Courtship and Marriage in Queen Anne's reign 1702-1714

 

 

BooksWeLove published three of my classic historical romances, with strong themes, set in the reign of Queen Anne Stuart, 1702-1714. Tangled Love, Far Beyond Rubies and The Captain and The Countess. I am now writing a fourth one set in the same era.

When Queen Anne Stuart, niece of Charles II, ruled from 1702 to 1714 attitudes towards children and their education began to change.

* * *

Courtship

In 18th century England some sections of society turned its back on the licentiousness of the previous age and became straitlaced. The art of courtship began to concentrate on marriage instead of seduction. Young ladies read romances and the idea of marriage for love made slow but inevitable progress.

Education and Marriage

Mary Astell (1666-1731) advocated equal opportunities for women and has been described as the first English feminist. She wrote: If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves? Mary Astell believed education would help women to avoid a hasty or ill-considered choice of husband.

She pleaded with men to accord women the dignity of being “Reasonable Creatures and not confine them with chain and block to the chimney corner. Prior to marriage, a man wanted to know what a potential wife would bring to the union, how many acres or how much ready coin she had. Mary Astell considered both this and marriage for love wrong. In her opinion whatever his motives for tying the knot were, a man was governed by irregular appetites. However, Mary’s voice may be described as one crying in the wilderness. From early childhood girls were taught their main aim in life was to find a husband.

Love and Marriage

       At the beginning of the century Steele and Addison published articles in The Spectator and The Tatler which would appeal to women and offered them suave advice.

In an article in The Spectator, 1711, Steele wrote that the most agreeable part of a man’s life was courtship when Love, Desire and Hope, all pleasing motions of the soul rose in the pursuit. He approved of long betrothals when the passion should strike root and other strength before marriage be grafted onto it. A long course of hopes and expectations fixes the idea in our minds and habituates us to a fondness to the person beloved. Before marriage we cannot be too inquisitive and discerning in the faults of the person beloved, nor after it too dim-sighted and superficial.

Arranged Marriages

An ambitious young man could do no better than to marry an heiress. Among the upper classes arranged marriages for financial advantage were usual. Heaven help the prospective bridegroom who complained that an heiress chosen for him was unattractive.

In the play, The Rivals, Sir Anthony Absolute gives his son no sympathy. Odds life, Sir! If you have the estate, you must take it with the livestock on it, as it stands. In Sheridan’s The Duenna Don Jerome tells his son: I must confess that I had a great affection for your mother’s ducats. I married her for her fortune, and she married me in obedience to her father and a very happy couple we were. We never expected any love from one another and so we were never disappointed. If we grumbled a little now and then it was soon over, for we were never fond enough of each other to quarrel; and when the good woman died, why I had as lief she had lived.

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