Pod Insights You're Dead to Me Georgian Courtship (Radio Edit) About this episode Greg Jenner is joined by guests Dr Sally Holloway and comedian Cariad Lloyd in the long 18th Century to explore Georgian love and courtship.
Forget Bridgerton and Jane Austen – this is a historical how-to guide to finding a spouse in Georgian England. This episode takes you through a typical courtship in the era, from where to meet a potential partner, what gifts to buy them, and how much involvement your parents might have in the whole affair. This was a time when penning a love letter was a serious commitment, whilst sweets and spoons were considered flirtations of the highest order!
This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.
Hosted by: Greg Jenner
Research by: Bethan Davies
Written and produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner
Project Management: Isla Matthews
Audio Producer: Steve Hankey
Executive editor: Philip Sellars
Transcript 6,523 words · 12 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:06 Speaker 01 Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a berry chantilly cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.
0:33 Speaker 02 Sometimes we all need an extra helping hand, especially with a tricky business problem you've been putting off. Claude is the AI for just that. It's the collaborator that understands your entire workflow and thinks with you, not for you. And Claude isn't just for quick questions. Hand it a whole task, like turning a folder of scattered notes into a report, and it does the work and hands back something finished that you can open and edit. Claude can now draft a doc or deck right in front of you, and Claude Design now lives right inside Claude. Describe the website or prototype you're picturing, attach your design system, and it comes back in your own design language, ready to edit right on the canvas. It works with your files and the tools you already use, like Gmail and Slack.
1:18 Speaker 02 And whether you're debugging code at midnight, building a financial model, or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at claude.ai/solve. That's claude.ai/solve. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all of the features mentioned in today's episode. claude.ai/solve.
1:47 Speaker 03 BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
1:52 Greg Jenner? Hello and welcome to You're Dead To Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today, we are channeling our inner Colin Firths and emerging soaking wet from the lake of history to bring you a special guide to love and courtship in Georgian Britain. And to help us navigate this topic with sense and sensibility, we have two very special guests. In history corner, she's a Vice Chancellor's Research Fellow in History and History of Art at Oxford-Brooks University, where she studies the history of gender and emotions in 18th and 19th century Britain. Indeed, she's the author of The Game of Love in Georgian England: Courtship, Emotions and Material Culture. Perfect for us, it's Dr Sally Holloway. Welcome Sally.
2:33 Speaker 03 Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.
2:35 Greg Jenner? Delighted to have you here. And in comedy corner, she's a comedian, actor, improviser, author and podcaster, a quintuple threat. You'll know her from the award-winning podcast Griefcast, which is now a beautiful book, and you'll have seen her on all the telly, including Cabinet News For You, QI and Would I Lie To You, but more importantly, you'll remember her from our podcast episodes on the European witch craze, Malais Malais Fagaram, and Agrippina the Younger. It's the wonderful Cariad Lloyd. Welcome back Cariad.
3:00 Speaker 03 Oh, Mr Jenner, what a pleasure it is to finally be invited to your salon. I blush indeed, my countenance is not so fair. And to meet Miss Sally as well, whose work I have admired from afar, I must confess, 'tis more than one could ask for on such a fine and temperate morning.
3:15 Greg Jenner? Oh, I'm so excited. We're fully committed.
3:20 Speaker 03 Yes, she is also a member of Jane Austen's improv show, Austentatious, and will speak like that at any opportunity.
3:26 Greg Jenner? I was gonna say, this is a reflex for you, right? I mean Austentatious, a brilliant improv comedy troupe. That means, I'm guessing, you're already an expert on Georgian social mores.
3:36 Speaker 03 Uh, I definitely wouldn't use the word expert, Mr Jenner. As kind as you are to my expert skills, no, no, I am more of a flitterer of such affections. I know a little bit, but definitely not as much as the excellent professor.
3:50 Greg Jenner? So, what do you know?
3:58 Greg Jenner? This is where I have a go at guessing what our lovely listener will know about today's subject, and I'm willing to bet quite a lot listeners will have at least watched one Jane Austen adaptation. They get blimmin everywhere. Maybe you swoon over Rickman and Winslet in Sense and Sensibility, or Colin Firth and his sexy see-through shirt in Pride and Prejudice, or perhaps you're one of the astonishing 82 million people who watched Bridgerton, or the slightly fewer number of people who were charmed by Mr. Malcolm's List, still a very nice movie, or maybe you fell for Anya Taylor-Joy's Emma, or Dakota Johnson's fleabag-style mugging in Persuasion. There's Love and Friendship, my favourite, with the very funny Kate Beckinsale. Basically, there's loads and loads of stuff. This is one of the most romanticised eras in British history, and I say romanticised in both meanings
4:39 Greg Jenner? of the word, but what were the real rules and rituals of courtship in Georgian Britain? What did a man of good fortune do when in want of a wife? Well, today, we are going to lay out a how-to dating guide. So, we're going to crack on, and Dr Sally, basics first for our listeners who aren't entirely familiar with the Georgians as an era. Who, what, when, why, how? What are the Georgians?
5:01 Speaker 05 Georgian Britain, it's the period from about 1714 to 1830. It's when it's ruled by the Hanoverian kings, George I, II, III, IV, and we commonly refer to the era generally as the Long 18th Century. So, it's a time of massive social and cultural change. And we're going to be talking about the typical journey that a so-called ordinary person might go on as they search for a spouse.
5:26 Greg Jenner? If we're going to have a dating guide, we need to have a couple. So, let's imagine our typical, middle-class, London-living singleton, Cariad, what's his name?
5:34 Speaker 03 Oh, Mr. Barnaby Sykes, surely.
5:36 Greg Jenner? Mr. Barnaby Sykes. And Barnaby is thinking of finding a wife, it's that time. And what do you think his motivation is for joining the marriage market, Cariad?
5:45 Speaker 03 I can only imagine, dear Mr. Jenner, that he is looking to improve his circumstances somewhat. Normally, that's what it is in Georgia. I'm struggling to keep up the constant Georgian voice, because it's quite difficult to answer a question. Mr. Sykes, well, it depends what his parents do, really, doesn't it, and what he needs to get to make sure he keeps where he is or moves upwards. Not entirely to do with love, who's in his circle, that he would think would be a good wife, bearer of children, and hopefully... Bring in some cash.
6:15 Greg Jenner? Sally, are we agreeing with Cariad's analysis there for the middling sort?
6:19 Speaker 05 I think actually it's a lot more about romantic love than you think. So like, yes, it is, it is important to make a strategic match, but a strategic match with someone who you were in love with.
6:29 Speaker 03 Ah.
6:29 Speaker 05 This whole ideology of love became much, much more important during the 18th century, particularly for middling and genteel people like Mr. Barnaby Sykes. People like that would have found that love was being celebrated right across culture, you know, in the novels they read and the poetry they read and the art they saw and philosophy. And it wasn't this sort of frothy idea, but actually something that was really important in revealing your morality and your refinement as a civilized person.
6:57 Speaker 03 Oh, that's interesting.
6:58 Greg Jenner? But there is that line from Matthew Bolton, "Don't marry for money, but marry where money is."
7:05 Speaker 03 That is so funny because it also sounds a bit like a Michael Bolton lyric. And I'm like, Matthew and Michael related because. Don't marry for love, but find where it is.
7:17 Greg Jenner? How old do you think our bachelor, Mr. Barnaby Sykes, is? And what's the age range of ladies that he is seeking to match with?
7:25 Speaker 03 So I imagine Barnaby being like 21 and I think girls were sort of on the scene from 17, 18.
7:33 Greg Jenner? Sally?
7:34 Speaker 05 That's a pretty good guess. Yeah. I mean, women were typically, you know, 23, 24. Men were mid twenties, maybe 26, 27, 28.
7:42 Greg Jenner? So our young romantic hopeful, Barnaby Sykes, has decided to fall in love, but how does he find a date?
7:48 Speaker 05 Middling and genteel people, family and friends were really important and you might meet someone at one of their houses. You know, in a group of friends that you were all going to the theatre together, you might.
7:59 Speaker 03 Card party?
8:00 Speaker 05 Card parties, yeah, gaming or visits for tea or cake or dinner or you might meet people walking to church and back. Or if you were much poorer, you might meet someone at a fair. It wasn't completely calculated, but it also doesn't mean that you could do anything you wanted for love. You were just sort of gently shepherded into the right direction.
8:19 Speaker 03 For me, the funniest thing is how much walking they did, like the walking around the room. It's like, when you think of the levels you go to when there isn't a television to watch. And the promenades as well, like going for a promenade in town was such a thing.
8:31 Speaker 05 So much walking, walking out in public squares, walking through town, walking around in front of other people.
8:37 Speaker 03 Yes, because then also if you're being gently shepherded, what you're saying is, I was out walking with Barnaby Sykes.
8:43 Speaker 05 And everybody saw me out walking with Barnaby Sykes. There's no point walking with Barnaby Sykes if no one can see you doing it.
8:48 Speaker 03 Oh my god.
8:51 Greg Jenner? We've got our Barnaby Sykes. The lady he's chatting to is rather boring, but he spots a hot young lady on the other side of the room. And she is called, Carrie Ad.
8:59 Speaker 03 He does see, past the children squabbling and Mr. Henrickson going on again, the finest pair of eyes he has ever set upon it was, of course, Miss Lydia Misschester.
9:08 Greg Jenner? Oh.
9:09 Speaker 05 Okay.
9:12 Greg Jenner? All right. So we've got Barnaby and Lydia. They've met across a crowded room and their families are willing to drift them in. But what's the next stage of Georgian dating then?
9:20 Speaker 05 He might sort of open it by offering her some gifts to see how interested she is and how well they're received.
9:27 Speaker 03 So if she's like, all right, thanks. He's like, you're all back away.
9:32 Speaker 03 And like, what is it? Like brooches, necklaces? Like, how much money does he have to spend?
9:36 Greg Jenner? You've gone big there, Carrie Ad. That's expensive.
9:38 Speaker 03 I want to know, I want to know what's been turned out my door.
9:39 Speaker 05 Well, I've studied one guy who, he offers this woman sweets and she accepts them. But then the next day, she puts her head down and walks past him on the other side of the street.
9:51 Speaker 05 It wasn't a successful offering.
9:53 Greg Jenner? That is brutal.
9:54 Speaker 03 You're dead to me.
9:55 Greg Jenner? You're dead to me. There we go.
9:58 Speaker 03 God, that's harsh, isn't it? Because I feel like for the blokes, they've got to invest a bit here, haven't you? When you're not sure.
10:03 Greg Jenner? Sweets is one option, but that can backfire. Carrie Ad's brooches, is that a bit too fancy or is brooch good?
10:09 Speaker 05 Only once you're much further in. So you'd open with something quite cheap, like a ribbon.
10:14 Speaker 03 Oh.
10:15 Speaker 05 And then escalate towards the end, offering things like rings and jewellery.
10:20 Speaker 03 A new trim for your bonnet, Miss Misschester. Oh indeed, thank you so much, Mr Sykes. And green to match my eyes, you are kind. Yes, that sort of thing. But building up to hopefully like emeralds, basically.
10:32 Speaker 05 The things that you selected varied massively according to social class. So if you were poorer, you might gift things that you could collect for free, like posies of flowers that you'd collect from a meadow, coins that you'd engraved by hand, you smoothed it to a blank face and then engraved, you know, someone's initials on it.
10:49 Greg Jenner? Oh, wow.
10:51 Speaker 03 I've sanded off the king and I've put a love you on it. Oh, thank you, sir. It's all right. I'm afraid Mr Sykes is coming at any moment. I must excuse myself. Oh, my God. That's really creepy, the coin.
11:05 Speaker 05 And then stables, you'd insert a stables down the front of your corset. They'd be engraved with things like hearts and flowers and initials. And sometimes some of them have little secret compartments in the back that you could unscrew and put a lock of your hair, bringing the two bodies together, the body of the woman who wears it and the body of the man whose hair is in it.
11:24 Greg Jenner? So two hearts next to each other and then a bit of hair to make it creepy.
11:27 Speaker 03 Yeah, it was like, you say two hearts, what you mean is a woman's body and some hair pressed against it.
11:34 Greg Jenner? Barnaby and Lydia have not had a smooch yet. Are they holding hands at this stage?
11:38 Speaker 05 Yeah, people hold hands and, you know, women in their diaries talk about sneaking off to a back room for kisses with men.
11:44 Greg Jenner? Oh, okay. And Carrie, we're going to show you some specific types of love tokens that were gifted by wealthier individuals. And we're going to show you some images now and you can describe them for us.
11:54 Speaker 03 Oh, excited. I hope it's a lock of creepy hair. Whoa.
11:59 Speaker 03 It's not far off a lock of creepy hair. Wow. So it's two, well, one is a locket
12:07 Speaker 03 where someone has painted very small a mouth, but they have not painted anything else. So I assume they're saying, look, here is my lips for you. But it looks super creepy. And there's a brooch where someone's only done an eye and it seems to be surrounded by pearls and it seems to be crying diamonds. I guess in those times that was romantic, but it looks really weird.
12:30 Speaker 03 Why is it crying diamonds?
12:32 Speaker 05 It's a woman's eye and it's about the purity of her love.
12:36 Greg Jenner? And then the lips are for kissing? Do you kiss the locket?
12:38 Speaker 05 Yeah, people kiss their love letters, they kiss their gifts, they kissed, you know, lips in pictures like this. It's all about creating that feeling of being together and creating an emotional bond at a distance, at a time when you couldn't just send someone a text.
12:52 Greg Jenner? Lovely. All right, so we've got various gifts you can give, but let's move on to another tool of courtship rituals. And this is a really big one. This is very important, actually. Carrie, if you really fancy someone and you're trying to like lock them down and make this legit, what do you do next?
13:07 Speaker 03 Oh, so it's not a gift?
13:09 Greg Jenner? It's a gift of sorts. I'm thinking more of communicating your thoughts.
13:12 Speaker 03 Oh, a love letter?
13:13 Greg Jenner? Yeah, love letter.
13:15 Speaker 03 Ah, love letter. A missive, sorry, a love missive, I would have said.
13:20 Speaker 05 Romantic epistle.
13:22 Greg Jenner? Sorry.
13:24 Speaker 03 I beg your pardon.
13:25 Greg Jenner? After the gift giving, or perhaps parallel to the gift giving, is the writing your thoughts and feelings and declaring your love on paper?
13:32 Speaker 05 Yeah, once a couple embarked on a romantic correspondence, that was a sure sign that they were on the road to an engagement. You didn't just correspond with anybody in that vein. And some dads wouldn't let men correspond with their daughters until they had proven to them that they had the means to marry.
13:50 Speaker 03 He's not coming around here with his letters. Do we know what his intentions are? Keep your second-class stamps to yourself, please, Mr. Sykes. My intentions are good, sir. Yeah, oh my God, I didn't realize, I thought the letters were like casual.
14:03 Speaker 05 It was like the opposite of, it was serious. And women in these letters, they described how hesitant they were to start this correspondence because they knew the degree of commitment that it entailed. So a lot of it is women saying, oh, I'm not sure about this.
14:17 Greg Jenner? The increase of the letters' importance is also to do with rising literacy rates. This is an era where more people can read and write.
14:23 Speaker 05 So letter writing is becoming this really, really important way of forming a person's identity and formulating their feelings. And the letters could be sent much, much more quickly because of the professionalization of the postal system and improvement of the country's road networks. So it's becoming more immediate and more intimate. The letter itself was a really important sort of gift, just like the tokens we've been talking about. So it had to be written on really good quality paper. So it might be gilded with little gold leaf around the edges, be several pages in length with loads of post scripts at the end. So at the end of them, it often says, you know, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4, PS5, because you want to give this impression that you just can't tear yourself away from the page.
15:08 Speaker 05 You hang up. No, you hang up. No, you hang up. No, you hang up. PS1, my PS4. Exactly. Oh my God, that's so interesting. The time you're putting into this letter is the time that you're putting into your lover. It's a material device, you know, through which you're building this relationship.
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17:44 Greg Jenner? All right, so we've got quite a sort of important script of dating here. Where are they learning how to do this? Are mum and dad explaining it? Are they reading it in books?
17:52 Speaker 05 I mean, to some extent, it comes from literature. So, I mean, if you were very devout, people made a lot of references to the Bible, Book of Calm and Prayer, things like Paradise Lost. That was a way to show their piety. And perhaps, you know, have a few theological debates with your lover, you know?
18:10 Greg Jenner? Absolutely, yeah.
18:11 Speaker 03 Not to brag, but I've just finished Paradise Lost. So if you want to chat through some of the main themes, I can send you my essay.
18:17 Speaker 05 It's showing you clever, you know, it's showing your wit and your skill and your education. You're having these debates in writing. It's showing, are you literally on the same page with this person or not? You know, are you compatible with them or not?
18:31 Greg Jenner? And the other thing to mention here, Carrie Anne, is these letters, they're not private.
18:35 Speaker 03 No, I guess not, because you always have to have a chaperone, right? So even when you're walking, someone should be walking a little behind you, older sister, or mother, or aunt, or someone. So I guess your letters are being read. So is that why then you're going a bit more in code? You're hoping the parents have read Paradise Lost? They won't know what I'm talking about.
18:53 Speaker 05 That's why you're going more in code through the gifts. You can't spell it out in writing because everyone's reading your letters.
18:59 Speaker 03 Right, yeah.
19:00 Speaker 05 As a woman, your friends would read a man's letters, your mum might read them, your aunties might read them, and then they might help you write the response as well. And then often you'd send it unsealed. So this was before people used envelopes. You'd send it not sealed. So then again, everyone could open it and read it all through.
19:19 Greg Jenner? Oh, wow. So it's not even secure communication, right?
19:22 Speaker 03 It's not even WhatsApp, they're just sending anything. The server was completely open.
19:26 Greg Jenner? Wow. The lack of security on the old sending back your message is a bit worrying.
19:32 Speaker 05 People said things in their letters like, oh, I've got so much to say to you, but you know, perhaps I'll save it for when we're in person. Because they didn't want to write it down because everyone's going to, you know, they don't want everyone else to read it.
19:42 Greg Jenner? The next thing we were going to talk to you about, Carrie, was poetry. That's another huge element of the courting here is the either writing your own or quoting your sort of favourite poets, quoting bits and bobs. And actually, we've got a cotton trader called Joseph Strut. Well, he's not even really trying to woo the lady he loves. He's just sort of listing the virtues he's demanding in a wife. He's like, this is what I'm looking for. You must meet all these criteria: wisdom, virtue, modesty, prudence, all the hot ones. But Carrie, we thought maybe you'd like to read us Mr Joseph Strut's poetry.
20:12 Speaker 03 Oh, yes. Mr Strut, cotton trader. Already he's on thin ice morally, isn't he, to judge everybody else for being wise and prudent and morally high?
20:21 Greg Jenner? He's probably quite comfortably well off.
20:23 Speaker 03 On the back of everybody else, yeah.
20:24 Greg Jenner? But this is his poetry.
20:26 Speaker 03 Where's he from?
20:27 Speaker 05 Birmingham, I think.
20:29 Speaker 03 Birmingham like that. So young, so blooming, and so void of art a certain conquest makes of every heart. So sweet an air such dignity of mine, and I a form so fair is seldom seen. But these will fade, and where's the substitute? Whereof so fine blossom is the fruit?
20:51 Speaker 03 Sorry, Mr. Strutt. My love, you're young, study with nicest care. So make yourself as wise as you are fair. Good sense you have, let virtue be your guide. Walk hand in hand with prudence by your side. Let every word and every action show what steps you follow, what paths. Pursue. Pursue. And shoo and pursue is how they used to say it.
21:14 Greg Jenner? Beautifully done. I love the the switch midway through.
21:17 Speaker 03 I thought, to be fair, to the people of Birmingham, I would stop.
21:20 Speaker 05 I just realised after I said that, he's from Derby. Sorry.
21:24 Speaker 03 So young, so blooming, so void of art. No, we won't do it again.
21:29 Greg Jenner? Yeah, so he's he's writing a sort of a list of things he's looking for in his wife. So he's a bit pushy, really. He's not, it's not really courting so much as here are the criteria you've got to meet if you want to land a man like me.
21:41 Speaker 03 You think, Mr. Strutt, I shall read this poems and forget Mr. Sykes? No. Although you have far more to offer monetarily than he does, my heart belongs to Barnaby and always will.
21:51 Greg Jenner? I mean, Sally, what is the value of poetry? Why send a poem? What are you hoping to achieve?
21:57 Speaker 05 It's a key vehicle for wooing. You know, it's men are showing off their literary skill, their education, their verbal agility, but it's all really underpinned by the cult of sensibility, which sort of emerged around the 1720s or 30s and peaked around 1770s, 80s. He's showing that he's romantic, he's in touch, he's a person of feeling.
22:16 Speaker 03 That's so funny, though, because he's like picked up on the trend. I've got to write a poem. It's got to show my feelings. What are my feelings? I need you to be prudent, wise. Those are my feelings, what I want you to be.
22:28 Greg Jenner? And we've been talking about Barnaby and Lydia, but I mean, the obvious question here, Sally, is do we have evidence of LGBTQ relationships of, you know, ladies who fancy ladies and gents who fancy gents? Because there are dangers and there are there are perils there, genuine perils, but there must have been. Those sorts of relationships, what do we know of them?
22:46 Speaker 05 Yeah, I mean, of course there were, you know, we do have evidence of really enormously intense romantic relationships between same-sex couples in this period. So one example is the American schoolteacher Charity Bryant. She was a tailor as well, and she exchanged all sorts of poems and lacrosse sticks with women that she was interested in. And they also exchanged accessories, things like jewellery, like hairpins. And they used rings to signify a lifelong commitment as well. And we have, you know, examples in England too. So the Yorkshire heiress Anne Lister is the most famous one, you know, she's often described as the first modern lesbian. In eighteen twenty-one, she gave her partner Marianne Lawton a gold ring. Wow.
23:27 Speaker 05 This is my favourite bit, she turned Marianne's wedding ring from her husband on her finger. So it was already on there, but Anne turned it round in order to make this new promise of marriage over the top of the one that she'd already made. Wow. So it's interesting because you can see that in some cases they're appropriating these rituals used by straight couples, like the exchange of a ring to form a marriage, even if it didn't have the same sort of legal backing. But I mean, the evidence is much more difficult to find because, you know, so often the letters were destroyed. And they're obviously not going to be shared around family and friends in the same way as the ones that we've been talking about. And often we do have to rely on evidence in a legal context. So things like trials for assault or indecency between men.
24:12 Speaker 05 But yeah, couples did exchange letters and they did exchange tokens. And they did use these in similar ways to build really intense relationships.
24:20 Greg Jenner? Well, we've got Barnaby and Lydia before he takes her up the aisle. Oh, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, before they walk up the aisle. We, I guess, need to talk about one of these sort of really fascinating facts that historians of the eighteenth century know quite well, but I think people are quite surprised to hear. Let's see if you know this one, Carrie, add what percentage of Georgian brides were pregnant on their wedding day?
24:43 Speaker 05 Oh.
24:45 Speaker 03 Maybe higher than we think.
24:46 Greg Jenner? What would you think is a sort of normal guess that people might say?
24:50 Speaker 03 Someone who's terrible with percentages, like genuinely, forty percent?
24:54 Greg Jenner? Yeah, I think that's about right. It's about, it's about, it's just over a third, isn't it?
24:57 Speaker 03 It's a good guess.
24:58 Greg Jenner? But what would happen if the marriage did not take place?
25:01 Speaker 05 Yeah, I mean, the one recourse that she would have had, Lydia, say she became pregnant and then she thought they were about to get married and then he deserted her. She could sue him for breach of promise, for financial damages for her hurt. And it was aggravated by factors like pregnancy.
25:18 Speaker 03 He still wouldn't have to marry her though, so she'd still be.
25:21 Speaker 05 Well, some, sometimes juries could order enormous damages in the hope that that would conduce him to offer his hand because he'd think, oh my God, I'm about to be utterly, utterly ruined unless we get married.
25:35 Speaker 03 Which is a great way to start any union, absolutely brilliant. Forced by a jury of your peers. It was that or bankruptcy. So I thought, my darling, my dearest darling, P S, I will marry you.
25:47 Greg Jenner? So Lydia could sue Barnaby even if she were not pregnant?
25:50 Speaker 05 Yeah.
25:51 Greg Jenner? Wow.
25:51 Speaker 05 He'd breached his contract to marry, therefore she could sue him for damages, but also for her hurt feelings.
25:58 Speaker 03 Wow.
25:58 Greg Jenner? I mean, the settlements issued by the courts were big. I mean, they're quite a lot of money, aren't they? I mean, they're 250 quid, which was probably two years' earnings for a middling person. So that's a lot of money to cough up at once.
26:10 Speaker 05 It shows sort of in one sense, the courts are sort of tipping the balance of power towards women. You did have that legal recourse if you needed it, but also it was because of this presumption that women suffered much more than men from romantic hurt. So men in many ways were expected to get over it, whereas women often biologically incapable of getting over it in some ways in popular culture because they were so much more sensitive and consumed with feeling.
26:36 Greg Jenner? The sort of Miss Havisham effect.
26:37 Speaker 05 Yeah.
26:38 Greg Jenner? Let's assume Lydia and Barnaby have not thrown a little way. Love has won out in the end. Hooray.
26:44 Speaker 03 Hooray.
26:45 Greg Jenner? What's the wedding going to look like, Carrie? I'd.
26:46 Speaker 03 Very different to ours. It's not what you expect. It's not the white dress necessarily. It would be like a night, a nice dress, basically like for made from perhaps some nice new material if you could afford it. And it wouldn't necessarily be white, it would be flowered and it wouldn't necessarily be like on a Sunday like we have. And I know that Pride and Prejudice ends with the double wedding. I think that wasn't that uncommon, was it, to like, you shared it with things, or it happened on a normal day that you got married. It wasn't like, this is our wedding, everybody needs to clear their schedules. You all need to pay five thousand pounds to come and stay in a country hotel that's miles from where you live. Like, it wasn't that kind of affair, was it?
27:21 Speaker 05 No, it was a bit more under the radar, a bit more just you, your friends, your parents, maybe. Might buy some new clothes, didn't have to. And if you did, you wouldn't just wear it once, you'd then continue wearing it afterwards. But you might wear silver and white, especially if you were very wealthy, towards the end of the century. But yeah, it wasn't till the Victorians, you had this big white wedding.
27:41 Greg Jenner? What about honeymoons, Sally? Do you go on a big honeymoon? Do you go to Paris? Do you take two weeks off to go and tour the counties?
27:46 Speaker 05 Might have a little honeymoon, but it wouldn't necessarily be on your own. The bride's sister often went with her.
27:51 Speaker 03 Oh, nice. Oh, lovely.
27:53 Speaker 05 Just to help sort of ease her into this new role as a wife. It was quite a shock to the system, I think, for a lot of people, being completely on your own with a partner, when you only just married them. And you know, you've got a new family, new life, new household. If you think like Mr and Mrs Rushworth in Mansfield Park, they go on a little honeymoon to Brighton. But her sister's there, too.
28:10 Greg Jenner? Well, that makes sense.
28:11 Speaker 05 Oh, who's that, Barnaby? Why, my sister Amelia travelled in the luggage, for she is so small. It is not a problem, is it, Barnaby, if she attends with us to Brighton? Barnaby, Barnaby, come back!
28:23 Greg Jenner? So what do you know now?
28:30 Greg Jenner? This is where Carrieette and I fan ourselves flirtatiously and binge on bonbons. And Sally's going to tell us something we need to know for two uninterrupted minutes. And without much further ado, Dr Sally, can we have the nuance window, please?
28:41 Speaker 05 Okay. I think the key thing to remember about marriage in Georgian England was that for the vast majority of people, there was no way out of it. So that's why it was so important to make a prudent choice that was informed both by sentiment and by pragmatism. So one account of a wedding that was sent from a woman to her friend in the 1770s that I found, she described it as "the indissolvable knot which nothing but death can sunder." Which is actually really foreboding, you know. See, the real danger of matches that were driven too much by lust, like with Mr and Mrs Bennett, is that they fizzled out and then you were stuck for the rest of your life tolerating someone with whom you were just fundamentally incompatible.
29:24 Speaker 05 Marriage also completely changed the balance of power between men and women. So during courtship, women were thought to have the upper hand as they sat in judgment of suitors who tried to woo them with letters and gifts. But once the knot was tied, women were then in a much more subordinate position to the patriarch and the head of the household. And some complained in their diaries that they were cajoled by degrees to lose their liberty during courtship until they had nothing to do but quietly submit.
29:50 Speaker 03 Oof.
29:50 Speaker 05 So actually, finding a match that ticked all of those boxes, love, rank, religion, similar disposition, comparable fortune, similar age, someone who could make you happy, the stakes had never been higher.
30:02 Greg Jenner? Amazing, thank you so much. Carrie, had any final thoughts on that?
30:06 Speaker 03 Well, just to get similar to now, isn't it? Like, you know, although you can get divorced, divorce is a very painful and difficult, expensive, emotionally painful experience. So it's the same thing as it was thus as ever, like finding someone who not only do you just fancy at the beginning, but you're willing to spend the rest of your life with, literally till death do us part, if you've said that. It's not a simple process.
30:27 Greg Jenner? And listener, if after today's episode you're desperate for more gorgeous Georgians, why not listen to our episode on the experiences of black people in Georgian England or our election special as well? And if you want more chaotic romances of the romantic poets, check out our episodes on Lord Byron and Mary Shelley, they're both very messy drama queens. You'll find them all on BBC Sounds. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with your friends, make sure to subscribe to Your Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. But all that's left for me to say really is a huge thank you to our guests. In history corner, we had the amazing Dr Sally Holloway from Oxford Brookes University. Thank you, Sally.
31:03 Speaker 05 Thank you very much.
31:04 Greg Jenner? And in comedy corner, we had the fabulous Carrie Ad Lloyd. Thank you, Carrie Ad.
31:08 Speaker 03 Why, Mr Jenner and Miss Holloway, it has been more than a pleasure, I must say, and I hope to encounter you again very soon.
31:15 Greg Jenner? And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we form the perfect union of comedy and history with another whirlwind historical engagement. But for now, I must go and launch my new dating app, The Look of Love, where you can only post tiny miniatures of your eyes. Bye.
31:36 Speaker 00 Hello, I'm Robin Ince.
31:37 Speaker 10 And I'm Brian Cox and we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage. In this series, we're going to have a planet off.
31:44 Speaker 00 We decided it was time to go cosmic, so we are gonna do Jupiter versus Saturn.
31:53 Speaker 10 That was very well done, that, because in the script it does say in square brackets, wrestling voice, question mark. And once we touch back down on this planet, we're going to go
32:02 Speaker 00 deep, really deep.
32:04 Speaker 10 Yes, we're journeying to the centre of the earth with guests Phil Wang, Chris Jackson and Anna Ferreira.
32:09 Speaker 00 And after all of that intense heat and pressure, we're just gonna kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.
32:17 Speaker 10 And also in this series, we're discussing altruism. We'll find out what it is. Exploring the history of music recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes.
32:25 Speaker 00 So if that sounds like your kind of thing, you can listen to The Infinite Monkey Cage first on BBC Sounds.
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