71 THE MARRIAGE LAW. from his practice in May Fair, that it was said they Ch. 14. equalled the revenue of a bishopric. clandestine The practice which prevailed with regard to Cause of regular and recognized marriage had a tendency marriages. to urge young persons to these clandestine unions, or even worse. The tastes and feelings of the principals were seldom consulted in matrimonial engagements, which were usually concluded by parents on behalf of their children. These contracts were, like ordinary contracts, based entirely on calculations of worldly advantage to the parties concerned. Estates were consolidated, fields were laid together, incumbrances were paid off by means of marriage settlements. It was upon women that this matrimonial commerce proved most oppressive. The heir in tail cared little for the commands or persuasion of a father who was only tenant for life, and consequently followed his own inclinations. But a girl, though she may have an independent provision, cannot so easily resist parental authority; and throughout the last century, as a general rule, the power of a father, in the disposal of a daughter, was absolute; and it was commonly exercised in the same arbitrary manner by the suppose, of attracting attention. We are informed that Mrs. Keith's corpse was removed from her husband's house, in May Fair, the middle of October last, to an apothecary's in South Audley Street, where she lies in a room hung with mourning, and is to continue there until Mr. Keith can attend her funeral.' Public Advertiser, 1750, passim. 72 MATRIMONIAL CONTRACTS Ch. 14. fondest, as well as the most selfish, or indifferent head of a family. According to the universal domestic law, the selection of a husband for an unmarried daughter was entirely the province of her natural guardian; and it would have been considered highly indelicate as well as undutiful, if the young lady expressed a wish to have a voice in the matter. Marriages so contracted, if there was no great disparity of age or condition, were, for the most part, in the ordinary acceptation, productive of happiness. A young woman, with the education and manners of a chambermaid, was not likely to be disgusted with the illiterate and ill-bred heir of a country gentleman. His oaths, his foul conversation, his low associates, were probably no more than she had been accustomed to in the home of her birth; and if her husband did not abuse her when he was in ill-humour, or when he came home drunk from the ale-house, the poor woman was content with her lot. It was among the more civilized classes that the evil effects of treating matrimony merely as a matter of bargain, were more apparent. If a romp was paired off with a beau, or a town-bred miss with a rural gentleman, 8 Fielding is, as usual, correct in his delineation of manners, when he represents Western untouched by the smallest compunction at forcing the child he fondly loves into the arms of a man she abhors. But there were many fathers, of more education and refinement than Western, who would have regarded the fine argument of Allworth, in the third chapter of the seventeenth book, as mere rodomontade. AMONG THE HIGHER CLASSES. it was a rare chance, indeed, if either happiness or respectability resulted from such an incongruous union. When a man of fashion went into the city for a wife, the commercial character of the transaction was still more flagrant, and the contrast still more irreconcileable. But it was, perhaps, among the higher classes, that this rigid system of close marriages was most oppressive. A young woman of high rank was inevitably destined for some man of birth and fortune. Surrounded, probably, by the most agreeable and accomplished persons of the other sex, the high-born girl had learned that matrimony was not instituted for the gratification of the tastes and emotions which such society was calculated to inspire. These unnatural restraints upon regular marriages, combined with the facilities afforded to clandestine unions before the Act of 1753, were, undoubtedly, to be reckoned among the most active incentives to the immorality of the age; and when to these are added license of manners, voluptuous and exciting amusements, together with the opportunities they afforded, it is easy to believe how low the standard of morality had fallen. Ch. 14. 73 Whatever ground there may be for the claim to Religion and morality of the superior religion and morality, preferred on behalf middle classes. of the middle classes at the present day, no such pretensions could be urged with any plausibility a hundred years ago. There can be no question, that, besides observing the precepts of religion and good morals common to all, there is a public duty 74 STATE OF MANNERS Ch. 14. incumbent on those who are placed in a more con spicuous position in life, to shew an outward respect for those laws of God and man, which are the bonds of Christian and civilized society. That duty, the obligation of which is in these days enforced by the discipline of public opinion, was shamefully neglected in a former age; and so far as an evil example operated, the higher orders were responsible for the depravity which pervaded all ranks. When the highest persons in the realm, from the King and his Court downwards, lived in open adultery; when religion and its ministers were treated with neglect and ridicule; when drinking, gaming, and brutal sports, were the principal occupations of gentlemen; when great ladies patronized places of amusement which the law declared loose and disorderly; when they sanctioned by their presence dramatic performances, the argument of which was generally incontinence or the breach of the marriage vow; and took part in such vocal entertainments as are now performed at the lowest i h A bill of indictment, preferred against Mrs. Cornelys, before the Grand Jury of Middlesex, in 1771, charged her with "keeping and maintaining a common disorderly house, and suffering divers loose, idle, and disorderly persons, as well men as women, to be and remain during the whole night, rioting and otherwise misbehaving themselves." MRS. CORNELYS's Entertainments. i When the amusements of the evening ended in a supper, as they generally did, the company sang catches and glees. I have seen a collection of these songs in four handsome volumes, which formerly adorned the library of a nobleman's country house. The books had long since been banished to a lumber room, where AMONG THE MIDDLE CLASSES. Ch. 14. 75 wide Distinction be tween the ur and ban and rural haunts of debauched apprentices and street- I found them. A copy may, perhaps, be obtained in Holywell classes. |