The family oppression of Julianna Młodecka (1731–ca. 1799). A contribution to research on domestic abuse in the Old Polish times

Abstract

The article presents the story of the unhappy childhood and early youth of Julianna Młodecka, daughter of Aleksander Młodecki, the Braclaw cupbearer, and his second wife Konstancja Wereszczakówna. After her father died and her mother married the Busk treasurer Józef Chociszewski, Julianna was treated in an inhumane way for several years; she was cruelly beaten and later also starved. Treated as a servant, she was forced to do housework and take care of her younger siblings; she was also denied education. After a few unsuccessful attempts, she finally managed to escape. To avoid returning under her mother’s punishing hand, she decided to instantly marry her savior, the district scribe Michał Wydżga, who was much older than her. In the following years, he supported Julianna and her brother Kajetan in their attempts at regaining their inheritance. When her husband died, Julianna married another widower, the Krasnystaw huntsman Antoni Dłużewski. After both of her husbands’ deaths, she had no choice but to feud with her grown-up stepsons about her life estate rights, in the interest of her own juvenile children. At the age of 58, she married her third husband, a lot younger than her, Antoni Dzierżanowski. The article focuses primarily on Julianna’s early life, up to her escape at the age of 16. The details of her mother’s bad-tempered ways were drawn from Julianna’s and her husband’s tes-timonies, confirmed by her brother and uncle, and especially from the sworn depositions and witnesses’ accounts revealed during a hearing before the consistory court in Chełm.