How to survive a Regency marriage

Yet matrimony had definite downsides. A wife in the Regency period – the late Georgian era, commonly considered to stretch from around 1790 to 1830 – lost various legal rights and potentially some of her property the moment she said ‘I do’. Her husband could lawfully beat and imprison her, and prevent her seeing their children.

Love and companionship aside, marriage did not look particularly enticing. And contrary to what we’re often told, if you were a woman from a wealthy, aristocratic family, staying single was usually a viable option. In fact, Emily Nugent, Marchioness of Westmeath, who found herself shackled to a serially unfaithful and abusive husband, became convinced that she would have been better off had she never married. She could have lived comfortably on the combined income of her £15,000 marriage portion and inheritance from an unmarried aunt, together giving her as much as £1,300 a year – more than triple what many clergymen earned. Emily could have joined those single ladies who made homes for themselves in Mayfair and continued to take part in the social round.

A husband could lawfully beat and imprison his wife, and prevent her seeing their children

Put in the hard work if you do want to make a match

Finding a suitor wasn’t easy, and women had to be seen in the right places

For the many women who did want to marry, or at least wanted to do what was expected, their best chance of making a match was to throw themselves into the Regency season. This whirl of balls and parties took place between roughly late January and early July, when aristocratic families flooded into town for the parliamentary session. “Spring campaigning” was what earl’s daughter Lady Sarah Spencer called the frenetic social mingling, and like any campaign, it required both strategy and stamina.

Any marriage-minded woman needed to be seen at all the right places, and perhaps at two or three of them in a single evening. These would not just be the most talked-about balls and concerts, but the assembly rooms and the opera – the latter being the place where members of ‘the ton’ (British high society) gathered twice a week, less interested in the singing than the gossiping, flirting and people-watching.

Perfecting your dance steps, and being physically fit enough to dance in a stuffy ballroom for hours on end, was essential. Balls were not only the best place to be introduced to eligible partners; standing up for a dance was one of the few opportunities for a couple to engage in a tête-à-tête. At a comfortable distance from her chaperone, a woman could flirt with a suitor, encourage his attentions and assess his opinions.

Competition could be fierce, especially as a flurry of new debutantes made their ‘come out’ every year, and tactics could be dirty. These ranged from the sending of anonymous letters imparting uncomplimentary information, clearly designed to frustrate a potential match, to parents over-inflating the amount of their daughter’s fortune. The latter, at least, was inevitable, given that money – like good looks – went a long way to putting men and women ahead of their rivals.

HistoryExtra Academy Regency Course (Getty Images)

Pick someone your parents will approve of

Once the perfect partner was found, it was time to get consent and talk marriage contracts

Once women had successfully navigated the choppy waters of the marriage market, all that remained was to get parental approval. Consent from a father or guardian was only required by law for those wanting to tie the knot under the age of 21, but because parents were usually in charge of dispensing their share of the family fortune, well-born lovers of all ages usually considered it a necessary evil.

Objections came for many reasons. Lady Williams-Wynn was loath to approve her 24-year-old daughter’s marriage with a neighbouring landowner old enough to be her father. As for Lord and Lady Petre, the difference in status (and no doubt fortune) seems to have been the reason why they resolutely failed to consider their son’s tutor a fitting partner for their daughter, Julia. The Duke and Duchess of Rutland, meanwhile, wanted to be assured of their daughter Elizabeth’s favoured suitor having an income of at least £3,500 a year.

Partly what motivated the Rutlands was a desire for Elizabeth to have a reasonable sum of pin money. Contractual provisions for this independent, annual allowance, along with a widow’s annuity – both typically set out in a marriage settlement – were not to be spurned lightly by a high society bride. They gave her a measure of financial security not available to those lower down the social ladder.

So, too, did the prenuptial trusts conventionally created by the aristocracy as part of the settlement process. These ensured that instead of a woman’s property transferring directly to a husband the minute the knot was tied, it was ring- fenced for her benefit.

If a woman couldn't win consent, she and her lover might have made a bolt for the Scottish border

If all else fails, elope

A small village became famous with couples and feared among parents: Gretna Green

If a woman couldn’t win consent for her match, or simply got fed up of waiting for her family’s lawyers to wrangle over the terms of the settlement, she and her lover might have made a bolt for the Scottish border.

Since Scotland refused to adopt the provisions of the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753 – which required under-21s to have parental consent - it was a haven for minors desperate to marry but lacking permission.

The most obvious destination was Gretna Green: as the first village to be reached via the main coach road from London, it became home to a veritable marriage industry.

Elopement was not without risk for a woman, though. Her reputation would be utterly ruined if she did not return home a wedded wife. Nor was it an easy option financially. Outpacing any pursuers required a post chaise and four horses, and then there was the fee for the minister.

When, in 1811, Viscount Deerhurst took to Gretna Green his second wife – Lady Mary Beauclerk, reputedly heiress to a fortune of £100,000, who was helped out of her house by her faithful maid – it was said that the ‘parson’ who married them (in reality, a former peddler named David Laing) pocketed 100 guineas. For such a sum, he would probably have given the wedding a quasi-religious tone. In fact, it might not have felt so different to the most modish aristocratic ceremonies, often held in the drawing room of the bride’s home and witnessed by only a handful of guests.

Prepare to be pregnant, a lot

Being a mother was a Regency wife’s duty, but one done at great risk

Most women expected to fall pregnant fairly quickly after their marriage. Some even felt they were failing in their duty to a husband – to provide him with a son and heir – if they were not soon with child. Pregnancy itself was not usually a great trial – it was perfectly permissible to carry on with normal life right up until the baby arrived – nor was the care of children, as long as you married into the aristocracy and could afford nurses to do a lot of the work. But what one mother described as the “dreadful operation” of childbirth could be an ordeal, one that women went through at least six or seven times on average.

Childbirth was a frightening prospect. Most Regency women knew of someone who had died in labour or soon afterwards. When preparing for her much-wanted wedding in August 1810, one 17-year-old bride must have been dismayed by the news that two of her acquaintances had died in that month alone during childbirth, both of them only 22 years old.

Even if a woman did come through labour safely, frequent childbearing would have taken a fatal toll on their health. After making her own love match at 18, Maria, Viscountess Duncannon spent much of her adult life pregnant, only to die aged 46, five years after giving birth for the 15th time.

Regency mother and child playing on a sofa, 1810 (Florilegius/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Remember, marriage isn't always for life

While trickier for a woman, divorces and separations were possible

By no means was it guaranteed for a Regency couple to reach their 25th wedding anniversary, and not just because of the risks of childbirth or the rise of incurable diseases, such as consumption. It was possible – among the upper classes, at least – to end a union by choice.

Unable to suppress their illicit passion for one another any longer, Henry, Lord Paget, a dashing cavalry officer, and mother of four Lady Charlotte Wellesely broke up their individual marriages in sensational style when they eloped with each other from London’s Green Park in 1809. Two divorces followed, after which the couple wed and had 10 children.

For a woman, obtaining a divorce from an unfaithful spouse was always more of a challenge than the other way around – especially a parliamentary divorce, the only kind which allowed remarriage. Unlike her husband, a wife could not sue on the basis of adultery alone, but had to prove an aggravating offence, such as bigamy or incest.

But there was a popular and more private alternative: a formal separation, the terms of which could be negotiated out of court. This kept the couple’s marital complaints hidden from the gossip-loving ladies of the ton. Runaway lovers Lady Mary Beauclerk and Lord Deerhurst were among those who legally separated when they parted a few years after their aforementioned elopement. During their short marriage, it seems neither of them remained faithful. Reportedly, Mary had affairs with not one but two of Deerhurst’s younger brothers.

For all that, however, it would be wrong to think that there were no loving, long- lasting unions in this period. Delve into history and you’re sure to find plenty of real-life Regency romances.