Nichtehelichkeit als Normalität: Ledige badische Mütter in Basel im 19. Jahrhundert

»Unemaritality« as normality in the mid-nineteenth century: a microhistorical study of family and sexuality. Children born outside of marriage are no special feature today. Very different 200 years ago: In the early 19th century, the rate of illegitimate children rose from before two to four percent to now over 20 percent, locally - for example in the southwest of the Grand Duchy of Baden - even to over 60 percent. This enormous increase has been registered, widely commented and often perceived as threatening by bourgeois and church sides. Karin Orth examines the structural causes of this increase on two regional Baden case examples and the Swiss metropolis of Basel and shows the practices, experiences and effects of "illegitimacy": "male acquaintances" and the non-marital "Beyschlaf", (concealed) pregnancy and childbirth, "child absence". and "Child murder" as well as giving birth in the Basler Bürgerspital. In the centre are around 400 single young women from the Southwest of Baden. They were mostly raised in underpeasant families who lived "illegitimate" as normal in Baden and transferred this pattern of non-marital family formation to Basel. Using their example, the microcosm of »illegitimate« is analyzed exemplarily.