John de Waal

A Brief History of Marriage

John de Waal

FAMILY EDUCATION TRUST

FAMILY EDUCATION TRUST
First published 2013
© Family Education Trust, 2013
ISBN
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Contents

Introduction 3
1. The Ancient World 5
2. Marriage in the Old Testament 9
3. Early Christian Marriage 13
4. Medieval Marriage 19
5. The Reformation and Beyond 29
6. Marriage in the 18th and 19th Centuries 37
7. The Great War 48
8. ‘A Land Fit for Heroes?’ 56
9. The Second World War and Beyond 63
10. ‘Families without Fatherhood’ 71
11. Where are we now? Marriage and Family
in the 21st Century 77
Conclusion 88
Bibliography 89
Picture credits 91
 For my wife, Margaret,
and our children,
Anne Louise, Johnny and Gerard.
Introduction

As far as we can tell marriage has always existed in the sense that
sexual relations between men and women have been subject to rules and
conventions. There has never been simply a ‘free-for-all’. In the chapters
that follow, I have attempted to trace the history of marriage from Bible
times, through the Christian centuries and down to the present day.
Although marriage customs may have varied from age to age, the meaning
of marriage has remained remarkably constant throughout history.
The further back in time we go, the more we see marriages being
arranged by parents, with financial considerations assuming a greater
importance than they do now. We shall consider people’s motives for
getting married through the centuries and the extent to which love has
been a factor. Many writers have suggested that love had little to do with
marriage until recent times but, as we shall see, it is not so simple.
Much of written history is about the ruling and educated elites and yet
they make up a tiny minority of those who have ever lived. What about
the silent majority of peasants and agricultural labourers from whom
most of us are descended? The evidence is thinner on the ground but we
shall try to do justice to them.
What I have found interesting in researching this brief history is
how marriage is often written from the point of view of women. While
there is a wealth of literature on women in history that touches on the
subject of marriage, much less has been written on men and marriage
from an historical perspective. This is curious because for much of history
men have played a dominant role in marriage. It is only in recent times
that some would claim that men are being sidelined and made almost
redundant.
The present-day debate about marriage and family is not entirely new.
One hundred years ago the seeds of dissension were already becoming
evident. G K Chesterton wrote a great deal about marriage in the light of
such disagreement. On ‘the basic idea of marriage’, he wrote that:

3
 A Brief History of Marriage

‘[T]he founding of a family must be on a firm foundation; [and] the rearing of

the immature must be protected by something patient and enduring. It is the
common conclusion of all mankind; and all common sense is on its side. A small
minority of what may be called the idle Intelligentsia, have, just recently and in
our corner of the world, criticised this idea of Marriage in the name of what they
call the Modern Mind. The first obvious or apparent question is how they deal
with the practical problem of children. The first apparent answer is that they do
not deal with it at all.’1

4 1 G K Chesterton, Brave New Family, Ignatius Press, 1990, p.34.

1 The Ancient World

Egypt (c3,000–31BC)
From earliest times marriage has been the recognised arrangement for men
and women living together. For the Egyptians, monogamy (the marriage
of one man to one woman) was the norm. Polygamy (the marriage of one
man to more than one woman) was allowed in exceptional circumstances
but usually only when the man was wealthy enough to support several
wives and when the first wife had not produced an heir. The Pharaohs
tended to be a law unto themselves – they were allowed to have many
wives and to marry very close relatives. In some instances a pharaoh was
even known to marry his sister or his daughter, though this was rare.
Although marriage appears always to have been considered a sacred
bond between a man and a woman, for many centuries it was not subject
to any formal legal code. The Egyptians are thought to be the first to
enshrine marriage into a framework of law.

An ancient Egyptian married couple An ancient Egyptian family

5
 A Brief History of Marriage

Girls would usually marry between the ages of 12 and 14. Young men
were normally in their early twenties. Most marriages were arranged – as
has been the custom in many cultures throughout recorded history. In the
New Kingdom period (16th – 11th centuries BC) the marriage contract
was drawn up between the husband and the bride’s father and was
concerned with property. By the time of the Third Intermediate Period
(11th – 7th centuries BC) the contract was between the husband and wife
and contained what looks like a pre-nuptial agreement with conditions
laid down for alimony2 in the case of divorce – which was possible if the
wife bore no sons.
In Egyptian society, the nuclear family, consisting of a mother and
father and their children, was the basic unit, with men and women
assuming what we would understand as traditional roles. It was a
patrilineal society, with inheritances usually passed down through the
male line – although in the absence of a male descendant women could
inherit wealth, manage or sell property in their own name and sign
contracts.
Although most marriages were arranged there is a great deal of
evidence from statues, poetry and paintings to suggest that many
marriages were marked by love, warmth and mutual respect.

Greece (c750-146BC)
For the Greeks romantic love between spouses was not considered
essential, but marriage was universally accepted as a social necessity.
Marriages were entered into by mutual agreement and involved quite
informal ceremonies. Men would usually marry in their late twenties
or thirties after they had completed their military service, while girls
generally married for the first time in their early teens.
The Greeks – as with many other cultures at the time – considered
romantic love, eros, as a kind of intoxication, the overpowering of reason
by ‘divine madness’ which enabled man to experience supreme happiness,
but this was often seen as separate from marriage.

2 Alimony refers to regular payments made – usually by a man – to his former wife following a divorce
6 or separation.
 The Ancient World

Rome (c509BC-AD476)
The ancient Romans followed a similar pattern of marriage to the
Egyptians and Greeks where monogamy was the rule. Marriage was again
originally considered a private matter rather than a public one and it was
not until the time of the Emperor Augustus (27BC-AD14) that rules and
regulations were introduced. Girls were typically 12 years old when they
first married, while boys were 14. Higher class Romans, the Patricians,
were forbidden to marry the lower classes, the Plebeians. Arrangements
did exist, however, for marriage between slaves and freedmen.
Among the wealthier classes, marriage was entered into with a
view to having children, to whom fathers could pass on an inheritance.
Nevertheless, love was desired. As Virgil said: ‘Omnia vincit amor’ – love
conquers all.3
For the Romans betrothal or engagement were optional, though if an
agreement to marry were broken there were legal remedies with financial
consequences for any such ‘breach of contract’. For the rich, marriage
always involved a dowry.4 Both Greeks and Romans forbade polygamy.

A Roman marriage ceremony. The couple

are observing the solemn ceremony of
clasping right hands, while the groom holds
in his other hand the marriage contract.
A Roman family Between them is the matron-of-honour.

3 Virgil, Bucolics, X, 69
4 A payment usually made by a bride’s father to the bridegroom at the time of the wedding. 7
 A Brief History of Marriage

Questions for Discussion

1. How did the practice of marriage in ancient Egypt differ from marriage
customs in Greece and Rome?
2. How does marriage in the Ancient World compare with marriage in 21st
century Western societies?
3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of marriage at an early age.
 (MWGYWWXLIFIRI½XWSVSXLIV[MWISJEREVVERKIHQEVVMEKI

8
2 Marriage in the
Old Testament

‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… Then God said, “Let
us make man in our image.” So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God he created him; male and female he created them.’1

The biblical account of creation in the opening chapter of the Book of

Genesis reaches its climax with the creation of the first man and woman.
In the following chapter, the nature of the relationship between the first
couple is revealed.
Having created the first man, the Lord God declared that it was not
good that he should be alone and, in the absence of anyone who could
serve as his companion and helper, God formed a woman out of one of
the man’s ribs. When he first saw her, he exclaimed with delight: ‘At
last, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’, 2 and the narrator
sees in the coming together of the first man and first woman a pattern of
marriage that would continue in succeeding generations:
‘Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife and
they become one flesh.’3

The Old Testament does not present sexual union as a purely physical
activity, but rather as an expression of the ‘one flesh’ union of a man
and woman who have committed themselves to each other for life in
marriage. From the beginning, God intended sexual activity to be
limited to such a marriage and sexual activity outside that context was
described as ‘fornication’ and strictly forbidden. The Bible has no place
for serial sexual relationships which are frequently the cause of physical
and emotional damage to those who engage in them.
In order to protect the marriage relationship, God forbade adultery –
the taking of another man’s wife or another woman’s husband. The Ten

1 Genesis 1:1,27. Bible quotations are taken from the Revised Standard Version.
2 Genesis 2:23.
3 Genesis 2:24. 9
 A Brief History of Marriage

The Ten Commandments

Commandments given to Moses state: ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’4

and the penalty for breaking this commandment was death.5
Life for the Jews of the Old Testament was closely connected with
identity, an identity which passed from one generation to the next.
As God’s chosen people it was important for them to maintain their
distinctiveness. This involved taking great care over how men and women
related to each other, and how they came together and produced children.
Moses charged parents to diligently teach God’s commandments to their
children6 and the psalmist wrote of the responsibility of parents to pass
on to their children how God had intervened on behalf of his people
throughout Israel’s history.7 A major part of the book of Proverbs is
concerned with the respect that children owe to both their father and
their mother as they receive moral and spiritual instruction from them.
Marriage was therefore vitally important, not merely for individual
husbands and wives, but also for their children and future generations.
While the biblical narrative contains touching incidents, such as the
account of Jacob’s love for Rachel where he promises to work seven years
for her hand in marriage, there is also ample evidence of polygamy. Jacob
himself, although clearly in love with Rachel, was tricked into marrying

4 Exodus 20:14.
5 Leviticus 20:10: ‘If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the
adulteress shall be put to death.’
6 Deuteronomy 6:4-10.
10 7 Psalm 78:1-8.
 Marriage in the Old Testament

her sister as well, and also took two concubines. In Old Testament times,
polygamy was also practised by David and Solomon, two of Israel’s
greatest kings. Such practices are examples of a failure to conform to
God’s original plan for marriage.
Although polygamy had become rare in later centuries and was mainly
confined to the wealthy, it was not until the 10th century AD that the
majority of Jews accepted Rabbi Gershon’s ruling against it. Yet even this
ban was not followed by some Jewish sects and in modern times Jews
from the Yemen have continued the custom. This has caused problems
when such Jews have migrated to Israel where polygamy is not permitted.
Such polygamous marriages have been tolerated but no new polygamous
unions have been permitted.
The Old Testament contains many laws relating to marriage and it
was to one particular law in the Book of Leviticus that Henry VIII was
later to appeal in an attempt to justify the annulment of his marriage
to Catherine of Aragon. Leviticus 18:16 states: ‘You shall not uncover
the nakedness of your brother’s wife’ and, since Catherine had previously
been married to Henry’s elder brother Arthur prior to his death, the King
argued that the marriage was invalid. However, there was another Old
Testament law that specifically countenanced the marriage of a widow to
the brother of her late husband:
‘If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the
dead man shall not be married outside the family to a stranger; her husband’s
brother shall take her as his wife…and the first son whom she bears shall succeed
to the name of his brother who is dead, that his name may not be blotted out of
Israel.’ 8

This law, which became known as the ‘levirate marriage’ law (from
the Latin word levir, meaning ‘husband’s brother’) is also referred to in
the Book of Ruth and in the New Testament. The legal dispute over
the legitimacy of Henry VIII’s marriage to his late brother’s widow
contributed to the split between the Church of England and the Roman
Catholic Church in the 16th century.
Many of these laws – like so many in all cultures down the centuries
– have been concerned with preserving a family’s name or keeping intact

8 Deuteronomy 25:5-6 11
 A Brief History of Marriage

property owned by a family. Nevertheless, as we have seen in the marriage

of Jacob to Rachel, warmth and affection played their part in human
relations as well. The Song of Solomon or ‘Song of Songs’ is a collection
of love poems, perhaps intended for a Jewish wedding feast and meant to
exalt married love. These poems are very passionate, with imagery taken
from nature to express romantic love. Many biblical commentators have
seen in the Song of Solomon a reflection of God’s love for his people.
Certainly love was not foreign to our ancestors in the ancient world.
‘Love’ is a much used – and abused – word these days. There are
many different objects of our affection – love of country, of children, of
parents, of friends, of neighbour and love of God. Above all these kinds
of love, the love of a man and a woman stands as the supreme example
of love as experienced between human beings. While the ancient Greeks
called this love eros, the Greek translation of the Old Testament uses
the word eros only twice, and the New Testament does not use it at all.
There are three ancient Greek words for love: eros (a word which carries
sexual connotations), philia (the love of friendship) and agape (a selfless
and sacrificial love). It is agape which the New Testament writers use in
the context of the marriage relationship.
The Old Testament prophets frequently used the language of
marriage to describe God’s love for his people. According to the biblical
record human marriage was intended to reflect the exclusive and faithful
devotion of God towards those who belong to him.

Questions for discussion

1. Why do you think the Old Testament is so strongly opposed to adultery?
2. What was levirate marriage?
3. What are the three ancient Greek words for love and what do they mean?
Discuss the differences between these three kinds of love.

12
3 Early Christian Marriage
(c.30 – 450AD)

Since Christianity built upon Judaism, the teaching of the New Testament
on marriage must be viewed against its Old Testament background. In
speaking about marriage, Jesus referred back to the early chapters of
Genesis and stressed that marriage was always intended to be a lifelong
commitment between one man and one woman:
‘Have you not read that the Creator, from the beginning, made them male and
female and said: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and
cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. What, therefore, God has
joined let no man put asunder.”’1

Jesus taught that divorce had only been permitted in Old Testament
times due to the hardness of men’s hearts, 2 but that God’s plan had
always been for marriage to be a lifelong union.
Whether or not divorce is permissible in certain circumstances has
been the subject of considerable debate among Christians for centuries.
For example, the Roman Catholic Church has ruled out divorce on the
basis that Jesus taught that:
‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her;
and if she divorces her husband and marries another she commits adultery.’3

However, the Orthodox churches and many Protestants have

understood Jesus to allow divorce on the grounds of adultery on the basis
that in Matthew 19, Jesus states:
‘[W]hoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another,
commits adultery.’4

1 Mark 10:6-9.
2 Mark 10:5.
3 Mark 10:10-12.
4 Matthew 19:9. 13
 A Brief History of Marriage

St Paul

7EGVM½GMEPPSZI
In his letter to the Ephesians, St Paul taught that marriage was a picture
of the relationship between Christ and his Church and that the husband
is to reflect the sacrificial self-giving of Christ for his people in the way
that he relates to his wife. Using the Greek word agape, the word for
selfless, sacrificial love, he wrote:
‘the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body,
and is himself its Saviour. As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be
subject in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ
loved the church and gave himself up for her… He who loves his wife loves
himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as
Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “For this reason
a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two
shall become one flesh.” This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that
it refers to Christ and the church; however, let each one of you love his wife as
himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.’5

The idea of marriage as an oppressive institution in which the wife is

dominated by her husband finds no support in the New Testament. Husbands
are pointed to Jesus Christ as a model of selfless service and urged to act at all
times in the best interests of their wives and not out of self-interest.

14 5 Ephesians 5:23-25, 28-33.

 Early Christian Marriage

The Early Church Fathers

Marriage was recognised and revered universally among the early
Christians. In a letter to his wife, the early Christian writer Tertullian
(c160–c220) stated that marriage ‘enjoys the protection of Divine Grace’ and
that it is ‘ blest by God as the seminary for the human race’.
St Augustine (354-430), one of the greatest Fathers of the early
Church, wrote at length about marriage. The popular image of Augustine
as a man who gave very grudging support for marriage is somewhat
misleading. In making an assessment of his position, it must be borne in
mind that Augustine lived in tumultuous times. The Roman Empire – at
least in the West – was on the brink of collapse. The moral fabric of
society was crumbling. Religion was assailed on all sides by challenges to
orthodox Christian belief, and the Church itself was divided.
Prior to a profound conversion experience that completely changed
his life, Augustine had lived a very ‘colourful’ life and is famous for his
prayer: ‘Lord, make me chaste – but not yet!’ Following his conversion,
Augustine spent much of his time defending Christianity against heresy,
and particularly against the unorthodox beliefs of the Manichees. Taking
its name from the mystic Mani (c216–c276), Manichaeism viewed the
material world as essentially evil - spiritual reality was good, but material
reality was bad. Augustine attempted to steer a middle course between

Tertullian St Augustine of Hippo

15
 A Brief History of Marriage

An early Christian wedding ring, from Rome, c.500

the Manichaean rejection of the material and the material excess and
physical indulgence that characterised the dying Roman world.
Augustine’s writing on marriage must also be viewed in the context
of his understanding of original sin – the Christian teaching that because
of Adam’s disobedience to God in the Garden of Eden, we are all born
with a sinful nature that is inclined to stray from God’s ways. Augustine
drew a clear distinction between sexual relations within marriage for the
purpose of procreation and sexual union based on lust:
‘The union, then, of male and female for the purpose of procreation is the
natural good of marriage. But he makes a bad use of this good who uses it
bestially, so that his intention is on the gratification of lust, instead of the desire
of offspring.’6

Augustine’s famous saying that abstinence is better than marriage but

that marriage is better than fornication7 hardly sounds like a ringing
endorsement of marriage! And yet, Augustine by no means viewed
marriage as a necessary evil for the purpose of bearing children. Rather,
he held that the marriage bond is sacred:
‘It is certainly not fecundity [fertility] only, the fruits of which consists of
offspring, nor chastity only, whose bond is fidelity, but also a certain sacramental
bond in marriage which is recommended to believers in wedlock.’8

6 Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence. Bk 1, ch 5.

7 Ibid., Bk 1, ch 18.
16 8 Ibid., Bk 1, ch 11.
 Early Christian Marriage

Augustine’s mentor, St Ambrose, wrote positively about marriage,

stating that it was ‘sanctified by Christ’ and describing it as ‘a heavenly
sacrament’.9

Monogamy or Polygamy?
Although polygamy existed in the ancient world and is understood to
have been tolerated to increase the birth rate, for Christians monogamy
was always the rule. Jesus taught that in marriage a man and his wife are
‘no longer two, but one’.10 He also taught that a second marriage during
the lifetime of a first spouse would be adulterous, which would not have
been the case had he sanctioned polygamy.11 Likewise, St Paul insisted
that a church leader should have only one wife and thus serve as an
example to all Christians.12 Other early Christian writers such as Justin
Martyr rebuked the Jews for still allowing the practice and Augustine
asserted that: ‘the good purpose of marriage is best promoted by one husband
and one wife’.13

‘Secret’ or clandestine marriages

We can learn a great deal about early Christian marriage rituals and
beliefs from liturgical books. Although the essence of marriage always
had at its heart the freely given consent of the bride and groom, the
occasion was celebrated in a variety of ways. Sometimes it could be a very
private business – perhaps involving only close family members or even
simply a matter between the couple themselves. As long as consent was
freely given the marriage was considered valid. The problem with very
private weddings, however, was that they lacked ‘transparency’. In the
absence of witnesses and documentation, clandestine or secret marriages
could be disputed subsequently by one or other of the spouses. It was quite
possible for a woman to be abandoned and left – quite literally – holding
the baby! And so, we learn from liturgical books from the early Christian
centuries that marriage often took place during the celebration of holy
communion. This tradition has continued in Catholic and Orthodox
churches to the present day.

9 Ambrose, Letter to Pope Siricius, 389AD.

10 Mark 10:8.
11 Mark 10:11-12.
12 1 Timothy 3:2.
13 Augustine, On Marriage and Concupiscence, Bk I, ch 10. 17
 A Brief History of Marriage

Nevertheless, it was not for several centuries that the practice of

clandestine marriages was ruled out of order and it was not until 1908
that the papal bull Ne Temere stipulated that it was absolutely essential
for a Roman Catholic marriage to take place before a priest and two
other witnesses. Prior to this, while such a marriage was contrary to the
disciplinary laws of the Church, it remained valid.14

Questions for discussion

1. What did Jesus teach about marriage and divorce?
2. What are the differences between how Catholics interpret these teachings
as compared to how the Orthodox churches and many Protestants interpret
them?
3. To what does St Paul compare the love of a husband and wife? How does
that affect the Christian understanding of marriage?
4. Discuss the importance of witnesses to a marriage.

14 Before the Reformation the state played no part in registering or approving marriages. This was viewed
as the province of the Roman Catholic Church. From 1538, following the rift between Henry VIII and
the Pope, baptisms, marriages and burials in England had to be registered in parishes by law. Clandestine
18 marriages still existed, however, and were accepted until the Marriage Act of 1753 when they were outlawed.
1IHMIZEP1EVVMEKI
(c.600 – 1500AD)

The ‘Dark Ages’

The fall of the Roman Empire in the West saw the subsequent breakdown
of law and order. This, in turn, gave rise to a wide range of traditions,
customs and practices. Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History, praises King
Aethelbert of Kent (d.616) for drawing up a legal code. It was, however,
not particularly Christian, being based largely on pagan and other
Anglo-Saxon customs. For this reason, the rules governing marriage over
the next three hundred years did not always mirror the Christian ideal.
England did not exist as a single nation during these ‘Dark Ages’ and
kings were sometimes Christian and sometimes pagan. The picture was
very confused.
Throughout this period many bishops and priests tried valiantly to
instil Christian ways, with varying degrees of success. The Penitential of
Theodore, a collection of writings thought to have emerged from a circle of
priests associated with Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury from 668-

King Aethelbert of Kent

19
 A Brief History of Marriage

690, included a section on marriage. It insisted:

‘That nothing be allowed but lawful wedlock. Let none be guilty of incest,
and let none leave his wife except for fornication, as the holy gospel teaches.
If anyone puts away his own wife who is joined to him by lawful matrimony,
he may not take another if he wishes to be a true Christian; but he must either
remain as he is or be reconciled to his own wife.’1

In practice, it was a constant struggle for the bishops to persuade

kings and others to conform to Christian norms – and to abandon
taking concubines, practising incest and engaging in other customs and
practices that fell short of the Christian ideal. However, by the time of
the Norman Conquest in 1066 the situation had settled down to a much
greater extent than before.

Formalising Marriage
During the 12th century marriage was the subject of considerable debate
within the medieval Church. While there was agreement that the consent
of both parties to the marriage was essential to make the marriage valid,
there were different opinions as to whether or not a marriage had to be
consummated to make it completely valid.2 At length, Peter Lombard
and his school of thinkers in Paris won the day with their argument that
consent alone was sufficient. While this encouraged couples to marry in
church, it recognised marriages celebrated in private as equally valid.
The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) laid down a list of procedures to be
followed when conducting a marriage. First of all, the two families would
agree a financial settlement.3 Then, once the financial arrangements were
agreed, there would be a betrothal ceremony, usually before witnesses.
Depending on the wording used, this would be seen as binding on the
couple and disagreements over the wording could lead to legal disputes
later on. Among the nobility, betrothal could take place when the parties

1 Penitential of Theodore, English Historical Documents, vol. iv, 4.

2 The first act of sexual intercourse between a couple following their wedding is commonly described as the
‘consummation’ or completion of their marriage.
3 Most marriages were arranged. Women from wealthy families would almost always marry for practical
reasons the first time around, and usually to a significantly older man. After the death of her first husband,
it was understood that a young widow would then be free to marry the man of her choice. Marriages among
the rich involved dowries – usually a portion of land paid by the bride’s father to the husband. The husband
also paid a ‘dower’ to his wife. Peasants would have dowries of small portions of land or livestock. Many had
20 nothing, so the pressure on young people to ‘marry well’ fell mainly on the rich.
 Medieval Marriage

were as young as the age of seven, but the couple could not marry until
they came of age – 12 for girls and 14 for boys.
Before the ceremony could take place, a formal announcement of the
forthcoming marriage had to be read out in church on three occasions
(known as the banns of marriage) in order to give local people the
opportunity to challenge the legality of the marriage. Reasons for such
a challenge included close ties of blood relationship by marriage. There
were certain forbidden degrees of kinship which made marriage invalid.
It was also stipulated that marriages could not take place during Advent
and Lent.
The bride and groom met at the church door for the wedding service
and details of the ‘dower’ – the groom’s payment to the bride – were
announced. The bride’s ring was then blessed and vows were exchanged
in English rather than Latin in order to ensure that both parties knew
exactly what they were undertaking. The couple then entered the church
for the Mass and a further blessing on the couple. Among the wealthy,
the marriage ceremony was followed by a wedding feast which could last
for several days.

Matrimonial disputes
Disputes that arose in relation to marriage were resolved by church courts.
As we have seen, although clandestine marriages were frowned upon by
the church authorities, they were recognised as valid. If such a marriage
were repudiated by the man he could be taken to an ecclesiastical court,
and if he had taken a second wife, he could be charged with bigamy (taking
another wife while still legally married). If it could be demonstrated that
a marriage had taken place under duress, that too could be challenged in
a church court as no true consent was given. Such courts could also deal
with cases of alleged cruelty. In Canterbury, for example, in 1373:
‘Thomas Waralynton appeared and was sworn to treat his wife, Matilda, with
marital affection with respect to bed and table, and to furnish her with those
things which are necessary in food and other materials according to his ability.
And the woman was sworn to obey him as her husband.’4

4 R Helmholz, Marriage Litigation in Medieval England, Cambridge University Press.1974, p.89. 21

 A Brief History of Marriage

At Lichfield, in 1466, Helen Hyndman sought permission to leave

her husband on the grounds that he played dice and was losing all their
money. The court ordered the husband to give up gambling and to treat
his wife well or face a whipping.5
The courts appear to have dealt equally fairly with men and women.
For adultery, for example, there were no double standards. The court
at Rochester in the 14th century punished adultery for both men and
women with a whipping three times around the churchyard and three
times around the market.6
Church courts could also be called upon to judge the validity of a
marriage if impotence were an issue. This, after all, could thwart one of
the purposes of marriage, namely, to have children. Proving impotence
was a sensitive issue and involved rather humiliating observations of a
couple by ‘wise women…worthy of faith, of good reputation and honest life’.7
Fortunately, such cases appear to have been rare.
Use of these courts was made across the social spectrum and it was
clearly understood by most, if not all, that marriage required mutual
consent to be valid. This was true even when a couple married against
the wishes of their families. One such case involved Margery Paston,
daughter of a famous and upwardly-mobile family in Norfolk, and the
family bailiff, Richard Calle. Despite protestations from her family that
she had married beneath her, the bishop had no choice but to uphold the
marriage.8

0SZIERH1EVVMEKI#
It is difficult to gauge the extent to which medieval marriages were
characterised by warmth and affection. Many sources focus on marriages
among the upper classes where considerations of wealth and status played
a greater part than in the marriages of peasants, and yet the vast majority
of people belonged to the lower classes.
There is a simplistic and cynical view taken by many historians that
‘love had no place in medieval marriages’ and that women were regularly
beaten by their husbands. The eminent historian Lawrence Stone

5 Henrietta Leyser, Medieval Women, Phoenix Paperbacks, 1996, p.114.

6 Ibid., p.115.
7 Ibid., p.116.
22 8 Ibid., p.117.
 Medieval Marriage

The Canterbury pilgrims

once contended that ‘married love could not and did not exist before the
18th century’.9 However, this has been soundly rejected by many other
historians.10
Understandably, less is recorded of peasant life than of life among the
nobility. The few references to peasants and their way of life cannot be
taken as completely representative of their class. The existence of a wood
carving on a church bench end showing a wife beating her husband tells us
nothing about the prevalence of domestic violence in medieval England.
Sensationalism is always a problem in popular art and literature. One
wonders what conclusions future historians would draw about the early
21st century if they view it through the distorted lens of ‘reality TV’ or
the tabloid press!

Marriage and the Canterbury Tales

In Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in the late 14th century,
the pilgrims make several references to marriage in the stories they tell
on their way to the tomb of Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral,
though we have no way of knowing how accurately they reflect typical
married and family life in that period. For example, in the Prologue,
the Wife of Bath reflects on relations between the sexes in marriage and

9 Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800, Harper & Row, 1977.
10 See, for example, Alan McFarlane’s review of Lawrence Stone, ‘The Family, Sex and Marriage in England,
1500-1800’ in History and Theory, Studies in the Philosophy of History, vol.xviii, no.1, 1979, pp.103-126. 23
 A Brief History of Marriage

speaks of having been married five times:

‘For gentlemen, since I was twelve years of age,
Thanks be to God who is eternally alive,
Of husbands at church door I have had five.’

She speaks of the ‘woe that is in all marriage’ and calls for a reversal of
the accepted custom of the day in contending that the wife – and not the
husband – should have ‘mastery’ over their spouse:
‘A woman desires to have sovereignty
Over her husband as well as his love,
And to be in mastery over him.’

The Clerk of Oxford is clearly affronted by her assertions about

marriage and contempt for virginity and tells the story of Griselda, a
very humble woman who is submissive to her husband. She is married
to Marquis Walter, a knight with commonly-held views on marriage.
Although he believes, ‘Liberty is seldom found in marriage’, Walter marries
Griselda and proceeds to dominate her, while she accepts a subservient
role with humility. While having a deliberate dig at the Wife of Bath,
the Clerk makes a more general point about the nature of the relationship
between husband and wife in marriage:

Geoffrey Chaucer

24
 Medieval Marriage

‘This is said, not that wives should

Follow Griselda as in humility,
But that every one, in his degree,
Should be constant in adversity.’

Another rather jaundiced view of marriage features in the Merchant’s

tale. The Merchant has been married for just three months and is already
regretting it: ‘I have a wife, the worst that may be!’ His story, which may
reflect his own experience, concerns an older man (January) with a young
wife (May). Suffice to say she makes his life miserable. She is described
as his ‘purgatory’ – a very vicious woman, provoking a strong response
from the Host, the publican of the Tabard Inn, who leads the pilgrimage:
‘“Eh! By God’s mercy!” cried our Host. Said he:
“Now such a wife I pray God keep from me!”’

The Host then tries to change the subject, as he sees it, by asking the
Squire to tell a story of love and romance. Evidently, this was supposed to
steer them away from marriage:
‘Squire, come nearer if you will it be.
And speak to us of love; for certainly
You know thereof as much as any man.’

When the Squire has concluded his story the Franklin praises it
for its gentility and kindness. ‘You have acquitted yourself well, and like a
gentleman,’ he says. The Franklin then tells the tale of Averigus, a knight,
and Doriga, a young lady. Averigus pursues Doriga for her hand in
marriage, playing the obedient servant. Doriga agrees: ‘To take him for her
husband and her lord.’
In view of the picture of marriage painted previously, it might be
anticipated that Averigus will adopt the dominant role of the typical
husband but this is not what happens. Rather, in order to ensure the
happiness of their wedded life, he is content to be the head of his wife in
name only. Doriga – no Wife of Bath is she – promises her husband her
fidelity in return for his ‘gentillesse’ and for renouncing his ‘sovereignty’.
This, the Franklin offers as the basis for a truly happy marriage:

25
 A Brief History of Marriage

A medieval marriage

‘Who could tell, but he that wedded be,

The joy, the ease and the prosperity
That is between a husband and his wife.’

There seems to be no precedent for this view of marriage in

medieval literature before Chaucer. As the literary critic G L Kittredge
commented:
‘It was the regular theory of the Middle Ages that the highest type of chivalric
love was incompatible with marriage, since marriage brings in mastery and
mastery and love cannot abide together. This view the Franklin boldly challenges.
Love can be consistent with marriage, he declares. Indeed, without love (and
perfect gentle love) marriage is sure to be a failure. The difficulty about mastery
vanishes when mutual love and forbearance are made the guiding principle of
the relation between husband and wife.’11

The one-dimensional view of marriage described in many sources is

clearly inadequate. We do not know what individual marriages were like
– do we ever? As Chaucer has the Franklin say, ‘That is between husband
and wife’, but what we can know from the Canterbury Tales is that other
views of marriage – including what is often considered to be a quite
modern view of mutual love and cooperation – were being discussed in
the Middle Ages.

26 11 G L Kittredge, Essay on Chaucer, Cambridge Press, 1912, p.17.

 Medieval Marriage

Perhaps we should leave the last word on this to another who lived
about the same time as Chaucer. A French Knight, the Knight of La
Tour Landry, in a prologue to a book he wrote for his daughters, describes
most movingly his love and respect for his dead wife:
‘Both fair and good, which knowledge of all honour, all good, and fair
maintaining… I delighted so much in her that I made for her love songs, ballads,
rondels, virelays and diverse things in the best wise I could… And so it is more
than twenty years that I have been for her full of great sorrow. For a true lover’s
heart forgetteth never the woman that once he truly loved.’12

As the historian Margaret Wade Labarge explains:

‘This was indeed a noble compliment, although perhaps influenced by literary
convention. [Nevertheless] it is a useful counter-balance to the belief that
marriage and love were quite incompatible in the Middle Ages.’13

The vast majority of people were relatively poor and lived in small
communities. The choice of marriage partners was therefore limited and
expectations of love and romance probably realistic. Although in law a
woman was legally the property of her husband – ‘a chattel’ – in practice
there was much co-operation and mutual friendship, and respect could
grow into love. Wives might have been technically subservient to their
husbands but in practice, in addition to giving birth and raising their
children, they were very much involved in the everyday work of the
men and also sometimes ran a ‘domestic industry’, such as spinning as
well. Wives of the middle class merchants or craftsmen had to help with
household chores and noblewomen were charged with the considerable
task of managing entire households in the absence of their husbands
when they were away on military campaigns.
Life was very harsh for most people but especially for women in the
Middle Ages. Childbirth was fraught with dangers with midwifery very
primitive. Common illnesses could prove life-threatening for both sexes.
Life expectancy for a woman was just 24 and for a man 30. It was reckoned
that if a woman survived the childbearing years she would probably outlive
her husband and marry again. With such a high rate of early deaths it was
not unusual for those who survived to have several spouses.

12 Barbara W Tuchman, A Distant Mirror, Penguin, 1979, p.68.

13 Margaret Wade Labarge, A Baronial Household, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1965, p.44. 27
 A Brief History of Marriage

Questions for discussion

1. Why is consent regarded as essential to a valid marriage?
(MWGYWWXLIFIRI½XWSVSXLIV[MWISJFIXVSXLEP
3. To what extent do you think it is important for a couple to have the approval
of their parents before they marry?
4. Why do popular art and literature have a tendency not to provide an
accurate representation of typical family life?

28
5 The Reformation and
beyond
(1500 – 1700)

King Henry VIII

A Royal Marriage
Henry VIII is remembered as a much-married monarch and has
fascinated people down the ages in books and films. His six wives are
testimony to the fact that he recognised the importance of marriage.
For kings, marriage was the means of producing a legitimate male heir
and it was to this end that Henry married so often. ‘The King’s Great
Matter’, as the debate surrounding his first marriage to Catherine of
Aragon is known, raises some of the issues we have seen surrounding
the question of marriage in general. Henry married Catherine who had
been married previously to Henry’s older brother, Arthur. When Arthur
died the marriage between Henry and Catherine was arranged in order
to continue a political alliance between England and Spain. The marriage
produced one living child - not the desired son and heir, but a girl, Mary.
But was the marriage valid?

29
 A Brief History of Marriage

Catherine of Aragon Thomas Cranmer

Catherine’s marriage to Arthur created what is called an ‘impediment

of affinity’.1 In order for Henry to marry his brother’s widow, he required
a special dispensation from the Pope. The objective of cementing peaceful
relations between England and Spain was considered a sufficiently good
reason by the Pope of the day, and so the marriage went ahead. Many
years later, however, Henry disputed the validity of his marriage to
Catherine, arguing that her previous marriage to Arthur made such a
marriage impossible. In demanding an annulment, 2 Henry was directly
challenging the authority of the Pope to grant a dispensation for the
marriage to take place at all.
Several years of wrangling over Canon Law and political machinations
finally ended with Henry taking the law into his own hands and making
himself Head of the English Church. This enabled him to appoint
a compliant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, who duly
granted him his annulment. Unfortunately for Henry the longed-for son
still did not materialise and he had to rid himself of his second wife, Anne
Boleyn, mother of Elizabeth. Henry’s marriage to Anne was also annulled
before she was dispatched by a French swordsman since it was considered
unseemly for a king to have his wife executed with a common axe!

1 According to Roman Catholic teaching, since Henry was related to Catherine as a result of her marriage to
his brother Arthur, there was an ‘affinity’ between them which precluded them from marrying each other
without the permission of the Pope.
2 History books tend to speak in terms of divorce, but there was no provision for divorce at this time. While
divorce is the legal ending of a valid marriage, annulment is the legal recognition that no valid marriage
30 existed in the first place and, therefore, the invalid marriage is declared ‘null and void’.
 The Reformation and beyond

Henry’s third wife, Jane Seymour gave Henry his long-awaited son,
Edward, and died shortly afterwards. Three further marriages followed
– all without children.

Protestantism and Marriage

For many centuries, marriage had been widely regarded as a sacrament
within the Roman Catholic Church, but it was not until well into
the second millennia of the history of the Church that this belief was
formally stated as a dogma.3 Pope Innocent III included marriage
among the sacraments in 1208, and the Council of Florence (1431-1445)
subsequently described marriage as ‘the seventh sacrament, which is a
figure of Christ and the Church’. During the 16th century, the Council
of Trent (1545-1563) upheld marriage as one of the seven sacraments in
response to Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin
who were teaching that only baptism and the Lord’s Supper should be
regarded as sacraments.
In 1521, King Henry VIII had written a Defence of the Seven
Sacraments in response to the teaching of Martin Luther, for which the
Pope had awarded him the title ‘Defender of the Faith’. Notwithstanding
his subsequent rift with the Pope, Henry remained firmly committed
to Roman Catholic teaching on the sacraments. However, within 16
years of his death, a Convocation of the Church of England approved 39
Articles of Religion. Article 25, on the sacraments, stated:
‘There are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to
say, Baptism, and the Supper of the Lord.

‘Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance,

Orders, Matrimony, and extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments
of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the
Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures; but yet have not like
nature of Sacraments with Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper, for that they have
not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.’4

3 A sacrament is defined as ‘the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace’. According to the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, ‘From a valid marriage arises a bond between the spouses which by its very
nature is perpetual and exclusive; furthermore, in a Christian marriage the spouses are strengthened and, as
it were, consecrated for the duties and the dignity of their state by a special sacrament.’
4 The Articles of Religion, 1563. 31
 A Brief History of Marriage

In line with the teaching of the continental reformers, the Protestant

Church in England prized marriage as an institution of God. The 1549
Book of Common Prayer, described marriage as:
‘an honorable estate instituted of God in paradise, in the time of man’s
innocency, signifying to us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his
Church: which holy estate, Christ adorned and beautified with his presence,
and first miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee, and is commended of Saint
Paul to be honourable among all men; and therefore is not to be enterprised,
nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightely, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal
lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding: but reverently,
discretely, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God.’5

Protestantism condemned the Roman Catholic practice of insisting

on celibacy6 for its clergy and permitted ministers to marry and have
children. In response to this, the Roman Catholic Council of Trent
reaffirmed its commitment to priestly celibacy, and held that the celibate
vocation was a higher calling than the married state.
The fact that Protestants had married clergy probably made a difference
to their attitude towards sexual relations in marriage. Martin Luther had
set the tone when he married Katherine von Bora, a former nun. She had
been one of twelve ex-nuns who approached him for guidance regarding

The marriage of Martin Luther to Katherine von Bora

5 The form of solemnisation of matrimony, Book of Common Prayer 1549.

32 6 Celibacy refers to the state of being unmarried and abstaining from sexual activity.
 The Reformation and beyond

Thomas Hooker Cotton Mather

marriage and when he saw that she was the last one left, he married her
out of a sense of obligation! Nevertheless, love grew. He called her ‘my
rib’ and ‘my lord’ or even, ‘Kette’ (Katie), which means ‘chain’. They had six
children together. During the first pregnancy Luther said: ‘My Katie is
fulfilling Genesis I:28.’ 7 They were, by all accounts, happily married.
Contrary to the widespread stereotypical image of Puritans as strait-
laced killjoys, the marriage act between husband and wife was praised
and celebrated by Puritan preachers. Thomas Hooker, the prominent
Puritan leader and founder of the colony of Connecticut, wrote:
‘The man whose heart is endeared to the woman he loves… dreams of her in the
night, hath her in his eye when he wakes… She lies in his bosom, and his heart
trusts in her, which forceth all to confess that the stream of his affection, like a
mighty current, runs with full tide and strength.’8

Far from being sexually prudish, Puritans challenged the view that
it was sinful to enjoy intercourse. They saw the sexual act as a joyous
expression of love that bound a married couple together. The Puritan
preacher, Cotton Mather, for instance, called his second wife ‘a most
lovely creature and such a gift of heaven to me and mine that the sense thereof
… dissolves me into tears of joy.’ 9

7 Genesis 1:28, ‘And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and
have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”’
8 Cited by Edmund Morgan, The Puritan Family, Harper Collins, 1966, pp.61-62.
9 Leland Ryken, Wordly Saints: The Puritans as they really were, Zondervan, 1986, p. 39. 33
 A Brief History of Marriage

Elizabeth Cromwell A Puritan couple

Expressions of endearment are also found in private correspondence.

In 1650, after thirty years of marriage, Elizabeth Cromwell wrote to her
husband, Oliver, ‘Truly my life is but half a life in your absence.’ With similar
warmth, Oliver addressed Elizabeth as: ‘My dearest…Thou art dearer to me
than any creature.’ 10
A Puritan handbook on marriage from the same period emphasises
the importance of mutual affection between the couple in an arranged
match, since then ‘ love is like to continue in them for ever as things which are
well glued’. On the marriage of Cromwell’s 16 year-old daughter Bettie to
22 year-old John Claypole, Antonia Fraser remarks: ‘The young Claypoles
did show every sign thereafter of being “well-glued” together.’ 11
Anthony Ashley Cooper, later the First Earl of Shaftesbury, was
regarded as a cold and cunning politician, yet on the death of his wife,
Margaret, in 1649 he showed another side to his character. Of his late
wife, he confided in his diary that:
‘[S]he was a lovely beautiful fair woman, a religious devout Christian, of
admirable wit and wisdom, beyond any I ever knew, yet the most sweet,
affectionate and observant wife in the world… She was in discourse and counsel
far beyond any woman.’12

10 Antonia Fraser, Cromwell, Our Chief of Men, Book Club Associates, 1974.
11 Ibid.
34 12 Antonia Fraser, The Weaker Vessel, Arrow Books, 1999, p.57.
 The Reformation and beyond

‘Affection is false!’
The positive attitude towards marriage displayed in the writings of
the Puritans stands in marked contrast to that of Queen Elizabeth I.
In 1600, Elizabeth perhaps expressed what many felt when the subject
of marrying for love arose: ‘Affection’, said the Queen, ‘Affection is false.’ 13
This rather sceptical opinion reflects the widely-held view at the time
that marriages should be arranged for pragmatic reasons, Fathers would
look to marry off their sons and daughters to well-appointed spouses.
Even here, however, we occasionally find evidence of genuine warmth
and affection.
For example, in 1628 Henry, ninth Earl of Northumberland, was
appalled to learn that his son, Algernon, Lord Percy, had become
engaged secretly to Lady Anne Cecil, daughter of the Earl of Salisbury
– and all for love! The two families were at loggerheads and had been
for a generation or more. At the time of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605
Salisbury’s father, Robert Cecil, had arranged for Northumberland to be
sent to the Tower on suspicion of involvement in the Plot. Nothing had
been proved against him but he had endured several years’ imprisonment
and a large fine. In spite of the families’ concerns about the union, the
marriage was a happy one – sadly, cut short by Anne’s death ten years
later.14 Many other examples could be cited.

Queen Elizabeth I

13 Ibid., p.25.
14 Ibid., pp.28-29. 35
 A Brief History of Marriage

Childbirth
During the 17th century, women spent a large proportion of their married
years bearing children. It was common for women of all social classes
to have in excess of a dozen pregnancies, and the infant mortality rate
was very high. Indeed, it is reckoned that among the wealthier classes
two-thirds of children died either at birth or in early childhood. In
giving birth to as many as 19 babies between 1626 and 1648, Elizabeth
Duncombe, wife of Sir William Brownlow may not have been typical
even in the 17th century, but history records that only two sons and four
daughters survived.15 Poor medical practice resulted in a high mortality
rate in childbirth for mothers as well as for infants.
During this period, it became fashionable for wealthy women
to employ wet nurses to feed their babies rather than breastfeeding
themselves. As a result of this, the upper classes inadvertently experienced
more pregnancies than poorer women because they lost the benefit that
breastfeeding could bring them of suppressing ovulation and so help to
space births. There were methods of birth control in use, but it was a
subject little spoken of. On the whole fertility was considered a blessing –
particularly when so many suffered the loss of children due to high infant
mortality rates.

Questions for discussion

1. Did Henry VIII have valid grounds for seeking a divorce from Catherine of
Aragon?
2. What is the difference between an annulment and a divorce?
3. How do Protestants differ from Catholics in their understanding of
marriage?
4. To what extent does the Puritan attitude towards marriage differ from
common perceptions of the Puritans?
 (MWGYWWXLIFIRI½XWSVSXLIV[MWISJPEVKIJEQMPMIW

36 15 Ibid., p.82.
6 Marriage in the 18th
and 19th Centuries

‘Age of Reason’ or ‘Excess’?

The 18th century ushered in the ‘Enlightenment’ or ‘Age of Reason’.1
Unfortunately, when it came to marriage and family life and relations
between the sexes more generally, it could be said to have been an age of
excess – especially for the wealthy classes.
Some advocates of greater freedom of expression about sexual
matters sounded almost like ‘progressive’ thinkers in the 21st century.
For example, Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th century British writer,
philosopher and feminist, wrote:
‘It would be proper to familiarise the sexes to an unreserved discussion on those
topics which are generally avoided in conversation from a principle of false
delicacy; and that it would be right to speak of the organs of generation as freely
as we mention our eyes or our hands.’2

Manuals appeared on sexual techniques, compatibility, venereal

diseases, fertility, birth control and reproduction. Sex therapy also burst
upon the scene. James Graham, described as one of the most notorious
quacks of the 18th century, gave lectures to fashionable London audiences
in which, among other things, he advocated pornography and the services
of a ‘celestial bed’ for hire at £50 per night. He claimed that the bed
exploited electro-magnetic energies which flowed through the universe
in order to restore potency and fertility. Electro-magnetic energies were,
clearly, not the only things he exploited.
Works of fiction began to appear which mirrored this often salacious
interest in sex. Some books, such as Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
(1722) were written as cautionary tales to warn young women about the

1 The Age of Reason was a period in European history noted for the belief in the ability of reason to discover
truth and to shape society. Sometimes it is called the Enlightenment.
2 Quoted in Paul-Gabriel Boucé (ed), Sexuality in eighteenth-century Britain, Manchester University Press,
1982, p.7. 37
 A Brief History of Marriage

Mary Wollstonecraft Daniel Defoe

consequences of straying from the straight and narrow. However, other

books, such as John Cleland’s Fanny Hill (1749), were sexually explicit
to the point of being pornographic. Sub-titled ‘Memoirs of a woman of
pleasure’, Fanny Hill told the story of a young woman ‘guided by nature
only’. In her move from being a kept woman to public prostitute, she saw
herself ‘passing thus from a private devotee to pleasure into a public one…’
The book glorified prostitution and did little to deter young women from
a life of disease, violence and unhappiness. It was deservedly banned in
1750, but books promoting sexual freedom continued to appear alongside
the public flaunting of sex in pictures and prints.
The oldest and basest instincts were justified with high-flown rhetoric.
It was reasoned that:
‘If Nature was good, then desire, far from being sinful, became desirable. And
sexual instincts were undoubtedly natural desires.’3

One man who pursued this line of thought with enthusiasm was
James Boswell, friend and biographer of Samuel Johnson. Boswell was
a philanderer of the first order, even boasting of his exploits with a
prostitute on Westminster Bridge. He believed that even as a married
man he should be free to follow his sexual instincts, though he did not
extend the same freedom to women. Without any regard to the married
state, he wrote:

38 3 Ibid. p.28
 Marriage in the 18th and 19th Centuries

King George III

‘There is no higher felicity on earth enjoyed by man than the participation of

genuine reciprocal amorous affection with an amiable woman.’4

Paul-Gabriel Boucé observes:

‘These naturalistic and hedonistic assumptions – that Nature had made men to
follow pleasure, that sex was pleasurable, and that it was natural to follow one’s
sexual urges – underpinned much Enlightenment thought about sexuality.’5

Where such thinking was followed through in practice, it resulted

in a climate of unbridled decadence comparable with some of the worst
excesses of modern Britain.
As the century wore on, however, there was a revival to some degree
of public modesty. King George III was happily married and a faithful
husband, and proved a good role model for his people.

The Marriage Act 1753

Prior to the middle of the 18th century, marriage laws were very lax.
Although a clergyman was normally expected to be present, a verbal
exchange of vows before two witnesses was sufficient to make a marriage
valid. Boys as young as 14 and girls of 12 were allowed to marry without
parental consent, and clandestine marriages were not uncommon. Some

4 Ibid.
5 Ibid. 39
 A Brief History of Marriage

unscrupulous clergy in the area surrounding the Fleet Prison for Debtors
in central London undercut their more respectable brethren in order to
offer cheap and confidential marriage services in unorthodox locations
such as ale houses, brothels and within the prison itself. Such marriages
were known as ‘Fleet marriages’.
In order to prevent such abuses, in 1753 Parliament passed an Act for
the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage. Better known as Lord
Hardwicke’s Marriage Act, the legislation required public notice of an
impending marriage to be given in church on three consecutive Sundays
(the ‘banns of marriage’), in order that any objections or irregularities
could be made known to the clergy. The parents of young men and women
under the age of 21 could forbid the reading of the banns and so prevent
the marriage if they objected. The Act also insisted that, in order to be
valid, marriages had to be conducted in an Anglican church. Between
1754 and 1837, Quakers and Jews were the only groups permitted to
solemnise legally valid marriages outside the Church of England.
During this period, weddings generally took place in church between
8.00am and 12 noon. In order to reduce costs, poorer couples would
sometimes join up with several others to be married at the same time in
what were known as ‘little weddings’.
In the 18th century a bride’s dress could be white, silver or blue. They

Lord Hardwicke

40
 Marriage in the 18th and 19th Centuries

were often designed so as to be worn again – a practical and thrifty

measure. It was not until the 19th century that the modern custom
of being married in white became the norm, though well into the
20th century, many hard-pressed brides made do with their best dress
regardless of its colour.
Marriage laws were further amended in the 19th century. The
Marriage Act of 1836 allowed Roman Catholics and Nonconformists to
marry in their own places of worship In keeping with a more liberal age,
non-religious civil weddings were also permitted for the first time in spite
of the opposition of the Archbishop of Canterbury who opposed the move
on the grounds that registrars might have been ill-educated and unable to
detect bogus marriages. From 1837, the state assumed responsibility for
the registration of births, deaths and marriages.
Standards of sexual morality varied between the different social classes.
Wealthy men were more likely to be sexually active prior to marriage –
often using housemaids as sexual partners, although their brides were
expected to be virgins on their wedding day. The lower classes tended
to be more careful, with pregnancy out of wedlock usually leading to
marriage. It was much harder for the labouring classes to cover up their
sexual misdemeanours.
The respectable working classes had their own, often rigorous, ways of
dealing with errant husbands. Working class adulterers were liable to be
subjected to a naming and shaming exercise known as the ‘skimmerton’
or ‘skimmington’ – a noisy parade calling attention to the offending
behaviour and warning the culprit to stop.

(MZSVGIPE[
Divorce was rare in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the course of the
entire 18th century there were about 100 divorces in all. This was hardly
surprising since each divorce could only be achieved by an individual Act
of Parliament – a very expensive business. Almost all of these 100 divorces
were instigated by the husband. A husband had only to cite adultery as
the reason for his claim whereas a woman had to cite two reasons for a
divorce – such as cruelty or desertion as well as adultery.

41
 A Brief History of Marriage

The Divorce Laws were changed by the Matrimonial Causes Act of

1857 when provisions were made to protect the property of deserted wives
and secular courts took over the functions of church courts – although
the grounds for divorce were not altered. Women were regarded as the
chattels of their husbands, with no independent legal status. A married
woman could not hold money in her own name, buy property, make
a will, or even claim custody of her children. This state of affairs was
alleviated a little by the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, which
enabled married women to own and control their own property, but full
equal rights with husbands would not come until the following century.

8LIMQTEGXSJXLI-RHYWXVMEP6IZSPYXMSR
Prior to 1800, around 90 per cent of the British population lived in the
country as opposed to the cities. By the end of the century, however,
this had been almost reversed as a result of the Industrial Revolution,
with a severe impact on marriage and family life. As people moved to
towns and cities in search of work, the support structures that had been
a feature of village life began to break down. Although families were not
entirely isolated and grandparents were often available to assist with child
rearing, the wider network of support disappeared.
The Industrial Revolution saw young men reach their maximum
earning potential earlier than previously and this encouraged earlier
marriages.6 This created new and different strains on family life.
Up to the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it was common for
marriages among the wealthy to be arranged by parents, but as time went
on this tradition began to decline in favour of young men and women
choosing their own marriage partners without reference to money. In Pride
and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s classic novel about courtship and marriage,
the five Bennett girls are all in search of husbands, and their parents,
especially Mrs Bennett, are desperate to marry them off, preferably to
men of wealth. While Lydia marries Whickham for superficial reasons
of the heart and the result is not a happy one, Charlotte Lucas sacrifices
happiness for financial security in marrying Mr Collins for economic
reasons and is reasonably content. For their part, Elizabeth and Jane
Bennett enjoy the best of both worlds, marrying rich husbands whom

42 6 E A Wrigley, R S Schofield, The Population History of England 1541-1871, Edward Arnold, 1983.
 Marriage in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Jane Austen Queen Victoria

they happen also to love. Their marriages are based on calm judgement
and mutual affection.7 During the 19th century there was a growing
emphasis on ‘marrying for love’, although it was still frowned upon by
many in polite society.
As ever, the poorer classes had more freedom to choose their own
marriage partners because they had little or no wealth to consider,
although their field of choice was naturally limited by geography. Most
married someone who lived within a ten mile radius.
With nine children of her own, Queen Victoria served as a role model
for Victorian wives and mothers, although she was not entirely amused
with so many pregnancies. Queen Victoria was the first public figure in
Britain to make use of an anaesthetic in child birth. Thereafter it became
very popular. Recent studies have shown Victoria to be a woman of very
healthy appetites when it came to relations with her husband, Prince
Albert.8 According to the gynaecologist Dr William Acton, however,
this was not the experience of all women:
‘The majority of women (happily for them) are not very much troubled with
sexual feelings of any kind.’9

7 Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, written 1796 published 1813.

8 Stanley Weintraub, Victoria: An Intimate Biography, Dutton, 1987, p.148.
9 Cited by Alain de Botton, Status Anxiety, Vintage International, 2005, p.203. 43
 A Brief History of Marriage

Joseph Addison

Childhood
As far as child rearing is concerned, it is often claimed that childhood
was more celebrated towards the end of the 18th century with parents
more inclined to show warmth and affection towards their offspring,
though some writers advise caution. Writing in 1711 Joseph Addison,
the essayist, playwright and politician, expressed the view that:
‘Of all hardness of heart, there is none so inexcusable as that of parents towards
their children. An obstinate, inflexible, unforgiving temper is odious upon all
occasions, but here it is unnatural.’10

Paternal love is also shown in the kind words of Thomas Blundell, an

18th century Lancashire gentleman, about his daughter, Molly:
‘I have long since told her that I would not compel her to marry, much less to
marry one she could not love and so make her miserable as long as she lives, so
to leave her entirely to please herself… All I require is that he be a gentleman,
one of good character and a Catholic.’11

Middle class mothers were more likely than others to spend time
with their children, playing with them and being involved in their
education and breastfeeding their babies. Motherhood was seen as the
greatest fulfilment for a woman. Many such women were also religiously

10 Joseph Addison, Essay on ‘Cruelty of Parents in the Affair of Marriage’, 1711.

44 11 Kirstin Olsen, Daily Life in 18th Century England, Greenwood Press, 1999, p.36.
 Marriage in the 18th and 19th Centuries

motivated to help the poor in their neighbourhoods. Poorer children

were, no doubt, equally loved by their parents but circumstances dictated
a rather harsher upbringing with children having to work from the age
of four or five.
Victorian families were generally much larger than in more recent
times. In the late 1860s there was an average of 6.16 children per family.
By 1881 this had fallen to 5.27 and by 1914 the average was 2.73. Or to put
it another way, from 1870-1879, 43 per cent of families had between five
and nine children and 18 per cent of families had ten children or more.12
4SZIVX]ERH%PGSLSP
Life was often hard for people in Victorian Britain, with grinding poverty
the lot of many and drunkenness widespread. Many people turned to
alcohol in an effort to escape the pressures of their daily toil, and such
heavy drinking was a major cause of poverty. This inevitably had an
adverse effect on marriage and family life.

My grandmother, born in 1885, told me of an incident that occurred in her street in a

working class London suburb when she was growing up. One of her friends – a young girl
called Cissy Delman – came crying to the other children. ‘My Dad’s come home drunk,’ she
sobbed. ‘That’s nothing,’ said the others, ‘Our Dads come home drunk every Friday night!’

My great-grandfather, an Irishman named Patrick Dunne, had a tough job as a leather

dresser. In his sober moments he agreed that his daughter, my grandmother, would stand
at the door of the local pub on a Friday evening when he was paid and he would give her
most of his wages to take home to her mother. Even though he had taken the pledge several
times,13 if she was late and missed him the chances were that most of the family’s weekly
income would go on drink. On the plus side he was never violent. When drunk he would
simply become silly and fall asleep.

Such habits were not uncommon. Under such circumstances it often fell to the mothers to
do their best to keep the family going. Often, it seems, women have been the civilising force
in men’s lives.

12 Robert Woods, The Demography of England and Wales, Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp.7-9.
13 The 19th century saw the emergence of ‘temperance societies’ which encouraged people to promise that they
would abstain from drinking alcohol. This became known as ‘signing the pledge’. 45
 A Brief History of Marriage

Early Feminism
The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw the beginnings of the modern
feminist movement, spearheaded by a small number of women who
pursued a literary career devoted to promoting female independence from
men and marriage. In many cases they wrote out of bitter experiences in
their own personal relationships. For example, following the break-up of
an unhappy marriage, Anna Jameson scorned the vision of ‘happy wives
and mothers’.14 The early feminists frequently displayed a particularly
jaundiced view of marriage labelling it ‘legal prostitution’.15
Prior to the First World War, society seemed stable and settled to
the major part of the population, but the fault lines were there for those
with eyes to see. There were developments in psychology which would
later revolutionise people’s expectations of sex and human relationships
and a growing minority of women were beginning to aspire to careers
in politics and business on an equal footing with men. Within just a
few decades technological progress would see mass communication and
entertainment exert an influence on social attitudes beyond Victorian
imagination. Such changes were to have a significant impact on marriage
and family life during the 20th century.
Meanwhile, in 1913, Mrs Blanche Ebbutt produced a handbook for
husbands and wives containing a catalogue of Do’s and Don’ts for spouses.
Some sound very quaint, while others are as relevant today as ever:
Don’ts for Wives:
‘Don’t think there is any satisfactory substitute for love between husbands and
wives. Respect and esteem make a good foundation, but they won’t do alone.
‘Don’t think that because you have married for love you can never know a
moment’s unhappiness. Life is not a bed of roses, but love will help to extract
the thorns.
‘Don’t expect all the ‘give’ to be on his side, and all the ‘take’ on yours.
‘Don’t let him have any financial secrets from you. You are partners and you have
as much right to know what is the balance at the bank as he has.’

14 Shirley Foster. Victorian Women’s Fiction: Marriage, Freedom and the Individual. Routledge, 1985, p.10.
46 15 Mary Wollstonecroft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women: With strictures on political and moral subjects, 1792.
 Marriage in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Don’ts for Husbands.

‘Don’t omit to bring home an occasional bunch of flowers or a few chocolates.
Your wife will value even a penny bunch of violets.
‘Don’t try to ‘drive’ your wife. You will find it much easier to ’lead’ her.
‘Don’t stoop, even if your work is desk work. Your wife wants to see you straight
and broad-chested.
‘Don’t keep all your best jokes for your men friends. Let your wife share them.’16

Questions for discussion

1. List some of the changes brought about by:
 ˆXLI1EVVMEKI%GXSJ
 ˆXLI1EVVMEKI%GXSJ
 ˆXLI1EXVMQSRMEP'EYWIW%GXSJ
2. What impact did the Industrial Revolution have on family life?
3. Assess the impact of feminist thinking on marriage and family life. Do you
XLMROJIQMRMWXMR¾YIRGILEWLEHETSWMXMZISVRIKEXMZIIJJIGXSZIVEPP#

16 A selection taken from Blanche Ebutt, Don’ts for Husbands and Don’ts for Wives, A & C Black, 1913. 47
 A Brief History of Marriage

7 The Great War

(1914-1918)

Henry Cooper (author’s grandfather) Rosanna Dunne (author’s grandmother)

When my maternal grandparents married in August 1914, a matter of days after the
outbreak of the First World War, my grandfather spent his wedding night under canvas
with several hundred other new Army recruits in Hyde Park! Meanwhile, my grandmother
returned to her duties as a nurse, taking care to hide her wedding ring on a string around
her neck since nurses were not allowed to marry.

With millions of men taken from hearth and home to fight for king and
country, the Great War of 1914-1918 had an enormous effect on marriage
and family life. It was a war which resulted in tens of thousands of widows
and many more bereaved fiancées and children. In some streets there
was not a house in which the curtains were not drawn as the family was
plunged into mourning.
For wives left behind in Britain there were considerable financial
pressures. As Dr Deborah Thom of the University of Cambridge has
noted:
‘Servicemen’s wives were frequently impoverished as separation allowances were
low, and took time to come.’1

1 Deborah Thom, ‘Women and Work in Wartime Britain’, Women at Work Collection from the Imperial War
48 Museum, http://www.tlemea.com/Thom.asp
 The Great War

One major consequence of war was the increased employment of

women. Women had been working before the war – both in and out
of the home – but wartime conditions saw the numbers rise. In 1911,
for example, around 33 per cent of women were in paid work, but by
1918 this had risen to nearly 47 per cent.2 In addition to the prevalence
of female employment, the range of careers that women pursued began
to increase during the war. Many occupations that had previously been
restricted to men now became open to women, including jobs in heavy
industry. This created tensions after the war when men returned from
serving their country to resume their peacetime jobs. Having tasted a
degree of independence they had not experienced before, some women
wanted more. As one wit observed: ‘Twenty million young women rose to
their feet with the cry We will not be dictated to: and proceeded to become
stenographers!’3
When trying to uncover the facts about relations between the sexes at
any point in history, it is difficult to discern what was normal and typical
as opposed to unusual, and that is even more the case in wartime. As one
historian noted:
‘It is a truism of historical research that it may often be easier to find “deviance”
than so-called normal behaviour.’4

The focus has often been on those who fell short of marital fidelity,
and it is true that many soldiers did resort to prostitutes and that venereal
disease became a major problem. A Royal Commission on Venereal
Disease in 1916 claimed that in the working classes of London, between
eight and twelve per cent of adult males and between three to seven per
cent of adult females had contracted syphilis.5 Some believe this to be a
conservative estimate. Under the Defence of the Realm Act it was against
the law for a woman with venereal disease to have sex with a member of
His Majesty’s forces, with a penalty of six months in prison for offenders.6

2 Ibid.
3 G K Chesterton, cited by Maisie Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Sheed and Ward, 1942, p.205. A
stenographer was a (generally female) secretary who recorded in shorthand words that were dictated to her
by a (generally male) manager.
4 Susan Grayzel, Evidence, History and the Great War: historians and the impact of 1914-18, Berghahn Books,
2003, p.126.
5 Royal Commission on Venereal Disease 1916, section 15, cited by Susan Grayzel, Evidence, History and the
Great War, op.cit, p.126.
6 Defence of the Realm Act 1918, regulation 40D. 49
 A Brief History of Marriage

Women working in a factory during the First World War

The war years also saw a rise in the proportion of births outside
marriage. In 1914 around 4.5 per cent of all births were to unmarried
women, but this rose to around six per cent during the Great War, before
it returned to 4.5 per cent upon the resumption of peace.

Marriage and the ordinary ‘Tommy’

But what of the ‘average’ man and woman? How did war affect them? In
attempting to answer this question, we are fortunate to have many records
of letters written by the ordinary ‘Tommy’ to his wife or sweetheart.
Three examples will suffice to show a more sensitive side to marital life
than the oft’ painted picture of drunkenness and cruelty.
Our first case concerns Private Peter McGregor of 14th Argyll and
Sutherland Highlanders. Peter was the choirmaster and organist of St
Andrew’s Church, Edinburgh. He had been born in 1871 and, because of his
age, could have avoided war service had he wished. Married to Janet, he had
two children, Bob and Margaret. His background, though not typical given
his musical connections, was quite humble and had not prepared him for
the rough and tumble of service life. He writes in his letters to Janet of the
coarseness of the language and humour of his fellow soldiers but soon adapts
to it and sees depths in his comrades which were not always so obvious.
‘I can swear and laugh at the most awful coarse jokes… You won’t know me
when I come home on leave.’ 7

50 7 Michael Moynihan (ed), Greater Love: Letters Home, 1914-18, W H Allen, 1980. Letter written from
Plymouth, 13 June 1915.
 The Great War

A First World War wedding

The following extracts from his letters home give a flavour of his
relationships with his wife and children:
‘To my dear darling wife,
The life is fine but, of course, it is not home – once or twice I had watery eyes
thinking of my dear ones at home.’8
‘[B]etween the lines are all my thoughts of you and the dear babies. Tell
Margaret I saw a wee girl when out on a route march - and my eyes filled with
tears thinking I wouldn’t see my dear darling family for such a long time.
‘It makes my heart turn round when you say you love me. I don’t think it matters
how old one is – you can always love – at least I can – and it’s always you.’ 9

‘Your dear sweet letter was perfect. I love you to tell me your feelings towards
me… Dear old thing, I want all your love, and my wee family’s too…’10

Peter was then sent out to the Front and his letters were censored. He
indicates that he has to be more discreet:
‘The strain of this note has to be very circumspect – as you know – but it’s all
there, more than ever before.’11

8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., letter dated 5 September 1915.
10 Ibid., Letter from Milford, Surrey, 21 November 1915. 51
11 Ibid., Letter from ‘Somewhere in France’, 6 June 1916.
 A Brief History of Marriage

Janet’s letters to Peter reveal that their feelings for each other were
mutual:

‘My darling husband, I could say more than I do, but I am afraid lest I make
you more homesick than ever if I pour out too much of my loving feeling… I am
longing for you to come and give me a hug…’12

This was written a few days after Peter had been killed in action on 13
September 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. Janet was informed of
his death after her letter was dispatched.
Our second example is Private Daniel John (‘Jack’) Sweeney of the
2nd Battalion of the Lincoln Regiment. Jack received a letter from Miss
Ivy Wims, a Sunday school teacher who had been asked to write to him
by one of her pupils. In reply, Jack signed himself ‘your loving friend,
Jack’.13 Over six months later, still not having met each other, Jack asked
Ivy for a photo:
‘My Dear Ivy,
‘I know that I have never seen you but I am sure we will soon be able to see and
meet each other, then I expect I shall be so shy. I know what I shall do when I
knock at your door, I shall put on my gas helmet then you will not be able to see
me blushing (good idea).

‘Yes, My Dear, I think it would be best for me to wait until I see you in life
instead of having a photo, but all the same I should like a photo please.’14

One month later, they finally met. Ivy recalled that he was quiet and
had ‘a lovely face’. She realised that for him it was love at first sight,
but for her love came gradually. Jack was worried that he was not good
enough for her and that the differences in their social backgrounds would
come between them. At first, Ivy’s parents thought the same way, though
Ivy never did, but over the course of time her parents came to be very
fond of Jack.
On his return to France, in time for the Battle of the Somme, Jack
wrote:

12 Ibid., Letter dated September 1916.

13 Ibid., letter dated 17 October 1915.
52 14 Ibid., letter dated 2 May 1916.
 The Great War

Private Jack Mudd Lizzie Mudd

‘Dear Ivy, I’ve fallen in love with you…’15

Their correspondence continued for the rest of the war. In March 1918
they married and Jack survived the rest of the fighting. They went on to
have six children. During the 1920s and 1930s many families experienced
considerable financial pressures and the threat of unemployment loomed
large, but Jack and Ivy managed and enjoyed a very happy marriage.
Almost 20 years after Jack’s death in 1961, Ivy wrote of the husband she
never ceased to mourn:
‘He was always so very gentle and kind, a wonderful father and I loved him
dearly.’16

Our third example is another Jack – Private Jack Mudd, a cockney

from Bow in the East End of London. On 26 October 1917, at the age of
31 and married with children, as a private in the 2/4th Battalion, London
Regiment, Royal Fusiliers, Jack took part in the Third Battle of Ypres –
also known as the Battle of Passchendaele. It was one of the bloodiest
and most horrific battles of the Great War. When the roll was called
Private Mudd was not among the survivors. His body was never found.
His name is one of 34,888 recorded on the Memorial to the Missing at
Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium.
Four days before he was killed he wrote a long letter to his wife in

15 Ibid., letter dated 16 June 1916.

16 Ibid., as told to the editor by Ivy Sweeney. 53
 A Brief History of Marriage

which he poured out his feelings about the present and his hopes for the
future. Its tenderness and sensitivity are striking:
‘My darling Lizzie,
‘At last I have the opportunity of writing to you a real letter. In the first place,
dearest, I trust you and the children are quite well. I guess you have been worried
by the air raids. You know dear it’s hard to be out here fighting and yet your wife
and children can’t be safe. Still dear don’t worry… God will watch over you as
he has been with me since I have been out here. I have tried dearest to be as good
as I can since I have been in France. I never close my eyes without praying for
myself, you and the children…
‘We are expecting to go up again in two or three days, so dearest, pray hard
for me and ask Marie for God will not refuse her prayers, she doesn’t know the
wickedness of this world. Dear Lizzie, it’s nearly six months since I saw you,
how I long for you and the children. God bless you all. I love you more than ever.
I long to take you in my arms again, what a lot of love we have missed but please
God it will be all the sweeter when I see you. I often take your photo out of my
pocket and look at your dear face and think of the times we have had together,
some lovely days, eh love and when I think again of some of the worry I have
caused you it makes me only the more eager to get home to you to atone for all
the worry and anxious moments you have had to put up with. You always stuck
by me in all things, dear God bless you for it. And my dear little children, I
think of them, God bless them also. I hope dear you will always trust in me for I
am always faithful, your face is always before me and I couldn’t deny you and as
for you I know you are faithful and no matter what happened you would always
be true and keep your word…
‘Please God it won’t be long before this war is over, we are pushing old Fritz
back, I don’t think he will stand the British boys much longer and then we will
try and keep a nice home. I will know the value of one now.

‘Good night love, God bless you and my children and may He soon send me
back to those I love is the wish of your faithful husband. xxxxxxxx Jack’17

54 17 Ibid., letter dated 25 October 1917.

 The Great War

Of course, it is also true that many men were uncouth and unfaithful
– in short, bad husbands. However, there were also strong, warm,
supportive and loving marriages at all levels of society.

Questions for discussion

1. What effect did the Great War have on marriage?
(MWGYWWXLIMQTEGXSJ[EVERHGSR¾MGXSRXLIWXEFMPMX]SJQEVVMEKIERHJEQMP]
life.
3. How important are faithfulness and trust to a successful marriage?

55
 A Brief History of Marriage

8 ‘A Land Fit for Heroes?’

(1919 – 1939)

My maternal grandfather was invalided out of the Army in August 1918, though not
demobbed until a year later. By 1919 he had two sons and my mother was born a few years
later in 1925. A bus driver, living in rented accommodation and never owning his own
home, he was a typical man of his time. In order to earn a little extra money he used to get
up at 6.00am on his days off and walk two miles to the bus garage in case any of the other
drivers had reported sick so he could be given additional work.

My grandmother was a full-time housewife and mother. She was a strong-willed character
of Irish descent. When my grandfather arrived home from work his dinner was awaiting
him on the table, but my grandmother always expected him to be on time! Was this a
normal relationship? It was certainly a civilised one. My grandfather was a gentleman in
the real sense of the word, and my grandmother was dutiful.

Most men and women who married between the two World Wars did not enjoy affluence
but they were loyal to each other and raised their children to be reliable and faithful.
Throughout this period, including the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1930s, crime rates and
illegitimacy rates were low and the sense of duty was high.

&IX[IIRXLI;EVW
Life was particularly tough for single mothers in the early part of the
20th century. Few maternity hospitals were prepared to accept unmarried
mothers, with the result that they often gave birth in the workhouse
lying-in-wards. Lone mothers were frequently separated from their
babies at birth, with the babies put up for adoption. In the wake of the
Great War, 1919 saw 42,000 children born outside marriage, but the
number of illegitimate births had fallen to 34,138 by 1922 and to 25,105
in 1935.1 Attitudes to such children and their mothers were harsh by
modern standards.

1 Lionel Rose, The Massacre of the Innocents: Infanticide in Great Britain 1800-1939, Routledge & Kegan Paul,
56 1986, p.172.
 ‘A Land Fit for Heroes?’

The Infanticide Act 1922 recognised that mothers could be driven

to desperate measures and treated such infant deaths as separate from
murder. The punishments were on a par with manslaughter.2 Although
abortion was permitted in situations where it was performed ‘in good
faith’ to save the life of the mother, in all other circumstances it was
illegal, and the 1929 Infant Life Preservation Act treated abortions
performed after 28 weeks gestation as ‘child destruction’. Hence, the law
attempted to balance compassion and respect for life. Social stigma was a
harsh instrument but it is arguable that much greater misery was avoided
in the long run.
Meanwhile, the number of live births in England and Wales declined
from 780,000 in 1922 to 599,000 in 1935.3 This reduction is at least partly
due to the deaths of several hundred thousand men in the Great War
and the many women thus deprived of the opportunity of marriage. It is
reckoned that during the inter-war years around 20 per cent of women
never married, though after the Second World War this figure dropped
to five per cent.4 The Times newspaper spoke of ‘surplus women’ in 1921
and encouraged them to emigrate to the colonies to provide wives for the
men in those countries.5

8LI³RI[QSVEPMX]´
While the majority of British men and women carried on with their lives
through thick and thin, the idea of marriage was being challenged by
writers whose influence was set to grow as the century progressed.
Sigmund Freud (1859-1939), the renowned Austrian psychologist was
at the forefront of the attack on marriage. Freud held that the sex drive
was fundamental to the way people relate to each other and argued that
sexual restraint was unhealthy and caused physical and mental harm.
He made it intellectually respectable to hold opinions which previously
would have been condemned as extreme and perverted.
The philosopher, Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) was among the
influential figures who took up Freud’s ideas and argued for ‘new forms

2 The Infanticide Act 1922 provided a partial defence to murder for any woman who deliberately killed her
newborn child while the balance of her mind was disturbed as a result of giving birth.
3 Office of National Statistics: Birth Statistics FM1 (Historical Series), Expodata files, 1485120612, Births:
1837-1937.
4 Katherine Holden, Singleness in Interwar Britain, Routledge, 2002, p.5.
5 The Times, 25 August 1921. 57
 A Brief History of Marriage

Sigmund Freud Bertrand Russell

of marriage’. Another exponent of the ‘new morality’ of sex for its own
sake was Henry Havelock Ellis (1859-1939). He had trained as a medical
doctor but subsequently presented himself as a ‘sexologist’. At the age
of 32 he married a feminist and openly lesbian woman. He strongly
advocated the acceptance of homosexual practice and was very supportive
of eugenics.6

Marie Stopes
Marie Stopes (1880-1958) was arguably the most influential advocate for
the ‘new morality’ in Britain. Given that her own marital history was
somewhat mixed, with her first marriage being annulled due to non-
consummation, it is perhaps ironic that she has been described as ‘one
of the most renowned experts on marriage’.7 She wrote a book entitled
Married Love in which she presumed to help her readers ‘increase the joys
of marriage, and to show how much sorrow may be avoided’.8
Marie Stopes championed the view that sexual intimacy was to be
engaged in for the purpose of ‘individual gratification rather than simply
reproductive duty’.9 To that end she was committed to the promotion of

6 The word ‘eugenics’ is derived from the Greek word ‘eu’ (good or well) and the suffix ‘genes’ (born). It was
coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883 who defined it as ‘the study…which can improve or impair the racial
quality of future generations.’
7 Katherine Holden, Singleness in Interwar Britain, op. cit., p.3.
8 Marie Carmichael Stopes, Married Love, The Critic and Guide Company, 1918, Author’s Preface.
58 9 Katherine Holden, Singleness in Interwar Britain, op. cit., p.6.
 ‘A Land Fit for Heroes?’

Henry Havelock Ellis Marie Stopes

contraception. Perhaps less well known is her espousal of eugenics and

her desire to prevent those she considered racially inferior from having
children. She was not against marriage in and of itself, but she did oppose
it for those she considered to be of unsuitable stock.
Katherine Holden, in her study Singleness in Interwar Britain says that
for Dr Stopes, celibacy was unnatural and healthy celibates were ‘ failing
in their racial duty’.10 In line with Freudian thinking, she argued that men
found celibacy more difficult than women. In the words of Katherine
Holden, Stopes held that, ‘For men the need for sex was less easily controllable
and sublimation more difficult… For women, the maternal instinct could
subdue the sex instinct.’ 11
The debates surrounding sex and contraception had little impact on the
lives of the general British public. It was only among the liberal intelligentsia
that there was widespread support for forced sterilisation of the weak, birth
control for all, and abortion on demand. Only the wealthy and privileged
could afford the luxury of indulging themselves in the dissolute behaviour
of the ‘Roaring Twenties’. In the real world, life went on largely as before.
The priority of most of the population was to make ends meet in pressing
economic times. As G K Chesterton put it at the time, the working man
‘ hardly has time to love his own wife, let alone other people’s’.12

10 Ibid, p.4.
11 ibid p.16. Letter from Marie Stopes to an anonymous correspondent, 1921.
12 G K Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World?, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1910, p.47. 59
 A Brief History of Marriage

Contraception
It was a curious time to promote birth control since the fertility rate in
Britain had been falling since the 1870s and had become a major concern
by 1930. Yet Marie Stopes opened her first birth control clinic in 1921
and this sparked a campaign to open more. Prior to this, birth control was
not generally regarded as socially acceptable even for married couples,
and was not spoken of in polite society.
A crucial milestone was reached at the 1930 Lambeth Conference
when the Anglican Communion, including the Church of England, first
accepted that methods of ‘conception control’ other than abstinence could
be used by married couples ‘in those cases where there is such a clearly
felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a
morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence’.13 Up to this point
most mainstream Christian denominations had opposed contraception.
Although the conference condemned the use of contraception ‘from
motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience’, and insisted that
‘sexual intercourse between persons who are not legally married is a
grievous sin’,14 the resolution represented the first formal statement from
a Christian body in favour of the limited use of contraception within
marriage.
In 1930 all voluntary birth control organisations were amalgamated
under the banner of the National Birth Control Council (NBCC). As
the fears of under-population became prevalent throughout the 1930s
and the movement’s connections with eugenics became increasingly
embarrassing in view of the implementation of eugenic policies in Nazi
Germany, the NBCC was renamed the Family Planning Association in
1939. To begin with, birth control clinics targeted married couples only,
but at a later date they began to serve unmarried couples as well.
At the same time, feminist thinking was gaining ground. The
suffragettes had scored a notable victory in securing the vote for women,
and other aspects of women’s emancipation were on the agenda. Growing
numbers of women were entering higher education and wartime
employment had given some women an appetite for work outside the
home on a more permanent basis. Each in its own way altered the
perception of marriage and family life.

13 Lambeth Conference 1930, Resolution 15.

60 14 Ibid., Resolution 18.
 ‘A Land Fit for Heroes?’

(MZSVGI0E[W
From the middle of the 19th century until the 1960s public opinion on
family issues remained fairly constant and changes in legislation were
minimal. For example, up to the middle of the 19th century legal divorce
was almost unknown in England; divorce was available by an Act of
Parliament covering the specific case of the applicant and was therefore
beyond the financial reach of all but the very rich.
In England between 1775 and 1857 there were on average only two or
three divorces each year.15 The Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857 allowed
a husband to divorce his wife on the grounds of her adultery, while a wife
could divorce her husband only if he was guilty of adultery in addition to
another offence such as incest or cruelty. The number of divorces granted
did not exceed 1,000 per annum until 1914.16
The Matrimonial Causes Act 1923 made the law equal for both
husband and wife, enabling either party to secure a divorce on the
grounds of adultery alone, and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1937 further
extended the grounds of divorce to include desertion and incurable
insanity. These measures saw the number of divorces rise above 10,000
for the first time in 1942, but within three decades that figure was to
multiply many times over when the 1969 Divorce Reform Act introduced
the concept of ‘irretrievable breakdown’ as the sole ground for divorce.
No longer were spouses required to cite some form of ‘matrimonial
offence’ in order to obtain a divorce, and for the first time in England,
husbands or wives could be divorced against their will even if they had
not committed any matrimonial offence and wanted the marriage to
continue. As a consequence of this liberalising measure, the number of
petitions for divorce granted in 1971 rose to over 74,400.17

15 Norman Dennis, Rising Crime and the Dismembered Family, IEA Health and Welfare Unit, 1993, p.4.
16 Ibid.
17 Office for National Statistics, Population Trends 138, Winter 2009, Table 9.3. 61
 A Brief History of Marriage

Questions for discussion

1. Why was unmarried motherhood stigmatised in the early 20th century?
What effect did this stigma have on sexual conduct?
,S[[SYPH]SYHI½RI³XLIRI[QSVEPMX]´EWMX[EWI\TVIWWIHF][VMXIVW
such as Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, Henry Havelock Ellis and Marie
7XSTIW#,EWMXWMR¾YIRGIFIIRJSVKSSHSVJSVMPP#
3. Was Freud right to suggest that sexual restraint is the chief psychological
problem of the human race, or would it be more accurate to say that it is
sexual licence that is a major cause of physical and mental harm?
4. Why do you think most mainstream Christian denominations opposed
contraception before the 1930s? When the 1930 Lambeth Conference
agreed to permit the use of contraception where there was a ‘clearly felt
moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood’, what circumstances do you
think it had in mind?
5. Why did the number of divorces increase so rapidly in the latter part of the
20th century? What effect did this have on family life?

62
9 The Second World
War and Beyond

Wedding of the author’s parents

My own mother went out with many Allied soldiers, so much so that my grandfather
dubbed them the ‘League of Nations’. When she asked one American GI about the bad
reputation held by his fellow-countrymen he replied, for better or worse, that soldiers
tended to treat girls with the respect they demanded.1
My parents met and married during the War. Their courtship, as it was still called, lasted
just a year, from December 1943 until December 1944. Most of their courting was done by
letter. My mother reckoned that they were in each other’s company for no more than three
weeks. And yet, theirs was a marriage which was very happy indeed and was to endure.
Only about one in five women went out to work in 1950. Many were quite content to be
full-time housewives and mothers. My own mother stayed at home once my older brother
was born. Later, a part-time job in a sweet shop became available. A friend of Mum across
the road also worked there part-time. Should she go for it? My father, a most gentle and
loving husband, said ‘no’. Mum accepted it without complaint. Sadly, she would have to
work when she was widowed at the age of 36.

1 The term ‘GI’ was used to describe American soldiers. It comes from the initials ‘GI’ meaning ‘Government
Issue’ printed on all US military equipment and clothing. ‘GI brides’ were British women who married
American soldiers and went back with them to the USA after the Second World War. 63
 A Brief History of Marriage

A GI bride

As at the beginning of the Great War, marriage rates rose markedly in

the early part of the Second World War. These peaks were followed by a
decline in marriage rates during the remainder of the war. This, in turn,
was followed by another peak in marriage rates at the end of the war.
After the war ceased in 1945, around 100,000 British women became ‘GI
brides’ and left for the United States, and between 150,000 and 200,000
brides came to Britain from Europe, having married British service
personnel.2 Also, brides were getting younger. While in 1931 42 per cent
of women aged 25-29 were single, by 1951 only 22 per cent of that age
group were unmarried.3

Sexual abandon?
Modern television documentaries often highlight the lowering of
inhibitions in wartime and witnesses come forward to tell their lurid tales
of sexual adventure. No doubt there was some promiscuity, but not to the
extent sometimes claimed by television journalists. The influx of Allied
troops, especially Americans, has been associated in popular myth with
sexual abandon. While it is true that the rate of births outside marriage
rose from around five per cent to nine per cent during the war years, given
that contraception was not so easily available, the rate would have risen
far higher if all the sensational stories were true. The fact that sex outside

2 Robert Chester, Contemporary Trends in the Stability of English Marriage, University of Hull, 1971.
64 3 Harold L.Smith, Britain in the Second World War: a Social History, Manchester University Press, 1986.
 The Second World War and Beyond

A Second World War wedding

marriage remained socially unacceptable ensured that the majority of

brides and bridegrooms were virgins when they married.
Fears about the health consequences of increased female sexual
freedom, prompted the wartime government to issue regulations requiring
anyone named by two other people as the source of a sexually transmitted
infection to undergo a medical examination and receive treatment.4 The
regulation was applied chiefly to women. Of 417 cases in 1944, 414 were
female.5

Wartime Marriage
Amid growing concerns about the declining size of the population, the
government established a Royal Commission on Population in 1943 and
launched a number of initiatives during the early 1940s to encourage
married couples to have children and to provide family support. As early
as June 1940 the National Milk Scheme was set up to provide free or
subsidised milk for all pregnant women and nursing mothers. By 1943,
70 per cent of those eligible were participating in the scheme. A Vitamin
Welfare Scheme was introduced along similar lines in 1942. During the
course of the war, the number of maternity beds in hospitals increased by

4 Regulation 33B, Minister of Health Memorandum, 14 October 1942, Public Record Office, CAB 71/10,
cited in Harold L Smith, Britain in the Second World War: a Social History, Manchester University Press,
1996, p.32.
5 Harold L Smith, Britain in the Second World War: a Social History, op .cit. 65
 A Brief History of Marriage

Second World War evacuees

50 per cent, and both the infant and maternal mortality rates continued
to fall.6
After almost two decades during which the birth rate remained below
replacement levels, the years following the Second World War saw the
fertility rate rise above replacement levels again. However, the ‘baby
boom’ had passed by the late 1960s and the birth rate in England and
Wales fell to below replacement level in 1973 where it has remained ever
since.7
At the close of the Second World War in 1945, most people longed
to return to some kind of normality. The war had disrupted marriages
and family life on an unprecedented scale. Wives and husbands had been
parted for three or four years at a time and children had forgotten what
their fathers looked like. Many children had been evacuated from their
own families. Inevitably there were tremendous strains on many couples
when the soldiers returned home. It is remarkable that marriages and
family life managed to survive as well as they did.
Although the post-war years were characterised by austerity with
rationing continuing into the 1950s, they saw a revival of family life which
had not followed the Great War. Perhaps this was partly due to the fact
that fewer soldiers died. The number of those who lost their lives in the

6 Ibid., chapter 10.

7 Office of National Statistics: Birth Statistics FM1 (Historical Series); expodata files, 1485120612; Births:
66 1837-1937; Office for National Statistics, Social Trends 40, 2010, p.7.
 The Second World War and Beyond

Harold Macmillan

Second World War amounted to around a third of those who perished

between 1914-1918. The 1945-1951 Labour Government introduced the
Welfare State and embarked on a massive house re-building scheme,
which included new housing to replace the slums destroyed in wartime
bombing. The educational reforms brought with them the greatest ever
social mobility in history. Speaking in 1957, the Prime Minister, Harold
Macmillan declared that ‘most of our people have never had it so good’.
Men and women seemed content to return to largely traditional roles
after the war, but changes were around the corner. For the time being,
however, post-war society placed ‘a higher value on domesticity in the midst
of international chaos (which appealed)… to a generation raised in the shadow
of the Second World War.’ 8

Crime
In May 2000 the Chief Constable of the Lincolnshire Police, Richard
Childs, hit the headlines when he denied that there had ever been
a golden age of policing.9 Although it is always dangerous to speak of
‘golden ages’, official statistics show that crime rates were significantly
lower in the 1950s than they are at the beginning of the 21st century. In
1954, there were 430,000 recorded crimes, compared with 4.5 million in

8 Harold L.Smith, War & Social Change, Manchester University Press, 1986, p.174,
9 Daily Telegraph, 11 May 2000. 67
 A Brief History of Marriage

1997 – a tenfold increase in the space of just over 40 years.10 While crime
was certainly not absent in the 1950s, Britain’s streets were certainly safer
and offenders were more likely to be identified and brought to justice.
Norman Dennis illustrates rising levels of crime with reference to car
thefts in Sunderland:
‘In the Sunderland of 1938 the bicycle, in number and as a working-class
possession of value and means of transport, was roughly comparable to the
motor car today. In the whole of that year, in the whole of the town, 50 were
known by the police to have been stolen. In the first six months of 1993, 90 cars
were stolen or broken into in Sunderland on a single car park of 197 spaces.’11

³)ZIV]HE]GMZMPMX]´
What Norman Dennis calls the ‘everyday civility’ of life in England was
taken for granted in the 1940s and 1950s. In 1944 George Orwell had
written approvingly of the ‘gentle-mannered, undemonstrative, law-abiding
English’ and commented:
‘An imaginary foreign observer would certainly be struck by our gentleness; by
the orderly behaviour of English crowds, the lack of pushing and quarrelling…
And except for well-defined areas in half-a-dozen big towns, there is very little
crime or violence.’12

K B Smellie, the respected professor of political science at the London

School of Economics in the late 1940s and early 1950s, also wrote about
the ‘civility’ of everyday life:
‘There can be little doubt that the life of towns has steadily improved…
Drunkenness has fallen steadily. So too has public violence… Personal relations
are more gentle…’13

Writing in 1956, G D H Cole, a prominent intellectual of the Left,

considered that the family was the chief social unit in Britain. In his
judgment, the quality of family life had improved in many respects:
quarrelling in the home had declined as a result of the improvement in

10 Home Office, Recorded Crime Statistics, 1898–2005/06. http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/100years.xls

11 Norman Dennis, Rising Crime and the Dismembered Family, IEA Health and Welfare Unit, 1993, p.3.
12 George Orwell.The English People, Secker and Warburg, 1944, pp.2-3.
68 13 K B Smellie, The British Way of Life, Heinemann, 1955, pp.24-25.
 The Second World War and Beyond

George Orwell G D H Cole

housing standards, children were markedly better cared for and had more
access to games and sports opportunities, and the proportion of neglected
children had fallen.14
However, some of the seeds that were to come to fruition in later
decades were already beginning to germinate in the post-war period. The
1950s saw the beginnings of youth culture and a burgeoning consumerism.
If the people of Britain had ‘never had it so good’, it became apparent that
they were not satisfied with the good that they had, and were attracted
by the free-and-easy way of life that was increasingly being set before
their eyes through the wonder of television. Meanwhile, right-wing
libertarians, left-wing intellectuals, communists and militant feminists
were waiting in the wings looking for an opportunity to challenge the
status quo, but it was the appearance of the contraceptive pill in the 1960s
that was to have a far-reaching impact on family life among all social
classes.
For many couples, the advent of the pill seemed to provide a means by
which they could realise their dream of a more prosperous life, free from
the responsibilities of raising a large family. Although it was initially
only made available to married couples, before the end of the decade
groups such as the Family Planning Association and the Brook Advisory
Service were promoting the contraceptive pill among unmarried people
as well. The pill thus made a major contribution to the growing culture

14 G D H Cole. The Post-War Condition of Britain, Routledge, 1956. pp.18-19. 69

 A Brief History of Marriage

of permissiveness in the ‘swinging 60s’, which saw liberalising measures

introduced in the areas of homosexuality, pornography, abortion and
divorce as well as contraception.

Questions for discussion

1. To what extent do you think that young men today treat young women with
the respect they demand?
2. Why do you think men and women returned to largely traditional roles
EJXIVXLI7IGSRH;SVPH;EV#;LEXFIRI½XWHSJYPPXMQIQSXLIVWFVMRKXS
their families and to society as a whole?
3. What effect did the advent of the contraceptive pill have on family life and
standards of morality?

70
10 Families Without
Fatherhood

&MVXLWSYXSJ[IHPSGO
In their book, Families Without Fatherhood, Norman Dennis and George
Erdos highlight the fact that while there have always been fatherless
children, the numbers have grown considerably in recent years.1 As far
back as 1610 Parliament passed a Bastardy Act with the intention of
addressing the problems associated with births outside marriage. The Act
held the mother responsible for such births, for the simple reason that a
man could deny any responsibility in a way that the woman could not,
unless the child had been conceived as a result of rape. Since local parishes
were charged with providing support to fatherless families, unmarried
mothers were viewed as a burden on the community and made to feel
the disapproval of society. Jonathan Swift sums up the prevailing view
in Gulliver’s Travels when he writes that nothing could be more unjust
than for men ‘in subservience to their own appetites, to bring children into the
world, and leave the burden of supporting them on the public’.2

Families Without Fatherhood Jonathan Swift

1 Norman Dennis and George Erdos, Families Without Fatherhood, Institute for the Study of Civil Society,
2000, Introduction.
2 Cited by Norman Dennis and George Erdos, Families Without Fatherhood, op. cit., p.27. 71
 A Brief History of Marriage

Southwell workhouse

Such thinking continued for generations. Life for illegitimate children

was harsh in Victorian times and they frequently ended up in the
workhouse.3 The Victorians spoke of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’
poor, but in practice the workhouse was the same for all alike. The Poor
Law (Amendment) Act of 1834 provided that working conditions in the
workhouse should be more harsh than the worst conditions outside, in an
attempt to ensure that only the most desperate would seek state assistance.
Prior to the 1960s, the stigma associated with having children out of
wedlock constituted a powerful form of social control. It was supported
not only by newspaper editors, schoolteachers and clergymen, but also
by members of the public from hotel receptionists to bank and building
society managers. Parents sometimes made a harsh and cruel example
of their own daughters, and there was general agreement that it was
necessary to deal firmly with unmarried mothers because if society
did otherwise the problem would grow. As Dennis and Erdos put it,
‘Much pain came from breaking the rule; pain to many more would come from
weakening it.’4
The stigma of illegitimacy continued in some measure into the 1970s.
The 1971 Supplementary Benefits Commission stated:

3 The workhouse was an institution that provided accommodation and employment for people who were
unable to provide for themselves. The harshness of life in the workhouses is strikingly portrayed by Charles
Dickens in Oliver Twist.
72 4 Norman Dennis and George Erdos, Families Without Fatherhood, p.26.
 Families Without Fatherhood

‘It would not be right, and we believe that public opinion would not accept,
that the unmarried “wife” should be able to claim benefit denied to a married
woman… Critics…must demonstrate that society as a whole believes that men
and women not married to each other should be given privileges…for which
married couples are not eligible.’5

Nevertheless, the proportion of births outside marriage was already

beginning to rise. During the Second World War, nine per cent of births
were out of wedlock, but by 1950, the figure had returned to five per cent,
where, with small fluctuations, it had stayed since the 16th century. From
this relatively low point, the percentage of births to unmarried women
began to rise slowly - to seven per cent in 1964, eight per cent in 1970 and
10 per cent in 1980. During the 1980s, we entered uncharted territory
and saw the proportion of births outside marriage rise sharply, reaching
32 per cent by 1994 and 46 per cent by 2009.6

Why did attitudes change?

As the century progressed, social attitudes that had remained constant for
generations began to change. There are a number of reasons for this, but
one of the major factors was the growing influence of Marxist-Feminist7
thinkers who built on the women’s liberation movement, sometimes
displaying a hatred of men and an hostility towards marriage. Ironically,
the attack on the traditional family came not only from the political Left,
but also from the Libertarian Right, with its emphasis on the rights of
the individual.8
This attack on the traditional family was helped in no small measure
by the media. Regardless of their political sympathies, newspapers and
broadcasters need to entertain in order to attract readers and viewers,
and the breakers of taboos are usually more entertaining than those who
support the status quo.

5 Cited by Norman Dennis and George Erdos, Families Without Fatherhood, op. cit., pp.14-15.
6 Office of National Statistics, Live births within/outside marriage 1938-2004, PBH31A; Office of National
Statistics, Live births in England and Wales by characteristics of mother, 2009, Statistical Bulletin, 21 October
2010.
7 The term Marxist-Feminist refers to thinkers and writers who are motivated by the philosophy of Karl Marx and
believe that women’s liberation demands a rejection of traditional centres of authority such as religion and the
family.
8 The term Libertarian Right refers to the political and social philosophy which rejects restrictions on
individual actions, including sexual practices. 73
 A Brief History of Marriage

As the numbers of families without fathers grew they became a

formidable lobby in their own right. It was seen as wrong to stigmatise
them, and in 1987 the Family Law Reform Act finally abolished any
distinction in law between legitimate and illegitimate children. On the
face of it, this was a charitable measure, but it marked a significant shift
in the way that the family was viewed in public policy terms. Increasingly,
government policy is tailored to meet the mother-child unit, and the
traditional family headed by a married couple does not figure on the
policymakers’ agenda.9

The consequences
This retreat from the traditional family based on marriage has had
far-reaching consequences that will have a profound impact on future
generations. As Norman Dennis observed, not all children are raised
in fatherless homes by any means, yet all boys and young men without
exception are growing up in a culture where there is far less social pressure
or social training to become responsible and competent husbands and
fathers. As a society we have lost sight of what it means to be a mature
man.10
From the 1960s onwards, the argument has frequently been advanced
that only time would tell whether children suffered as a result of not
having a father and that there was no basis for suggesting that new family
forms did not produce the same outcomes as the traditional pattern of
children being brought up by their own father and mother. However, as
Norman Dennis and George Erdos have pointed out, such an argument
goes against generations of human experience and ‘flies in the face of
every empirical study that has ever been published on the subject that has
yielded definite results on the benefits and drawbacks of families with
fathers as compared with those households without them’.11
Others have argued that the absence of a father can be compensated
for by other members of the extended family. However, Dennis and
Erdos note that:
‘[E]xtended families themselves exist only because of the practice of long-term

9 Patricia Morgan, Farewell to the Family? Public Policy and Family Breakdown in Britain and the USA, Institute
of Economic Affairs, 1999.
10 Norman Dennis, Rising Crime and the Dismembered Family, op. cit., p.8.
74 11 Dennis and Erdos, op. cit., pp.25-26.
 Families Without Fatherhood

marriage. The marriage bond not only creates the “husband” and “wife”. It also
creates “uncles” and “aunts” and “grandmothers” and “grandfathers” with a long
term relationship to the child.’12

In an address to the annual conference of the Association of Directors

of Social Services in 1990, the then Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock,
asserted that rising rates of births outside marriage and lone parenthood
meant that the family was not deteriorating but only changing. He added
that those who tried to stigmatise such families had ‘no intentions that
could be described as good’.13
Nobody denies that children can and do suffer as a result of living
with two parents in a dysfunctional family characterised by violence and
abuse. However, the point remains that, viewed overall, children enjoy
better health, achieve better educational outcomes and are less likely to
suffer abuse when they are brought up by their own married parents than
when they are raised in any other setting. As Dennis and Erdos argue:
‘To reveal faults in an institution is only to show again that all institutions are
imperfect. To show abuses is only to show that the most perfect institution ever
devised has been abused…. But falling short of an imagined perfection can
never be the criterion of whether or not an institution should continue to exist.
It is always a matter of comparing one set of institutions with another in terms
of specified, concrete results obtained in practice.’14

Neil Kinnock
12 Ibid., p.75.
13 Cited by Norman Dennis, Rising Crime and the Dismembered Family, op. cit., p.44.
14 Ibid., p.65. 75
 A Brief History of Marriage

In the absence of a father to support and provide for his family, the
majority of lone mothers look to the state to meet their basic needs, with
many fathers prepared to walk away from their responsibilities and leave
the taxpayer to shoulder the burden. Dennis and Erdos argue that such
feckless fathers are, in effect, saying to the rest of us, ‘You must be a socialist
so that I can be an egoist. My baby is the hostage through whom I, who will not
do my duty, will hold you to do your duty.’ 15
While the fact that growing levels of family breakdown have been
accompanied by rising crime rates does not in and of itself prove that the
latter is caused by the former, there is nevertheless evidence to suggest that
there is a link between the two. A discussion paper published in 2008 by
the Cabinet Office and the Department for Children, Schools and Families
recognised that relationship breakdown is associated with a wide range of
negative outcomes for children, young people and adults, and noted that 70
per cent of young offenders are from lone-parent families.16

Questions for discussion

1. Jonathan Swift stated that nothing was more unjust than for men ‘to bring
children into the world, and leave the burden of supporting them on the
public’. Do you agree?
2. Were the Victorians right to draw a distinction between the ‘deserving’
and ‘undeserving’ poor? If we were to make such a distinction today, what
difference would it make to the way people live?
3. Why do you think the proportion of births outside marriage rose so rapidly
to unprecedented levels during the 1980s and 1990s?
 ,S[ MR¾YIRXMEP LEW XLI QIHME FIIR [MXL VIKEVH XS GLERKMRK EXXMXYHIW XS
marriage and family life?
 ;LEX FIRI½X HSIW XLI TVIWIRGI ERH MRZSPZIQIRX SJ E JEXLIV FVMRK XS
children?
 (S]SYEKVIIXLEXXLIVIMWEPMROFIX[IIRKVS[MRKPIZIPWSJJEQMP]FVIEOHS[R
and increased crime rates? Why do you think this might be?

15 Dennis and Erdos, op. cit., p.59.

16 Cabinet Office and Department for Children, Schools and Families, Families in Britain: An Evidence Paper,
76 December 2008.
;LIVIEVI[IRS[#
Marriage and Family in the 21st Century

At the annual conference of the government-funded Family and Parenting

Institute in 2009, the institute’s chief executive, Dr Katherine Rake,
speculated about the shape of family life in 2020. Although there had
been a marked decline in marriages from 480,285 in 1972 to 270,000 in
2009, marriage remained the most common form of partnership, with 52
per cent of men and 50 per cent of women married in 2006. However, Dr
Rake predicted that marriage would continue to decline and cohabitation
and single parenting would increase, and it was estimated that by 2021,
cohabitation would account for 22 per cent of all couples compared with
12 per cent in 1996.
Ironically, while fathers tend to be more actively involved with their
children than in the early part of the 20th century, they are also more
likely to be completely absent, with 25 per cent of families headed by a
single parent – nine out of ten of them women. Yet, Dr Rake argued that
policymakers must not try to encourage more ‘traditional families’ but
rather seek ways to support different types of family.1

Katherine Rake

1 Katherine Rake, Introductory speech, Family and Parenting Institute annual conference, 30 November
2009, http://www.familyandparenting.org/Families2020 77
 A Brief History of Marriage

Harriet Harman

A few weeks later the government, in the person of Harriet Harman,

seemed to support this rather defeatist attitude. ‘There is no Government
policy,’ said Miss Harman, ‘which will prevent relationship breakdown.’
Speaking at a think-tank seminar she said:
‘Families come in all shapes and sizes. We don’t favour one way of family life
over another… We don’t dictate one family model as the right sort of family…
Dictating family structures makes those not in the traditional two-parent family
feel they are being blamed and their children feel they are being told “there is
something wrong with your family and so there is something wrong with you”.’2

*EQMP]FVIEOHS[R
Family breakdown is one of the major social problems of our time.
Research reveals strong links between family breakdown and child abuse
of all kinds. Children from broken homes or raised in lone parent families
are three to six times more likely to suffer abuse than those growing up
with both biological parents. Statistics indicate that children who have
experienced family fragmentation are more likely, on average, to suffer
serious disadvantages in life with regard to education, employment, drug
and alcohol dependency, involvement in crime and early sex activity. 3

2 Harriet Harman, ‘Looking after your family is still the hardest and most important job in the world’, speech
delivered to the Institute for Public Policy Research, 7 December 2009.
78 3 Centre for Social Justice, Green Paper on the Family, January, 2010.
 Where are we now?

Sir Paul Coleridge

Over a third of children experience parental divorce before the age of

16,4 and the risk of family breakdown is even greater for children whose
parents are not married. According to an analysis of data from the
Millennium Cohort Study, during the first three years of a child’s life,
unmarried parents are five-and-a-half times more likely to break up than
married parents.5
The Relationships Foundation estimates that family breakdown costs
the taxpayer £41.67 billion per year. This takes into account tax credits,
housing benefit, health and social care, education and civil and criminal
justice expenditure relating to family breakdown.6

The problem recognised

In April 2008, Sir Paul Coleridge, a senior judge in the Family Division
of the High Court, expressed the view that current levels of family
breakdown are ‘as harmful as global warming’. He referred to ‘a never-
ending carnival of human misery’ and argued that ‘almost all of society’s social
ills can be traced back to the collapse in family stability’.7

4 J Ermisch, M Francesconi, ‘Patterns of household and family formation’, in Berthoud, R. and Gershuny,
J. (eds.), Seven Years in the Lives of British Families, The Policy Press, 2000, p.39; cited by Rebecca O’Neill,
Experiments in Living: The Fatherless Family, Civitas 2002.
5 Harry Benson, ‘The conflation of marriage and cohabitation in government statistics – a denial of difference
rendered untenable by an analysis of outcomes’, Bristol Community Family Trust, September 2006, p.11.
6 Relationships Foundation, Counting the cost of family failure, Briefing Note No 2, February 2010.
7 Speech to members of Resolution, formerly the Solicitors’ Family Law Association, 5 April 2008. 79
 A Brief History of Marriage

According to Relate, the UK’s largest provider of relationship support:

‘Family breakdown is a private tragedy but on a wider scale is also a matter for
public concern. Looking at social and family policy questions across government
shows that family breakdown contributes to a wide variety of social problems
causing distress for individuals, families and communities.’8

There is evidence of changing public attitudes towards marriage and

traditional patterns of family life. In 2008, the British Social Attitudes
Survey reported that two-thirds of people see little or no difference
between marriage and cohabitation, one in four think married couples
make better parents than unmarried ones, and a third believe that same-
sex male couples are just as capable of being good parents as a man and a
woman. Just over three-fifths of those interviewed (61 per cent) supported
the right of single women to have a baby as a result of sperm donation.9
The marriage rate has fallen to a 100-year low. The chart opposite
illustrates that there has been a steady long-term decline over the past
four decades. While marriage rates stood at 77.5 per 1,000 unmarried
men and 59.5 per 1,000 unmarried women in 1970, by 2006 rates had
fallen to 22.8 and 20.5 per 1,000 respectively.10

Cohabitation
In the 1960s cohabitation was so rare that it barely registered in
government statistics, and at the beginning of the 1970s only one in ten
couples lived together before marriage. However, by 1987 60 per cent of
couples cohabited prior to marriage, and now it is rare for couples not to
live together before marrying.11 Many more couples live together with no
intention of getting married.
Cohabiting relationships tend to be far more fragile and short-lived
than marriages. Fewer than four per cent of cohabitations last for ten
years or more.12 Using figures from the Millennium Cohort Study, an

8 Cited by Relationships Foundation, Counting the cost of family failure, op. cit.
9 National Centre for Social Research, ‘British Social Attitudes Survey’ 24th Report, Sage, 2008.
10 National Statistics, ‘Marriage rates fall to lowest on record’, 26 March 2008, Table 2b, Marriages – numbers
and rates (Historic).
11 John Haskey. ‘Trends in marriage and cohabitation: the decline in marriage and the changing pattern of
living in partnerships’, Population Trends, 80, HMSO, 1995, pp. 5-15.
12 Patricia Morgan, Marriage-Lite: The Rise of Cohabitation and its Consequences, Institute for the Study of Civil
80 Society, 2000.
 Where are we now?
Marriage rates, England and Wales 1970-2006
Marriage rates, England and Wales 1970-2006
80.00
80.00

Marriages per 1,000 unmarried

unmarried
1,000unmarried

63.75

63.75
47.50
per1,000

47.50 31.25
Marriagesper
Marriages

15.00
31.25
19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
19 8
19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
19 8
19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
20 8
20 0
20 2
20 4
06
7
7
7
7
7
8
8
8
8
8
9
9
9
9
9
0
0
0
19

Year Males marrying Females marrying

15.00

Cohabitation
19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
19 8
19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
19 8
19 0
19 2
19 4
19 6
20 8
20 0
20 2
20 4
06
7
7
7
7
7
8
8
8
8
8
9
9
9
9
9
0
0
0
19

In the 1960s cohabitation

Year was so rare that it barely registered in government statistics,
Year Males marrying Females marrying
and at the beginning of the 1970s only one in ten couples lived together before marriage.
Marriage rates, England and Wales 1970-2006
However, by 1987 60 per cent of couples cohabited prior to marriage, and now it is rare
Cohabitation for couples not to live together before marrying.144 Many more couples live together with
analysis of families
no intentionwith at least
of getting three children found that while unmarried
married.
In the 1960s cohabitation was so rare that it barely registered in government statisti
couples made up only 33 per cent of the sample, they accounted for 73 per
and at the beginning of the 1970s
Cohabiting relationships tendonly one
to be far in ten
13more couples
fragile lived together
and short-lived before
than marriages. marriag
Fewer
cent of incidences of family breakdown.
However, by than1987 60 cent
four per per ofcent of couples
cohabitations last cohabited
for ten yearsprior to 145
or more. marriage,
Using figuresand from
nowtheit is ra
Cohabitees
for couples not totend
Millennium totogether
have
liveCohort more
Study, an health
before analysis problems
of families
marrying. thanatmarried
with
144 Many least three
more couples,
children
couples live found that w
together
possibly because they are
while unmarried more
couples inclined
made up onlyto 33 smoke,
per cent of drink and engage
the sample, in for 73
they accounted
no intentionperofcent
getting married.
substance abuse than married people. They are also more likely to suffer
of incidences of family breakdown. 146

from depression.14
CohabitingCohabitees
relationships tend
tend to havetomore
be far more
health fragilethan
problems andmarried
short-lived
couples,than marriages.
possibly because Few
The commitment
they are more of marriage
inclined to doesdrink
smoke, seemandto engage
make ina difference.
substance abuseMen than married
than four per cent of cohabitations last for ten years or more. 145 Using figures from t
tend to work
people.harder
They when
are alsothey
more marry
likely to and
sufferespecially when
from depression. 147 they become
Millennium Cohort Study, an analysis of families with at least three children found th
fathers. Both male and female cohabitees are more likely to be unfaithful
while unmarried
to their The
partners couples
commitment thanofmade up only
marriage
married does 33 per
seem
people, toandcentwomen
make aof the sample,
difference.in Men they
tend
cohabiting to accounted
work harder for
per cent of incidences
when of
they marry family breakdown.
and especially
relationships are more likely to be physically abused. when 146 they become 15 fathers. Both male and female

In spite of the evidence, it is commonly believed that cohabitation is a

Cohabitees tend tofor
good preparation have more health
marriage because problems than marriedparties couples, possibly becau
144 John Haskey. ‘Trends in marriage and cohabitation: the decline in marriage and the changing pattern of

living in partnerships’, Population Trends, 80,itHMSO,

enables1995,both
pp. 5-15. to become
they are more
acquainted inclined
with to smoke,strengths
their partner’s drink andand engage
weaknessesin substance
in orderabuse to than marri
145 Patricia Morgan, Marriage-Lite: The Rise of Cohabitation and its Consequences, Institute for the Study
people. They
minimise ofthe are
Civilriskalso more
of 2000.
Society, likely to suffer from depression.
entering into an ill-advised marriage that will lead
147

to divorce146atHarry
a later date. In reality,
Benson, The conflation however,
of marriage cohabitation
and cohabitation in governmentincreases the Community
statistics, Bristol
riskcommitment
The of divorce. Reflecting
of 2006.
Family Trust, marriage on does
the research
seem toevidence, Professor Raymond
make a difference. Men tendJ to work hard
De Souza
when they147of Queens
marry
Arne andUniversity
Mastekaasa.especially in when
‘Marital status, Kingston,
distress they
and Ontario,
become
well-being: Canada
fathers.
an international notes
Boththat
comparison’, male ofand fema
Journal
Comparative Family Studies, Vol 25 No.2, 1994, p.183.

14413John
HarryHaskey. ‘Trends
Benson, The inofmarriage
conflation and
marriage and cohabitation:
cohabitation 69 decline
the
in government statistics,in marriage
Bristol and the
Community changing
Family pattern o
Trust,
living 2006.
in partnerships’, Population Trends, 80, HMSO, 1995, pp. 5-15.
14 Arne Mastekaasa. ‘Marital status, distress and well-being: an international comparison’, Journal of
145 Comparative
Patricia Family Studies,
Morgan, Vol 25 No.2,The
Marriage-Lite: 1994, p.183.
Rise of Cohabitation and its Consequences, Institute for the Stud
15 Patricia Morgan, Marriage-Lite: The Rise of Cohabitation and its Consequences, op. cit.
of Civil Society, 2000. 81

146 Harry Benson, The conflation of marriage and cohabitation in government statistics, Bristol Commun
 A Brief History of Marriage

G K Chesterton

there is a fundamental difference between the character of a cohabiting

relationship and a marriage:
‘Is cohabitation good preparation for keeping one’s promises and learning to make
sacrifices (for one’s spouse)? Perhaps not. What distinguishes cohabitation from
marriage is precisely the absence of a formal promise or solemn commitment.
And it is more difficult to make significant sacrifices for the other if there is less
confidence in the permanence of the arrangement.’16

As G K Chesterton observed:
‘It is the nature of love to bind itself and the institution of marriage merely pays
the average man and woman the compliment of taking them at their word. Free
lovers say: “Let us have the splendour of offering ourselves without the peril of
committing ourselves.”’17

Marriage involves a lifelong commitment, based on fidelity and love,

whereas cohabitation includes the unspoken understanding that if things
do not work out as the partners had hoped, they are free to part and
seek pastures new. Where a couple marry after a period of cohabitation,
the nagging thought may be present that the initial commitment was
less than whole-hearted. If marriage follows after several liaisons, the

16 Raymond De Souza, ‘Is Cohabitation a Good Preparation for Marriage?’, Family Education Trust, Family
Bulletin, Winter 2007/2008.
82 17 G K Chesterton, Brave New Family, Ignatius Press, 1990, p.51.
 Where are we now?

commitment may be even more tenuous, and the fidelity more shallow.
This may go some way to explaining why marriage following cohabitation
often leads to divorce later on.

Other challenges
The Civil Partnership Act 2004 for the first time gave legal recognition
to homosexual relationships. Although it was the government’s stated
intention to ‘give civil partners parity of treatment with spouses, as far
as is possible, in the rights and responsibilities that flow from forming
a civil partnership’, the Women and Equality Unit (WEU) was at pains
to stress that civil partnership was ‘a completely new legal relationship,
exclusively for same-sex couples, distinct from marriage’,18 and that the
government had ‘no plans to introduce same-sex marriage’.19
However, in the popular press civil partnership ceremonies are
frequently described as ‘weddings’ at which the two parties enter a
‘marriage’, and the WEU itself insists that civil partnerships establish
a new family unit, creating new relationships akin to those formed
by marriage. Under the heading, ‘Relationships arising through civil
partnership’ in its guide to civil partnerships, the WEU states:
‘In order to keep the range of labels for family relationships as simple as possible,
the new legislation provides that traditional family names such as “mother-

Blackstone’s Guide to The Civil Partnership Act 2004

18 Women and Equality Unit, ‘Civil Partnership Act 2004, Frequently Asked Questions’.
19 Women and Equality Unit, ‘A framework for the legal recognition of same-sex couples’, para 1.3. 83
 A Brief History of Marriage

in-law”, “brother-in-law”, “step-daughter” should be interpreted to include

relationships which arise as a result of civil partnership. For example, the brother
of a person who has entered into a civil partnership becomes the brother-in-law
of that person’s civil partner.’20

While some would argue that the advent of civil partnerships has had
little or no impact on marriage and that civil partnerships may have the
benefit of encouraging homosexuals to practise fidelity, it has fostered a
climate in which sexual relationships between two people of the same sex
are regarded as no less legitimate than sexual relations between a married
man and woman even though the procreation of children is not involved.
An article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy in
2010 argued that recognising heterosexual marriage in law as a unique
institution reinforces the ideal, supported by social science evidence, that
the union of husband and wife is the most appropriate environment for
the bearing and rearing of children. However, if same-sex partnerships
were to be recognised as marriages, that ideal would be abolished from
the law, and no civil institution would any longer reinforce the notion
that children need both a mother and father; that men and women have
different contributions to make to the care and nurture of children; and
that boys and girls need and benefit from fathers and mothers in different
ways. The law would be sending out the message that a household of two
women or two men is just as appropriate a context for raising children
and that it does not matter whether children are reared by both their
mother and their father, or by a parent of each sex at all.21

20 Women and Equality Unit, Civil Partnership: Legal recognition for same-sex couples, from December 2005, p.20.
21 Girgis Sherif, Robert P George, Ryan T Anderson, ‘ What is Marriage?’ Harvard Journal of Law & Public
84 Policy Vol. 34, No. 1, Winter 2010, pp245-287.
 Where are we now?

Historically, some homosexual campaigners have been vocal in

their opposition to the family built on marriage. For example, the Gay
Liberation Front Manifesto stated:
‘We, along with the women’s movement, must fight for something more than
reform. We must aim at the abolition of the family so that the sexist male
supremacist system can no longer be nurtured there. The oppression of gay
people starts in the most basic unit of society, the family, consisting of the man
in charge, a slave as his wife, and their children on whom they force themselves
as the ideal models… The end of the sexist culture and of the family will benefit
all women and gay people.’22

While not all homosexuals would share this outlook by any means,
many of the leading advocates for granting full marriages rights to same-
sex couples have not previously supported marriage and are consciously
seeking to so broaden the definition of marriage that it loses its meaning
and ultimately ceases to exist as an institution.
Biomedical technology is also presenting challenges to modern
conceptions of marriage and family life. The advent of artificial
insemination has reduced men in some cases to mere sperm donors with
no further involvement in the life of the child they have fathered. It
is ironic that the phenomenon of ‘the redundant male’ has arisen at a
point in history where there is a strong emphasis on fathers being closely
involved in the upbringing of their children.
Changing employment patterns have also had an impact on marriage
and family life. In the 1950s, while mothers were free to work outside
the home, the majority chose to stay at home to care for their children.
However, in more recent decades economic pressures have made it much
more difficult for women to make that choice. The growth of two-income
families since the 1970s has inflated the cost of housing and led to many
mothers seeking employment when they might have preferred to be full-
time mothers.

22 Gay Liberation Front Manifesto, London 1971, revised 1978. 85

 A Brief History of Marriage

A bleak picture
There is a Chinese curse which says ‘May you live in interesting times!’
With many trying to redefine the family to mean any collection of adults
looking after children regardless of ties of blood, we certainly live in
such times today! Some object to Britain being characterised as ‘broken’,
claiming it is not broken, ‘only different’, but the evidence points to tragic
human waste and unhappiness. Reflecting on low marriage rates, Robert
Whelan and Hugo de Burgh make the sobering observation that:
‘For the anthropologist, widespread failure to marry is a sign of impending
cultural collapse.’23

No amount of money can compensate for the emotional and social

deprivation frequently suffered by children cut off from fathers and
grandparents.
A culture has developed in which young people are sexualised at ever
younger ages and few question it. Young adults no longer expect to wait
until marriage before they embark on a sexual relationship. As Whelan
and de Burgh observe:
‘The big difference now is that being unmarried does not mean leading a celibate
life. People cohabit, or enjoy a series of sexual partners for as long as they are able
to attract them. Contraception separated childbearing from sexual activity, but
more profound cultural changes have separated childbearing from any necessary
connection with marriage.’24

Yet for all that, most young people still aspire to a happy, lifelong
marriage, even though the experience of others makes them fearful that
such an ideal is beyond them. This is borne out in a number of recent
surveys, which suggest that three-quarters of young adults under the age
of 35 who are currently cohabiting intend to marry at some stage, and
almost 90 per cent of young people hope to marry in the future.25 In
view of such findings, the death of traditional marriage is surely greatly
exaggerated!

23 Robert Whelan and Hugo de Burgh, The Necessary Family and How to Support it, Family and Youth Concern,
1996, p.16.
24 Ibid., p.41.
86 25 Centre for Social Justice, Green Paper on the Family, op. cit., p.7
 Where are we now?

Questions for discussion

1. List some of the negative consequences of family breakdown.
2. What can the government do to encourage and support stable family life?
3. Why do you think cohabitation has become more common during the past
]IEVW#
4. Why do cohabiting relationships tend to be less stable and more fragile than
marriage?
5. What impact has the Civil Partnership Act 2004 had on marriage?
 ;L]HSWSQER]]SYRKTISTPIWXMPPEWTMVIXSKIXQEVVMIH#

87
 A Brief History of Marriage

Conclusion
In this brief overview of the history of marriage we have seen that in
spite of changes in legislation, public attitudes and traditions, marriage
has remained an enduring institution at the heart of society. As G K
Chesterton observed:
‘Tribes and civilisations differ about the occasions on which we may loosen the
bond, but they all agree that there is a bond to be loosened, not a mere universal
detachment.’1

The loosening of that bond has become easier over the past century
as a result of changing divorce laws. Undoubtedly, many advocates of
such reforms have been motivated by charity towards unhappy spouses,
but the sad fact is that each reform has weakened the marriage bond for
society as a whole. Unhappiness has been reduced in one quarter only to
be replaced with more elsewhere.
The history of marriage illustrates the fact that human nature does
not change. Although some have cynically questioned whether love was
a feature of marriage in previous generations, there is ample evidence that
warmth, devotion and tenderness between husband and wife were very
much present down the ages.
A good marriage depends on love, and love thrives where there is
commitment – a willingness to sacrifice self for the beloved. This is a
commitment which literally means writing a blank cheque to each other
on your wedding day – ‘for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in
sickness and in health, ’til death do us part’.
In previous generations, an invading army would burn its boats to
signal that it was there to stay – there was no turning back, just as in
marriage the partners give themselves to each other unconditionally and
it will always be so. Such is human nature. It is an apt illustration of
marriage. As G K Chesterton wrote:
‘All around us is the city of small sins, abounding in back ways and retreats, but
surely, sooner or later, the towering flame will rise from the harbour announcing
that the reign of the cowards is over and a man is burning his ships.’2

1 G K Chesterton, What’s wrong with the world, p.44, 1910.

88 2 G K Chesterton, Brave New Family, p.52
 Conclusion

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 A Brief History of Marriage

Mearns, Andrew, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, Pall Mall Gazette,
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90
 Picture credits

Picture credits

The author and publisher are grateful to the following copyright holders
for granting permission to reproduce images in this book.

National Gallery of Art, Washington King Henry VIII (NPG 4980(14)),

Nicolo da Bologna, ‘The p.29; Catherine of Aragon (NPG
Marriage’, front cover, p.26. 163), p.30; Thomas Cranmer
American Antiquarian Society (NPG 535), p.30; Elizabeth
Cotton Mather, p.33. Cromwell (NPG D28739), p.34;
Martin Ballans, Photoshot Queen Elizabeth I (NPG 541), p.35;
Sir Paul Coleridge, p.79. Mary Wollstonecraft (NPG 1237),
p.38; Daniel Defoe (NPG 3960), p.38;
David Barnes
King George III (NPG 223), p.39; Lord
Southwell workhouse, p.72.
Hardwicke (NPG 872), p.40; Queen
British Library Board Victoria (NPG x95802), p.43; Joseph
The Canterbury Pilgrims, Addison (NPG 3193), p.44; Bertrand
Royal 18 D, II, f.148, p.23. Russell (NPG x84660), p.58; Henry
Robert Gladd Havelock Ellis (NPG 6626), p.59;
A Second World War wedding, p.65. Marie Stopes (NPG x127854), p.59;
Imperial War Museum Harold Macmillan (NPG x88837),
Women working in a factory during p.67; George Orwell (NPG P865),
the First World War (Q27846), p.50; p.69; G D H Cole (NPG x42851), p.69;
Private Jack Mudd (HU57198), p.53; Jonathan Swift (NPG 278), p.71; G
Lizzie Mudd (HU57199), p.53. Images K Chesterton (NPG x10751), p.83.
from the Imperial War Museum (IWM) VRoma Project
are not to be used without seeking the A Roman marriage ceremony, p.7.
correct permissions from the IWM. Warden and Fellows of All Souls
Jane Jones of www.ww1photos.com College, Oxford
A First World War wedding, p.51. King Aethelbert of Kent, p.19.
Les Enluminures Ltd Every effort has been made to trace copyright
An early Christian wedding ring, p.16. holders and to obtain their permission
Marc Pittaway for the use of images subject to copyright/
copyright material. The publisher apologises
A Roman family, p.7.
for any errors or omissions in the above list
National Portrait Gallery, London and would be grateful to be notified of any
Geoffrey Chaucer (NPG 532), p.24; corrections that should be incorporated.

91