Note 258-3 — Chapter III

In Würtemberg, the authorities were for the first time enjoined in 1633, to dissuade people from untimely marriages; in 1712 the consent of the authorities to a marriage was made dependent on the evidence of a religious education and the capacity to support a family. Between 1807 and 1828, all restrictions on marriage because of incapacity to support a family were removed. According to the Bavarian Penal Code of 1751 (I, 11, § 7), persons who had married without governmental authorization, and who could not afterwards support themselves except by begging, were sentenced to at least one year in the workhouse and to be whipped once a week. Only a short time ago scarcely any one in Bavaria had a real and unquestionable right to marry. (Braun, Zwangscölibat für Mittellose in Faucher's Vierteljahrsschrift, 1867, IV, 8.) Austrian law relating to the proof of the certainty of maintaining one's self by one's trade etc: 12 Jan., 1815; 4 Sept., 1825.