A dispensation request for consanguinity from southern CorsicaThe example entry below is from a registro matrimonialum of the archdiocese of Ajaccio [ref AD Corse-du-Sud G1/9]. This book records both depositions made for enquiries concerned with marriage, and requests for dispensation.
1754 Monday 9 September 21. There appear Deacon Francesco Maria Balesi q Pietro and Cesare Antonio Petri of Quenza who at the request of Anton Padovo q Ettore and Maria Vittoria q Anton Sebastiano firstly have sworn one after the other to testify, and they bear witness as below, that is to their poverty and destitution, and to their kinship in double 33 and 44 of consanguinity as in the tree below, without sexual intercourse, and neither has there been sexual intercourse between them or suspicion of it, they offer this to the best of their respective knowledge.
The couple are related in twice in the 3rd degree (double 33) and once in the 4th degree (44). They plead poverty and destitution which given their status is unlikely to be literally true, but points to a frequent excuse for making close marriages. Requests of this nature were made both by local elites and the less affluent pastoralists. Dispensations for kinship are common in 18th century Corsica, and cases of multiple consanguinity, such as this, are not rare. Between 1710 and 1769 about one third of all marriages celebrated in Quenza had a dispensation, almost always for consanguinity. Affinal impediments alone are quite rare but they are sometimes found along with consanguinal ones. There are no dispensations for spiritual kinship. They appear to be rare in southern Corsica at this time and were, perhaps, not persued in the light of the burden of work for the episcopal authorities. A strong preference for status endogamy and small population size go a long way to explaining the frequency of close marriage. The social requirement to maintain strong kinship based networks also played a significant role. During the same period, Ascoli, with a much larger and more geographically mobile population, provides an illuminating contrast. Dispensed marriages rarely constitute more than 2% of all marriages. However, there is strong evidence of the use of matrimonial strategies designed, at least in part, to get round ecclesiastical prohibitions. Among the core population between 15 and 20% of marriages fall into three categories - marriages with kin and affines immediately outside the prohibited degrees, affinal relinkages (rechainement d'alliance and double marriage (e.g. two brothers to two sisters). Affinal relinkage denotes marriage between members of two groups of consanguinal kin, who had been previously linked through another marriage, but have no direct consanguinal or affinal ties. For example two unrelated persons marry in the first generation, then the children of their siblings make another marriage at a later date.
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