(Source: Marriage of Aboriginal Natives, Corranderk, by Frederick Grosse (1828-1894))
This wood graving is borrowed to usher us into a similar scenario on Taiwan/Formosa between 1650 and 1661. At this time, the island was under the Dutch East India Company (better known as VOC, Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie), which had been ruling it for entrepot trade since 1624.
The Council of Matrimonial Affairs with four elected commissioners was entrusted regulating marriages between couples on the island. To become officially married, couples must:
(1) apply for 'marriage banns' at the Council with two or more relatives or friends;
(2) pass the interviews/investigations by commissioners to be qualified;
(3) have the banns put up in a church for three consecutive Sundays to see if there was objection;
(4) become officially married.
(Source: Banns of Peter Evers & Anna Cristine Alers published in March 1663)
According to Pol Heyns and Wei-chung Cheng who published the marriage records in trilingual style, 192 couples applied for banns between 1650 and 1661, with an average of 13 couples per year. Very "international"; with a higher number of European women living on the island than previously considered; and no record was made for Chinese settlers (pp. 33-35, Dutch Formosan Placard-book, Marriage, and Baptism Records).
(Published in 2005 by Ts'ao Yung-ho Foundation for Culture and Education, Taipei)
As I looked deeper into the marriage records, I found:
(1) While most grooms were Europeans, brides came from a variety of background: Europe, South Asia (India, Bengal, Sri Lanka), Southeast Asia (Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines), Japan (Hirado) and Formosa. Noticeably, many girls survived the Lamey (present-day Small Liuqiu小琉球) massacre in 1636 became the wives of men who might have been directly or indirectly involved in the murdering of their grandparents or parents.
(2) Though many Formosan brides were given European/Christian names (Maria, Hester, Sara, Monique, Anna, Judith, Catalina, Catherine, Magdalene, Elizabeth, Helena or Martha), some names, especially the last names, appeared aboriginal (Taguatel, Tamoringh, Tivorach, Teijsou, Tama Tackereij, Tama Telalou, Tama Tepojou). That ''Tama'' is especially intriguing; what does it mean? This invites further research.
(3) Although records show 192 couples applied for the banns during the decade, at least 90 of them were either widows (more) or widowers (less), meaning, first, applicants were in for the second or third marriage; second, marriages were often cut short by the untimely death of one partner.
Let's take three Marias of Lamey in this decade for example.
The first Maria was widowed twice before she married her third husband on June 13 1655, who was also a widower. Her second marriage lasted for two years and four months. (pp. 196 & 214)
The second Maria married two widowers, she herself being a widow in the second marriage. Her first marriage lasted for four years and seven months. (pp. 198, 204 & 238)
The third Maria was twice a widow before she married for the third time in 1659 with David Cotenburch. Though no record was found regarding the length of her first marriage, her second lasted for one year and eight months. (pp. 236 & 252)
Catarina van Lameij also married three Dutch men, surviving her first two husbands and met the third in 1650 (pp. 180 & 254). Esperance and Seraphina from India experienced a similar fate (pp. 220 & 260, 178 & 260). A German woman, Engeltjen Thomas van Flensburch, survived her first two husbands but was outlived by her third one (they married in 1656) who married a second wife in 1660 (pp. 224, 238 & 262).
Between 1650 and 1661, only two men of Lamey appeared in the marriage records. Vagjauw married twice, with Catharina from Coromandel Coast in 1658 and with Annica from Bengal in 1661 after Catharina passed away; Paulus de Klock married Margrita of Sinkan in 1661 after the death of his first wife Losia van Lameij (pp. 234 & 262).
It seems in the seventeenth century on Formosa women outlived men. While the top of the company echelon preferred "endogamy" (marrying Europeans), junior merchants, soldiers, schoolmasters, preachers, assistant preachers, free citizens and servants were open to availability. And I do wonder: How did they meet? Was it love, contingency or necessity? Why did many women from Lamey keep on remarrying? Was it a survival strategy or profession institution since they were survivors and removed from their homeland? What was their family life like?
Et cetera...et cetera.
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