Kest and marriage

What was "kest"? and why is it so important for the Jewish genealogist?

Kest (or Mezonot) was the practice whereby a bride's parents gave room and board to a newly wed couple for an agreed number of years.

Professor ChaeRan Freeze of Brandeis University describes this is in her book "Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia" (University of New England Press, 2002). The relevant pages are here: http://tinyurl.com/nwe3hc.

For a poor Jewish father unable to afford a significant dowry for his daughter kest would have been an important part of the marriage agreement.

Now the shidduch itself could very easily be made outside the shtetl. For centuries at the large markets held in the big cities Jewish men could be found making matches for their sons and daughters. And we all know from Sholom Aleichem that there was a shadchan in the smallest shtetl - did they form a loose network across the Pale?

The net result of all this activity was that men often married out of their shtetl - and as travel became easier with the advent of the railway - farther and farther away. And then thanks to kest they stayed away for at least some years. At the end of the agreed time they had work, were settled and many would not have resettled their new family to their old home shtetl.

The implications for the genealogist are:

1. The vital and some other records for the new family (often starting with the marriage) are in the bride's town.
2. The groom often maintains his family registration in his hometown, so entries in the family and revision lists are there - sometimes registrations are transferred to the bride's town, but this is not common.
3. The children of the marriage will normally think of their mother's hometown (and usually their birthplace) as their hometown: but as far as the Russian bureaucracy was concerned this was usually wrong.

This last point needs to be grasped with both hands. In my family, a putative cousin was totally adamant that his family came from Rakushik (Rokiskis) - and he was correct, in part: but it was his grandmother's family shtetl. His grandfather was born and registered in Salok (Salakas) and never transferred his registration. We needed to look at Salok lists to find the family link.

Why this discussion? watch this space...