Back in January, I was surprised to read a post from Sam Kemp explaining
that Mahler ...

>...  was a social outcast from the start as only the eldest son of a
>Jewish family could legally marry at this time - and so his father was
>regarded as illegitimate.

I was surprised at this information, and made some further inquiries
about this on other lists to which I'm subscribed, w/ responses indicating
similar surprise, although acknowledging that such prohibitions on marriage
might have existed.

Today I was alerted to a Web site:

   http://www.primenet.com/~randols/family/letters/1994-2.html

containing a family letter by Randol Schoenberg (whom I remember from
the Prodigy Classical Music BB) describing his efforts at tracking down
relatives in the old country and including the following:

   George and Sonja Teller sent me a bibliography from a new book on
   Czech Jews which may hold some more keys to our history.  Did you
   know that until 1848 there was a limit on the number of Jewish families
   in Czechoslovakia.  Many Czech Jews had to emigrate to Hungary in
   order to marry and start families, which accounted for over half the
   Hungarian Jewish families by 1900.

I wonder if this is related to the reported restrictions on marriage
eligibility of Jewish males in Bohemia.

Walter Meyer