Uncertain Unions: Marriage in England 1660–1753
Lawrence Stone
Abstract
In Road to Divorce explored the different ways in which marriage took place, and analysed the confusion and uncertainty surrounding the legality of the institution in its various forms before the Marriage Act of 1753. This book shows in absorbing detail, through a series of case-studies, how courting and marrying couples tended to manoeuvre around the ambiguities of the law, and how they sometimes became entangled in a web of moral and legal contradiction leading to personal catastrophe. There are stories about unwise courtship, prenuptial pregnancies, forced marriages by parents ... More
In Road to Divorce explored the different ways in which marriage took place, and analysed the confusion and uncertainty surrounding the legality of the institution in its various forms before the Marriage Act of 1753. This book shows in absorbing detail, through a series of case-studies, how courting and marrying couples tended to manoeuvre around the ambiguities of the law, and how they sometimes became entangled in a web of moral and legal contradiction leading to personal catastrophe. There are stories about unwise courtship, prenuptial pregnancies, forced marriages by parents or parish officials, bigamy, and clandestine marriages often performed in haste in peculiarly squalid circumstances and repented at leisure. These fascinating studies reveal in intimate, often ribald detail how men and women adjusted their sexual conduct, moral attitudes, and matrimonial plans to suit an ambiguous legal situation. This book traces the ways in which, during the 17th and 18th centuries, demands by individuals for love and affection were starting to take precedence over family interests and parental dictation in the search for a spouse; the studies the book has drawn from enable us to see this great moral transition being played out in the lives of men and women, often in their own words.
Keywords:
marriage,
courting,
marrying,
couples,
prenuptial pregnancies,
forced marriage,
bigamy,
sexual conduct,
moral attitudes,
legal situation
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 1992 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780198202530 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202530.001.0001 |
