Historical Context: Marriage and Divorce
"[B]esides the part that I bear in your vexatious broils, as being sister to the husband, and friend to the wife, your example gives me such an impression of matrimony, that I shall be apt to condemn my person to a long vacation all its life."
-Dorinda, Act Two, Scene One-
-Dorinda, Act Two, Scene One-
During the eighteenth century, marriage was the rule, divorce the rare and frowned upon exception. Men and women were thought to be made for each other, and society sought to uphold the publicly lauded and apparently respectable forms of marriage. Marriages among the well-to-do tended toward matches of practicality, revolving far more around money and social standing than affection (wives, after all, still came attached to oft-desirable dowries). Small wonder, then, that marriage created its fair share of unhappy situations, and popular writings (say, perhaps, plays) often pooh-poohed marriage’s chains while lauding the freedoms of single life. For dissatisfied or quite simply randy men, society permitted extramarital affairs, particularly with women of lower social status (women of higher standing were expected to remain chaste), so long as the matter was kept quiet. Wives, meanwhile, were obliged to bear their husbands’ exploits and near-total control, no matter how unpleasant.
No amount of quiet or forbearance could mend an impossibly bleak marriage, but discontented couples found that divorce, though not unheard of, offered no easy answer. Legal proceedings were arduous and expensive, and if men found proving grounds for divorce difficult, women found the task neigh on impossible. Then, too, society looked askance at those who had dared to divorce (as such, while re-marriage was possible after divorce, divorcees hardly seemed the most appealing of prospects). Thus it was that by apparently promoting divorce as a means toward achieving happiness, the end of The Beaux’ Stratagem caused something of a stir.
The following excerpts offer glimpses of eighteenth-century thoughts on the sanctity (or, for some, the abject drudgery) of marriage.
No amount of quiet or forbearance could mend an impossibly bleak marriage, but discontented couples found that divorce, though not unheard of, offered no easy answer. Legal proceedings were arduous and expensive, and if men found proving grounds for divorce difficult, women found the task neigh on impossible. Then, too, society looked askance at those who had dared to divorce (as such, while re-marriage was possible after divorce, divorcees hardly seemed the most appealing of prospects). Thus it was that by apparently promoting divorce as a means toward achieving happiness, the end of The Beaux’ Stratagem caused something of a stir.
The following excerpts offer glimpses of eighteenth-century thoughts on the sanctity (or, for some, the abject drudgery) of marriage.
SELECTED EXCERPTS
Adultery is, say the Etymologists, the going to another’s Bed: and St. Augustine defines it to be a Breach of the Marriage-Vow; A Crime so black, that our Constitutions call it horrible Baseness; and a sin so abominable in God’s sight, that he could not find a fitter word than this to express Idolotry by in the Holy Scripture: and Our Church is so industrious and careful in the discovery of it, that it is one Article in the Episcopal Visitations, Whether any have committed Adultery, Fornication, [&]c. or are vehemently suspected of the Premises?
The Punishments inflicted on it all over the World, partly shew how much it is detested. By the Levitical and Civil Law of Moses it was rewarded with Death.
-A Treatise Concerning Adultery and Divorce, 1700 (p. 3-4)
[W]e find that permission, Deut.24.1. when a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath discovered some uncleanness in her; then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it into her hand, and send her out of his house---- If he did not like her, he might dismiss her. The ground of this dislike is said to be some uncleanness, or matter of nakedness; which cannot mean Adultery, because adultery, if proved, was punished with Death […] and if only suspected, the guilt of it was determined by the Water of Jealousy [LINK TO CONTEXT??], Numb.5.27. The word therefore must signify something disagreeable in her Person, Humour, or Actions, which the Husband could not digest, and thereupon desired to be rid of her, as Mr. Ainsworth and Alapide conceive, who cites Origen and Chrysostom for this Interpretation; and the Assembly of Divines explain it of the Leprosy, or some other bodily disease and blemish; and in general, any thing else to make the Husband loath her.
-A Treatise Concerning Adultery and Divorce, 1700 (p. 5-6)
“Devorce alias Divorce, Divotinum, Is with our Common Lawyers accounted that separation between two, defacto married together, which is, a Vinculo matrimonii, non solum a mensa sed & a Thoro, and therefore the Woman so divorced received all again that she brought with her. This is not but only upon a Nullity of the Marriage, upon some essential Impediment, as Consanguinity or Affinity within the Degrees forbidden, Pre-contract, Importency, or such like, of which Divines reckon Fourteen, according to their Verses.
-The Interpreter of Words and Terms, Used either in Common or Statute Laws of this Realm, 1701
Adultery is, say the Etymologists, the going to another’s Bed: and St. Augustine defines it to be a Breach of the Marriage-Vow; A Crime so black, that our Constitutions call it horrible Baseness; and a sin so abominable in God’s sight, that he could not find a fitter word than this to express Idolotry by in the Holy Scripture: and Our Church is so industrious and careful in the discovery of it, that it is one Article in the Episcopal Visitations, Whether any have committed Adultery, Fornication, [&]c. or are vehemently suspected of the Premises?
The Punishments inflicted on it all over the World, partly shew how much it is detested. By the Levitical and Civil Law of Moses it was rewarded with Death.
-A Treatise Concerning Adultery and Divorce, 1700 (p. 3-4)
[W]e find that permission, Deut.24.1. when a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath discovered some uncleanness in her; then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it into her hand, and send her out of his house---- If he did not like her, he might dismiss her. The ground of this dislike is said to be some uncleanness, or matter of nakedness; which cannot mean Adultery, because adultery, if proved, was punished with Death […] and if only suspected, the guilt of it was determined by the Water of Jealousy [LINK TO CONTEXT??], Numb.5.27. The word therefore must signify something disagreeable in her Person, Humour, or Actions, which the Husband could not digest, and thereupon desired to be rid of her, as Mr. Ainsworth and Alapide conceive, who cites Origen and Chrysostom for this Interpretation; and the Assembly of Divines explain it of the Leprosy, or some other bodily disease and blemish; and in general, any thing else to make the Husband loath her.
-A Treatise Concerning Adultery and Divorce, 1700 (p. 5-6)
“Devorce alias Divorce, Divotinum, Is with our Common Lawyers accounted that separation between two, defacto married together, which is, a Vinculo matrimonii, non solum a mensa sed & a Thoro, and therefore the Woman so divorced received all again that she brought with her. This is not but only upon a Nullity of the Marriage, upon some essential Impediment, as Consanguinity or Affinity within the Degrees forbidden, Pre-contract, Importency, or such like, of which Divines reckon Fourteen, according to their Verses.
-The Interpreter of Words and Terms, Used either in Common or Statute Laws of this Realm, 1701
Wedlock, Oh! Curs’d uncomfortable State,
Cause of my Woes, and Object of my hate.
How bless’d was I? Ah, once how happy me?
When I from thy uneasy Bonds was free.
-Edward Ward, “The Pleasures of a Single Life, or the Miseries of Matrimony,” 1701
Cause of my Woes, and Object of my hate.
How bless’d was I? Ah, once how happy me?
When I from thy uneasy Bonds was free.
-Edward Ward, “The Pleasures of a Single Life, or the Miseries of Matrimony,” 1701
A Married Life was first contrived above,
To be an Emblem of Eternal Love;
And after by Divine indulgence sent,
To be the Crown of Man, and Wife’s content;
Yet black mouth’d Envy Strives with all its might,
To blast the Credit of that sacred Rite.
The hard Mouth Fops, a single Life applau’d,
And hates a Woman, that woun’t be a Baw’d:
Nothing he values like a single Life,
For tho he loves a Whore, he hates a Wife,
Calls the poor Husband, Monkey, Ass, or Dog,
And Laughs because he wears the Wedlock Clogg.
-“An Answer to the Pleasures of a Single Life: or, the Comforts of Marriage Comfirm’d and Vindicated,” 1701
To be an Emblem of Eternal Love;
And after by Divine indulgence sent,
To be the Crown of Man, and Wife’s content;
Yet black mouth’d Envy Strives with all its might,
To blast the Credit of that sacred Rite.
The hard Mouth Fops, a single Life applau’d,
And hates a Woman, that woun’t be a Baw’d:
Nothing he values like a single Life,
For tho he loves a Whore, he hates a Wife,
Calls the poor Husband, Monkey, Ass, or Dog,
And Laughs because he wears the Wedlock Clogg.
-“An Answer to the Pleasures of a Single Life: or, the Comforts of Marriage Comfirm’d and Vindicated,” 1701
Men and Women were made as Counterparts to one another, that the Pains and Anxieties of the Husband might be relieved by the Sprightliness and good Humour of the Wife. When these are rightly tempered, Care and Chearfulness go Hand in Hand; and the Family, like a Ship that is duly trimmed, wants neither Sail nor Ballast. […]
[I]f we observe the Conduct of the fair Sex, we find that they choose rather to associate themselves with a Person who resembles them in that light and volatile Humour which is natural to them, than to such as are qualified to moderate and counter-balance it. […] When we see a Fellow loud and talkative, full of Insipid Life and Laughter, we may venture to pronounce him a female Favourite: Noise and Flutter are such Accomplishments as they cannot withstand. To be short, the Passion of an ordinary Woman for a Man, is nothing else but Self-love diverted upon another Object: She would have the Lover a Woman in every thing but the Sex. […]
This is a Source of infinite Calamities to the Sex, as it frequently joins them to Men who in their own Thoughts are as fine Creatures as themselves; or if they chance to be good-humoured, serve only to dissipate their Fortunes, inflame their Follies, and aggravate their Indiscretions.
-Joseph Addison in The Spectator, 27 July 1711, issue 128 (as printed in Mackie's Commerce of Everyday Life 515-6)
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NOTE: For the introductory material above, I made most reference of John D. Ramsbottom's chapter in A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Britain, Kirstin Olsen's Daily Life in 18th-Century England, and Mackie's introductory material in The Commerce of Everyday Life. See Resources Cited for details.
