Autre Temps, Autre Moeurs

One of the lovely things about knowing lots of historians (an inevitable result of being a lapsed grad student) is getting to hear all about other peoples' research. Over drinks the other day, a friend of mine filled me in on the lurid details of an adultery trial that had taken place in the prim and proper world of mid-nineteenth century Boston. The topic of the incredible importance of reputation arose, not just that of the accused adulterer, but of the unmarried woman who had been dragged to the stand as his, er, partner in crime.

"Think of it," my friend pointed out. "Her reputation was ruined. Who would marry her? Without marriage, what was she to do?"

What, indeed?

Attending an all girls school in the 80’s, I was taught that the definition of ambition was to do whatever the guys did—- only do it better. Sure, there were such things as husbands and children, but snagging Mr. Darcy was viewed as decidedly retrograde. This attitude tends to creep backwards into our opinion of the ladies of the past. Recently, I've noticed heroines in novels undertaking increasingly bizarre occupations. Certainly, there have been women in all time periods who undertook a wide spectrum of activities, from writing scholarly tracts to running successful businesses (another friend wrote a dissertation on late medieval lady merchants), but, for the most part, the measure and means of ambition in the pre-modern world was marriage.

I use the term ambition advisedly. Nowadays, we tend to view marriage as the antithesis of ambition, or, at least, as unrelated to it. But what was an ambitious woman to do in 1803? What were the fastest routes to power and influence? Put quite simply, marriage. Lady Catherine de Burgh wouldn’t wield such influence were she a spinster of the parish; as the widow of a magnate, commanding vast resources she can make the Mr. Collinses of the world cower. Less fictionally, Lady Hertford, Lady Holland, and, in a slightly earlier era, Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire were all able to play powerful roles in the politics of their day because of the possibilities placed at their disposal by the marriages they had made.

I dealt with this issue extensively in my last book, The Seduction of the Crimson Rose. In Crimson Rose, my heroine finds herself in an impossible position. Had she been born in the twentieth century, she would have attended Wharton and been CEO of a company. As it is, her ambition has no other outlet but to marry and to marry as well as she can. As Mary herself muses, in an early chapter, What else, after all, was there to do? She didn’t have it in her to be a bluestocking and write dour tracts. She had no interest in educating other peoples’ brats. The days when a woman could make a career as a royal mistress had long since passed.... Mary had always thought she would make an excellent monarch—the skills required for international diplomacy were much the same as those that Mary used to keep the various members of her entourage in check—but no one had had the consideration to provide her with a kingdom. There was only game to be played so Mary played it and, she had always thought, played it well.

When Mary finds herself balked of the match she had intended to make, it is not her heart that is in danger but her livelihood. With no source of independent income, she will be forced to subsist on the charity of her relatives. The bargain Mary strikes with the hero, offering her services as a spy in exchange for the money to fund another Season, is viewed by both in the nature of a business investment. Mary describes it so herself in discussion with Lord Vaughn, when she likens herself to a “young man who begs the cost of a commission or a sea captain in want of a ship”. In other words, venture capital.

Nor was it only women for whom marriage was the measure of ambition. Despite our modern preconceptions, marrying for money was not a gendered pursuit. The key to the question pertains not to gender, but to class. The aristocratic class was a leisured class, and proud of it. The stigma against work applied to men as well as women, cutting off their alternatives as it did their sisters'. True, the gentlemen did have some extra options open to them. There was the army or the priesthood-- if one could muster the money for a military commission or find someone to provide an ecclesiastical living. But other forms of sustained and gainful employment were as closed to them as to my heroine, unless one were willing to endure the resulting decline in status.

In the end, marrying for money was the preferred choice for many impecunious gentlemen, whether the lady was willing or not. Kidnapping heiresses and forcing them into wedlock became such an industry in the 18th century that in 1753 Parliament passed Hardwicke’s Marriage Act, instituting stringent measures for the legality of marriages, including mandatory parental consent for parties under the age of twenty-one, banns to be called in church, and the acquisition of a marriage license. Since the Act exempted Scotland, a new industry was born across the border: gentlemen would take their heiresses and flee to the Scottish town of Gretna Green, where the marriage laws were less stringent.

In that context, the husband-hunting of nineteenth century set novels takes on a very different complexion. It is not a frivolous pursuit, but a matter of personal advancement, in some cases, even of survival.