Courtship and Marriage – Regency Style

This week and next, I’m super pleased to welcome guest blogger CHERYL BOLEN.

In addition to being extraordinarily active in two Houston-area chapters of Romance Writers of America, Cheryl is the acclaimed author of eight Regency-set historical novels published by Harlequin Historical and Zebra. Her books have placed in several writing contests, including the Daphne du Maurier, and have been translated into 11 languages. She was named Notable New Author in 1999, and in 2006 she won the Holt Medallion for Best Historical Novel.

CHERYL BOLEN‘s Regency-based romances are filled with the everyday details that immerse the reader in her world. Regency readers are very picky; they know their period and don’t hesitate to let authors know if they’ve gotten the costumes, the food, or the cussing wrong. As a reader, Cheryl has loved the period and its major chroniclers for a long time. As a dedicated writer, she’s researched her world thoroughly. Now her readers – and her awards – say she’s got it just right!

And now, as promised, CHERYL BOLEN discusses courtship, both royal and common, during the Regency period. Next Monday, she’ll conclude with details of Regency weddings. Enjoy!

Courting and Marriage in the Regency

by Cheryl Bolen

Engagements and marriages in the Regency were so vastly different than they are today that when an author “modernizes” these customs, it makes her book a wallbanger (as in throwing at the wall) to me.

The Regency was not the era of arranged marriages, unless these pertained to members of the Royal Family.  However, royals whose marriages were arranged—as was the Prince Regent’s— participated in the selection and rejection of proposed suitors. English royals typically married those born to other Protestant European royal families.

In the Regent’s case, he had never met the cousin he wed until the actual wedding ceremony. He was not happy when he saw her. He turned to the peer who had brought her from Germany and said, “Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy.”

Love matches were definitely the norm in the Regency but were not the same as today’s. A significant difference in so-called love matches was that the upper class had to pick potential spouses from a select pool. Aristocrats wed other aristocrats or persons who shared their social sphere.

A title holder could (but rarely did) marry beneath him. In 1812 the lecherous 42-year-old Lord Berwick married the 15-year-old courtesan who was sister to the famed courtesan Harriette Wilson. And the Duke of St. Albans married a former actress in 1827. Younger aristocratic sons, however, could be cut off completely if they married a woman from the lower classes.

Genteel young ladies almost never engaged in premarital sex. They were shielded from sex and not permitted to be alone with gentlemen. Even Lady Caroline Lamb, who later became famous for her adultery with Lord Byron (and others), was a complete innocent when she married William Lamb (later Prime Minister Lord Melbourne) at age 19. She was shocked and unhappy over the action that robbed her virginity, and it took her some time to recover.

Marrying Relatives

It was also extremely common to marry first cousins. When Lady Caroline Ponsonby fell in love with William Lamb and agreed to marry him, it caused much consternation in her mother’s family. Her first cousin, who would become the 6^th Duke of Devonshire, became hysterical when he learned Caroline would marry because he had always thought to marry her himself, even though she was four years his senior. And her uncle, Earl Spencer, was furious because he’d always wanted Caroline to wed his heir.

Slightly later than the Regency, Queen Victoria married her first cousin. The Regent’s daughter had wed the brother of Queen Victoria’s mother.

In some quarters, uncles could even wed their nieces. In 1824, the powerful banking magnate James Rothschild, age 32, married the 19-year-old daughter of his brother. This may have been practiced only within the Jewish faith.

It was unlawful in England for a woman to marry her deceased husband’s brother, or for a man to marry his diseased wife’s sister.

So-Called Love

Sheltered young brides-to-be from Britain’s “Upper Ten Thousand” often thought themselves in love with gentlemen they scarcely knew. Men, too, were known to become besotted over ladies with whom they had barely spoken.

Since there was little opportunity for intimacies, these lovelorn couples had to proclaim their marital intentions before being accorded the opportunity to initiate any intimacies.

A gentleman would lose his honor were he to “cry off” a prospective marriage. A man’s honor, in those days, was valued above everything—even happiness.

The Duke of Wellington suffered a miserable marriage to a woman he loathed rather than cry off. Arthur Wellesley (later Wellington), a career soldier, had little exposure to well-born ladies. When he met Kitty Packenham he immediately fancied himself in love with the 27-year-old. But since he was a younger son with no financial prospects, her parents would not consent to the marriage.

In the next ten years he made a fortune while soldiering in India, and his continued interest in Miss Packenham (whom he had not seen) was communicated to her. Her family then deemed him acceptable for their now 37-year-old maiden daughter. He, therefore, fled to her but was repulsed at what he saw. “She has grown ugly, by Jove!” he announced to his brother, but he was honor bound to marry her. Once they were wed, he came to know that she was also stupid and irritating to be around.

One man who did cry off was wealthy gentleman land owner Edward Turner, who jilted one of the most widely read authors in the Regency, Hannah More (1745-1833). Interestingly, neither of them ever married, and he always revered her. He just had a deep aversion to marriage. As was a custom of the day, Turner bestowed on More “pecuniary heart balm” in the form of a £200 annuity (roughly equivalent to $60,000 in today’s dollars) she would receive for the rest of her life.

Engagements

Did a gentleman declare himself to the lady first or to her father? Sometimes a gentleman asked a maiden’s father for permission to court the daughter; sometimes the gentlemen declared himself first to the girl, then upon receiving encouragement, would seek out the father.

Once consent was reached and the father involved, the legal documents would be drawn. Most often the girl would bring a dowry. The 5^th Duke of Devonshire, one of the richest men in the kingdom, bestowed an enormous dowry of £30,000 on his eldest legitimate daughter and the same sum on his illegitimate daughter but only £10,000 to his second legitimate daughter. (When her brother succeeded, he gave her £20,000 more to make amends for their father’s slight.) Lord Byron received a marriage settlement of £20,000 from the parents of Annabella Milbanke, who wasn’t as much of an heiress as he needed to wed. His lavish lifestyle had put him in debt more than £20,000—which is almost $6 million today.

The marriage agreements would also specify how much “pin money” the bride would receive annually from her husband. In Lady Caroline Ponsonby’s case, the Melbournes agreed to give their son’s wife £400 a year.

Provisions in the marriage contract would also be made for the wife in the event of her husband’s death.

Regency brides did not receive engagement rings.

Once the settlements were reached, the bride and her mother would busy themselves purchasing a trousseau. It was customary to send off a daughter with new clothing, gloves, shoes, and other items of apparel (more on wedding wear later).

I have never seen an example of an official engagement or wedding announcement in an extant newspaper, but it’s possible they may have appeared. Certainly, rumors of nuptials would be printed as well as caricatured in the press. (And many of us Regency writers have certainly used the device of bridal announcements in newspapers.)

The Church of England required the reading of marriage banns for three consecutive Sundays, but this could be circumvented by getting a special license from the Archbishop of Canterbury, a procedure which men of means usually followed. This could be obtained at some considerable expense at the archbishop’s office in Doctors’ Commons in London.

Compared to engagements of today, Regency engagements were typically quite short. Often, a wedding would take place within a month of the couple’s initial declaration.

Weddings  [To be continued on Monday, May 16...]

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