Living in Sin

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Living in Sin Page 12

by Ginger S Frost


  to have young children in the care of someone closely interested in their

  welfare. Childless widowers or bachelors also needed housekeepers, so

  chose them from kin. Since the women involved were doing all the duties

  of the wife – cooking, cleaning, childcare – they easily slipped into sexual

  duties as wel , as Leonore Davidoff’s work on landladies has shown.12 After

  al , how could a man be just an employer when his housekeeper was also his

  relative? And if the woman became pregnant, a relative felt added pressure

  to ‘make things right’ and marry her.

  According to several sources, the results of such marriages were

  general y positive. W. C. Sleigh interviewed affinal working-class couples

  in 1846–47. One man, a widower with four children, explained, ‘My wife’s

  sister was extremely kind to them. I thought I should like her, and she

  thought she should like me; we married, and we have been as happy as

  man and wife could be ever since.’ Indeed, most witnesses before the Royal

  Commission emphasised the happiness of these homes. J. F. Denham

  speculated that the parties were more likely to know ‘each other’s real

  character and disposition’ before they wed and so had a better chance

  for a successful union. Considering these cheering prospects, working-

  classes couples ignored the law, or at least assumed it did not apply in

  their particular cases. A publican in Maidstone explained, ‘My wife was

  dead, and I could not be so well suited in my house as to marry her sister;

  therefore, I do not recognize any law that says I shall not’.13

  These couples insisted that their marriages were moral y correct even

  in the face of religious and state opposition. Annie Bailey, twenty-three,

  was a servant in Revd S. W. Mangin’s household in the late 1880s. Her

  uncle-in-law (he had married her mother’s sister), William Clapp, lived

  nearby. The two decided to marry and first tried to do so in the church,

  but Mangin told them he could not marry them because of their affinity.

  In response, in September of 1889, the couple married at the Registrar’s

  Office. When arrested, both Annie and William argued that though they

  could not be married in the church, they assumed they could still have a

  civil ceremony. Annie went further, asserting that ‘She searched the Bible

  Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.

  through, but could not find such a marriage anywhere forbidden.’ Justice

  Stephen summed up against Bailey, but the jury acquitted her anyway.

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  Frost, Ginger S.. Living in Sin : Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England,

  Manchester University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nscc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1069613.

  Created from nscc-ebooks on 2019-06-18 23:44:10.

  affinity and consanguinity

  Stephen, annoyed, lectured Bailey, ‘whatever she or others might think

  … she was not married in the least.’ One suspects that she paid no more

  attention to the judge than she had to the vicar.14

  As this case indicates, most of these couples ‘went through a form of

  marriage’ at some point. These ceremonies gave legitimacy to the couple and

  their family and friends. The desire for a ceremony was particularly acute

  if the woman became pregnant, but the latter was not always necessary.

  One commentator guessed that a small trader had married his wife’s niece

  ‘to avoid scandal’ even though they had no children. Most of the time, the

  two had lived together first and then tried to regularise the relationship.

  A couple in 1852, for example, a niece and uncle, lived ‘in concubinage’

  for a few weeks, but then ‘went to a large town some distance from their

  residence’ and married by licence.15 Fortunately for these couples, marrying

  illegal y was quite easy. Most of the clergymen who gave evidence to various

  Royal Commissions of Marriage complained that they could not stop such

  marriages. Revd J. F. Denham testified that banns were useless: ‘I find that

  people go out of the parish continual y to be married’. Revd John Hatchard

  agreed; every time he refused to marry a couple, they went to London and

  returned married.16

  The clergy were conflicted about these unions, for if the couple did

  not marry illegal y, they often lived ‘in sin’ together. One clergyman in

  the Potteries had two couples in his parish who cohabited because they

  were in-laws, and he testified that he would much prefer them to marry,

  especial y as they preferred this themselves, but did not wish to break the

  law. John Garbett seconded this, pointing out that ‘when notorious cases

  of concubinage have occurred, and the parties have been spoken to, they

  have pointed to these persons and said, “He is no more married than I

  am, in law.” I think it has a bad moral effect’.17 In addition, couples forced

  to cohabit unmarried blamed the church or the state, not themselves. A

  Devonport farmer tried to marry his deceased wife’s sister, but his vicar

  refused him. He then lived with the woman and ‘threw the responsibility of

  the refusal upon the clergyman’, and his neighbours supported him. In fact,

  not even all clergymen disapproved of affinal marriages. Several testified

  for removing the prohibition on at least some of the degrees. Dissenters

  particularly wanted reform; some of these ministers had married their

  deceased wives’ sisters themselves.18 In addition, the Catholic church

  offered dispensations for special cases. If a couple received one, they did

  not hesitate to marry, ignoring the Anglican rules.19

  As these examples indicate, the Anglican clergy disapproved more

  Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.

  than the wider community. Especial y in affinal unions, neighbours and

  friends were general y supportive. In 1864, Tom Mann’s father married

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  Frost, Ginger S.. Living in Sin : Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England,

  Manchester University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nscc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1069613.

  Created from nscc-ebooks on 2019-06-18 23:44:10.

  living in sin

  Mary Ann Grant and had four children with her before she died in 1858.

  Five years later, Mann married Harriet Grant, Mary Ann’s sister. None

  of the neighbours objected, and Tom got five more half-siblings over the

  next few years.20 Arthur Stanbra, a farmer in Oxford, took in his older

  brother Richard’s daughter, Mary, as his housekeeper in the 1880s, and the

  two eventual y shaded into an intimate relationship. When Mary became

  pregnant, Arthur married her out of the parish by licence. The record of

  the case does not indicate who prosecuted Arthur – perhaps the vicar.

  Whoever did so, though, was in the minority. His neighbours defended

  him at the trial, and the jury ‘very strongly’ recommended mercy. Justice

  Cave agreed, sentencing Arthur to one day.21 Arthur had seduced his niece,

  but he tried to ‘do the right thing’ when she became pregnant. Thus, his


  neighbours ignored his perjury and incest.

  Stil , occasional y these unions led to strong intra-family

  disagreements. The cases that provoked more opposition were those with

  much older men and young women and blood ties. In 1894, a Primitive

  Methodist minister at Guernsey married a man named John Matthews

  (fifty-six) to Louisa Carré (twenty-four), the daughter of his sister. The

  ceremony was in the minister’s house without a registrar, so the minister was

  sentenced to six months at hard labour, while Matthews got twelve months.

  The local community thought the punishment too severe and petitioned

  the Home Secretary for clemency. Though the Methodist community

  sympathised, Thomas Carré, the girl’s father, bitterly resented Matthews’s

  conduct. Carré had allowed his brother-in-law to live with the family when

  Matthews had returned to England after a twenty-year absence. In return,

  Matthews pursued his niece and ignored Thomas’s warnings that marriage

  with her was illegal. When the couple eloped, Thomas, furious, prosecuted

  everyone involved. Nonetheless, her father’s ire did not influence Louisa,

  who stood by her decision. Eventual y, the minister was pardoned and

  released. Matthews’s fate was uncertain, but his family’s disapproval almost

  certainly meant the end of his ‘marriage’.22

  Matthews’s difficulties were in part the result of Louisa’s natal family’s

  hostility to the marriage. In addition, the age difference was large in this

  case, so the marriage seemed less natural. Stil , the fact that the local

  reaction was divided between the disapproving jury and the forgiving

  petitioners indicates support for some consanguineous marriages (again,

  an uncle and a niece). Many could not understand why these marriage were

  illegal, perhaps because they were not far removed from cousin marriages,

  which were legal (even, on occasion, actively encouraged). One could say

  Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.

  the same about aunts and nephews, but there the age difference was more

  of a bar. At any rate, laws against these marriages did not discourage all

  j

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  Frost, Ginger S.. Living in Sin : Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England,

  Manchester University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nscc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1069613.

  Created from nscc-ebooks on 2019-06-18 23:44:10.

  affinity and consanguinity

  couples, though some cases caused controversy.

  The reaction of authorities to these marriages was mixed. By marrying

  illegal y, the couples faced the threat of arrest and trial, usual y for perjury

  or making false statements to a registrar. Interestingly, the church was often

  readier to prosecute than the state. In 1861, the vicar of Longbridge Deverill

  wrote to the Home Secretary about a man and his sister-in-law who had

  gone to a different parish, lied about their residency and their relationship,

  and married. The vicar demanded the Home Secretary prosecute them,

  supported by the General Registrar of the area. Nevertheless, the secretary

  refused, since ‘I am afraid we shall be laughed at if we prosecute this

  old couple … What harm have they done?’ The in-laws, then, were left

  in peace, yet another example of the law’s flexibility when faced with

  marital dissent.23 Indeed, when cases got to court, juries usual y acquitted

  defendants or recommended mercy (as with Stanbra). William Perry,

  mentioned in Chapter 1, was tried for falsifying his marriage licence to his

  half-niece in 1901. Despite testimony from the vicar, the jury acquitted him

  because ‘the witnesses were very illiterate.’24

  Juries’ attitudes undoubtedly made officials reluctant to prosecute,

  despite pressure from the church. In 1875, a Welsh vicar wrote to the Home

  Secretary about a case in Llanel y. John Hopkins, sixty, a carpenter, had

  married his stepdaughter, Jane Francis, thirty. The vicar had refused to

  marry them, saying that ‘ marrying her was quite out of the question as it

  would be contrary to the law of the land, of the church and of the Bible’.

  Shortly afterwards, the reverend left the parish, and Hopkins persuaded

  the curate to marry them. The vicar, incensed, tried to get the police to

  prosecute, but they refused. He then appealed to the Home Office, arguing

  they should make an example because ‘ incestuous marriages are becoming

  common in this neighbourhood, and that in some cases marriage licenses

  are obtained for this purpose which cannot be had without perjury.’ The

  Home Office could not agree about a prosecution, since most of the officials

  doubted they could get a conviction.25 Given these conditions, the working

  class’s determination to ignore both the laws and the advice of the Anglican

  clergy was understandable.

  Though the official silence worked in favour of many couples, it had

  negative consequences as wel , since it extended to abusive relationships.

  This was particularly the case with stepdaughters and stepfathers, whose

  relationships could be frankly exploitative. Sarah Anne Scott lived with a

  man named John King whom she had always regarded as her father. In

  1844, King’s cohabitee died, so Sarah took over the household. In December,

  Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.

  John began trying to induce Sarah into a sexual relationship. John saw

  Sarah as his cohabitee’s successor, since she was doing other wifely duties.

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  Frost, Ginger S.. Living in Sin : Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England,

  Manchester University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nscc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1069613.

  Created from nscc-ebooks on 2019-06-18 23:44:10.

  living in sin

  Sarah fought him off and then prosecuted him, but she was fortunate to

  have a neighbour’s support. Susan Mumm also found cases of abuse in her

  study of Anglican penitentiaries; one woman, aged twenty-four, had been

  sexual y abused by her stepfather since the age of nine. When she arrived,

  she had four children and another on the way.26

  Lack of sympathy for incest victims was common in Victorian courts;

  Carolyn Conley, in her study of Kent, found that men charged with incest

  with their stepdaughters, unless the girl was under the age of twelve, were

  all acquitted. Judges assumed that young girls consented to sexual relations,

  ignoring the power differences between fathers and their dependants.

  Louise Jackson’s findings about child sexual abuse also showed that the

  Victorian courts rarely prosecuted incest cases with older girls as victims,

  and such cases had a low conviction rate.27 At any rate, these incidents

  point up, again, the difficulty of knowing how much cohabitation went

  on within families; with the courts so hostile, few girls complained. Thus,

  disapproving clergymen or, on occasion, neighbours, were the only help

  for many victims of incest.

  With the criminal courts largely indifferent, the more serious

  consequence
for working-class affinal and consanguineous families was

  when they needed assistance, especial y with the death or desertion of the

  breadwinner. At that point, women and children came into contact with

  the poor law. Since none of these marriages were valid, the women were

  single and their children illegitimate. The women, then, were ‘undeserving’

  and went to the workhouse. This happened to a woman in 1884, whose

  husband had died. He had been her former father-in-law, so the JPs

  denied her outdoor relief.28 Second, deserting ‘husbands’ could ignore

  their responsibilities for providing, a circumstance that frustrated many

  magistrates. Robert Clarke, a JP in the Wincanton union, complained about

  a man in his parish who married his deceased wife’s niece in 1846 and had

  nine children with her. He then deserted her in 1862, and his children and

  their mother went to the workhouse. Clarke warned that women should

  beware such marriages; an illegal y-wed man could leave his family ‘to the

  tender mercies of the parish, and continue to enjoy himself as if nothing

  had happened.’ Clarke’s anger echoed in other sources. J. S. Thorburne

  testified in 1848 that he knew of ‘three or four cases where the law was

  taken advantage of, and made the means of great cruelty by the wilful

  desertion of the second wife’.29 Whether or not they had intended to desert

  their families from the beginning, men pled ‘nullity of marriage’ quickly

  when arrested for non-support.

  Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.

  Magistrates fought court cases to remove unmarried mothers and

  their children to the mother’s birth parish in an effort to avoid the expense

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  Frost, Ginger S.. Living in Sin : Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England,

  Manchester University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nscc-ebooks/detail.action?docID=1069613.

  Created from nscc-ebooks on 2019-06-18 23:44:10.

  affinity and consanguinity

  of a pauper family; though this power was restricted in 1846, 1861, and

  1865, parishes used it when they could. Mary Burrin married the husband

  of her deceased sister, Hannah. When William died in 1844, he left Mary

  and a daughter destitute, and the JPs successful y sued to have her marriage

 

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