2. 1. Choosing Spouse
Economic, social or political consolidation
Marriage was primarily a contact between two
families for the exchange of concrete
benefits.
The typical landlord would be delighted if his
sons married wealthy heiresses, regardless
of the source of their fortunes.
Daughters had to marry off well, without loss
of status.To find and secure suitable
marriages for their daughters was matter of
ceaseless calculating and campaingning for
the landowner and his wife
3. “If a young woman has
beauty birth breeding wit
sense manners modesty
and all to an extreme; If
she has not money she is
nobody she had as good
want them all; nothing but
money now reccomends a
woman; the men play the
game all into their own
hands.” Moll Flanders
4. The villa was built in
1745 by Fabrizio
Grech as a dowry for
the marriage of his
daughter Maria
Teresa to Nicolas
Perdicoma
i Bologna .
To make his daughter attractive on the marriage market, a
landowner customarily bestowed a dowry on his daughter at the
time of her marriage.
Having daughters was a serious drain an family’s sources
5. These circumstances made marriage arrangements within
the land owning orders a matter of delicate negotitation
“So far, madam, from your being concerned alone [in your
marriage], your concern is the least, or surely the least
important. It is the honor of your family which is concerned
in this alliance; you are only the instrument. Do you
conceive, mistress, that in an intermarriage between
kingdoms . . . The princess herself is alone considered in th
e match? No, it is a match between two kingdoms rather
than between two persons. The same happens in great
families such as ours. The alliance between the families is
the principal matter.” Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones
6. Personal affection,
companionship and friendship Physical attraction
“ - You know she has nothing and you may have several ladies
with good fourtunes.
- I love the girl and I will never please my pocket in marrying
and not please my fancy.” Moll Flanders
7. Parents threaten to withdraw financial
support
Young men and women among the lowest
levels of laboring poor could marry without
fearing that their parents would punish them
through disinheritance because there was no
property to be inherited.
8. 2. Wedding
The Wedding of Stephen Beckingham and Mary Cox - William Hogarth,
1729
11. 1753 Marriage Act
An Act for the Better Preventing of
Clandestine Marriage
Lord Hardwicke
The first statutory legislation
Parental consent under the age
of 21
In the church
By regular clergymen
During daytime
14. 4. Divorce
It was only the wealthy who could afford the expenses
Act of Parliament
Religious Ecclesiastical Court
But for poor who had little property dissolving marriage was
much more easier. All that required was community’s
approval, consent of all parties and a change of households.
Divorce would not become legal alternative for the majority until
1857.
Wife sale
