeurs dans la socit roumaine dhier et daujourdhui, ed. IonelaBlu and Constana Vintil-Ghiulescu (Bucharest: New Europe College, 2005; ConstanaVintil-Ghiulescu, Divorce and Divortiality in Eighteenth Century Romanian Society,Sdost-Forschungen (Munich) 63-64 (20042005): 188-210; Idem, Marriage withoutContract in Romanian Society (Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries),Romanian Journal of

Population Studies (Cluj), 1 (2008): 5-18.

43. Daniel Barbus term, cited in Vintil-Ghiulescu, Ordinea domestic, 227.