Dobrescu, Adela (szerk.): Samcult. Revistă de cultură şi civilizaţie (Satu Mare - Mátészalka, 2010)
Dr. Paula Cătălina Virag: The family of the romanian village int he country of Satu Mare during the end of 19th-the 20th centuries
The family of the Romanian village in the county of Satu Mare during the end of 19th - the 20th centuries dr. Paula Cătălina Virág The issue of founding a family and the family structures is worth to draw the attention of researchers, especially in the county of Satu Mare because of the institutional, ethnic, linguistic, confessional and cultural diversity. We aim to investigate the demographic issue of the Romanian village of Satu Mare County, during the Austro- Hungarian period. The county of Satu Mare is situated in the north-western Romania today, but it belonged to the eastern part of Hungary in the 19th century, spreading over a surface of 4.405 km 2; delimited by the County of Maramureş towards the east, by the Solnoc-Dăbâca County in the south-east, by the Salaj County in the south, by the Szabolcs and Bereg Counties in the west, and by the Ugocea County in the north. It is known that the Austro-Hungarian Empire wasone ofthemost heterogeneous European countries in terms of nations and confessions who lived together on its territory. This is true for Hungary and for the Satu Mare County, where censuses organized by the Hungarian authorities have identified Romanians, Hungarians, Germans (Schwab), Jews, Ukrainians, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Gypsies etc, all living together. Their confessions were comprised in the group of the 7 religions encountered in other regions of the dual monarchy as well, namely: the Greek Catholic, the Calvinist, the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, the Orthodox, the Unitarian, and the Mosaic religions. We included in our investigation the ethnic, linguistic and confessional realities of the county that reflect upon the family structures formed on the territory of Satu Mare County. The coexistence of many ethnic groups, with their traditions and mentalities, has led to phenomena that are met throughout Transylvania today. The fundamental sources we used in our investigation are the marital registers of the parish, the brochures containing church statistics published by bishoprics, and the censuses organized by the Hungarian authorities in 1870-1910. The studies of historical demography on family reconstitution require also careful investigation of the legislation on major demographic phenomena, which strongly points out the interference of interests between the church and the power of the state. The church, an intermediary between man and divinity, had to establish the fundamental moments in man’s life: birth, marriage, death. The church dogmas and canons have harmonized with the interests at that time of the civil power, but without leaving out the Christian fundamentals. It was generally accepted that the functions of the state belong to the sphere of the material life (economic, political and social). The long cooperation between the state and church has finalized with the subordination of the church to the state at the end of the 19th century. The laws XXXI and XXXIII of 1894 have cut the power of the church to validate the major acts in the individual’s life, this validation being given exclusively to the state. So, the official character of the documents issued by the church became simply religious. These laws would not cease the church to assist the birth, the marriage, the death or the whole process of family life, only the papers issued by the clergy were no longer a public, official document, but religious. The censuses organized by the Hungarian authorities between 1870-1880, show a decrease of the population in Satu Mare County, because of the cholera epidemics which was spread throughout the empire, and also because of local epidemics recorded in the parish registers by the local clergy. After 1880, the population in Satu Mare county increases on the basis of socio-economic conditions favorable to the founding of new families and to proliferation. According to the data collected by the Hungarian authorities during censuses, the most numerous population of Satu Mare County was represented by the Hungarians, followed by Romanians and Germans. The official data did not register any Jews or Gypsies on the Territory of Satu Mare County. But the reality is that these two ethnic categories were included in the Hungarian group, thus increasing their number. From the confessional point of view, the greatest category was the Greek-Catholics, who were mostly Romanian. The Jewish population increased spectacularly, and after 1867, they were not registered as a distinct nationality. We applied the methodology of M. Fleury 53
