XVIII amžiaus studijos / The Eighteenth Century Studies

The analysis of sociodemographic characteristics of the mothers firstly revealed the mystery of illegitimate maternities: while we do not have any information about at least a quarter of these mothers’ social and geographical origin, this issue reveals the dominant negative attitude towards these women at the time. Collected data from parish books led to the anticipated conclusion that the majority of mothers had lower social status, although some of them were part of the nobility. The analysis of given surnames of these mothers showed that the majority of them were unmarried. This fact suggests that for some mothers their illegitimate pregnancy was the first pregnancy. While the scarcity of sources limits our knowledge about the social circumstances of illegitimate births, the analysis of given surnames of these mothers, combined with other sources, leads to a likely conclusion that illegitimate births could occur as a product of failed promises of marriage, sexual violence or adultery. The analysis of mothers’ geographical background showed that the majority of them belonged to parishes where they chose to baptize their illegitimate children. While there is a possibility that some of these women received help from the fathers or relatives, the author of this article argues that the research findings demonstrate the lack of social and economic support of mothers rather than community acceptance and tolerance towards these women. A minority of the mothers were from distant places and this data allowed the author to form a compelling conclusion that some women, due to the lack of support, were forced to seek better opportunities in other parishes.