Courtship and Marriage in the 1800s

At the August meeting we had Tom Doig who travelled from Hertfordshire to speak about “Courtship and Marriage in the 1800’s". Tom is a social historian who specializes in labouring women of the 1800’s. He explained that right from the earliest times it was important for young couples to get married so that their children could inherit any goods they might own, the only reason for the marriage was to produce children. It was almost expected that the girls would be pregnant when they married, this ensured that they were fertile. The upper and middle classes were constantly moving round the country paying visits, because they took their servants with them it was a good way of the lower classes meeting other servants and thus people from different areas married. Another place to meet was at hiring fairs. After the hiring fairs there would be a bonding meal for the new servants to get to know each other. When a couple decided to get together they would go to the market square and exchange a kiss to let people know that they were a couple, later on they would exchange rings. Lots of parents encouraged their children to get pregnant before marriage and this was called bundling. Tom said that the Victorians were not the prudes we now think they were. Paraphernalia was property brought to the marriage other than the dowery, that remained under the control of the married woman. Most women brought his and her shrouds which were backless, to the marriage which they had worked on during the weeks before the wedding, this showed they realised the uncertainty of life in those days, the longest marriages were not expected to last more than 30 years. Just because your ancestor signed the marriage certificate with an X did not mean that they could  not write.

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