Living in Sin

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Living in Sin Page 14

by Ginger S Frost


  members of the Society of Friends. When they married, they had to leave

  the Society, since Quakers insisted that ‘members of the Society of Friends

  must respect that law of which they claim the benefits.’56 In addition, the

  legal necessity of regarding a ‘wife’ as a single woman galled many men.

  The Indian army officer complained, ‘I am obliged to make a will leaving

  whatever property I give to my wife to her in her maiden name. I feel that to

  be exceedingly grievous.’ A man in Norfolk had the same problem, having

  to refer to his second wife as a ‘reputed Wife’ in his wil . The dry legal

  terms do not indicate the distaste the men and women felt about being

  semantical y ‘unmarried’ in these documents. And the legal disabilities

  went further; any man who did not plan careful y could leave his spouse

  without support. A Norfolk woman could not get maintenance from her

  husband’s estate when he went insane, since she was not his legal wife.57 All

  of these issues must have separated the couple from those around them,

  especial y the women.

  Stil , many affinal couples insisted that the dominant reaction of their

  friends was supportive. The businessman in Manchester testified that ‘I have

  never found any possible inconvenience arising from it … I have rather had

  commendation’. When asked specifical y about his wife, he insisted that she

  found no difference either. The stockbroker who wrote to all of his friends

  and acquaintances to warn them about his remarriage claimed that he did

  not receive a single snub.58 Despite an occasional problem, Edith and Hunt

  had support from their friends, including Dinah Craik, who travelled with

  Edith to Switzerland for the ceremony. Indeed, Lucy Rosetti was ‘quietly

  outraged’ by her sister-in-law’s snub of Edith, indicating that differences of

  opinion could be strong within families.59 Some people even managed to

  remain successful in their careers. A clergyman in the Church of England

  went to Switzerland to marry his sister-in-law. The pair remained there

  some years until the wife’s health required a return. Since they had lived in

  Switzerland several years, they had established a domicile, and thus could

  argue that they were legal y married. Though he had to wait through a

  three-year probation, the man eventual y got a licence to preach again.

  Similarly, James Low won election to the Corporation of London both

  before and after his affinal marriage.60

  The majority of the time, the wider community accepted the marriage

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

  as valid. In other words, they did not support cohabitation, but instead had

  a wider definition of marriage than the law. As a vicar wrote to the Royal

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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.

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  affinity and consanguinity

  Commission about a couple in his parish: ‘their friends and neighbours

  regard it as a legal marriage’.61 One woman who wrote a letter during the ‘Is

  Marriage a Failure?’ controversy in 1888 admitted that she had married her

  brother-in-law seven years before. She insisted that their friends saw them

  as ‘legal y married in our Maker’s sight’. The attitude only grew stronger

  as the century went on, since more people believed in marriage as a

  relationship rather than an institution.62 This growing acceptance probably

  helped mitigate the greater intolerance of the church.

  These couples had reasoned out their defiance of the law. First, since

  scripture did not forbid the marriage, the law had no right to do so. The

  Manchester businessman, like Annie Bailey, said he had searched the

  Bible, but found no prohibition in the scriptures. Similarly, Samuel Watson

  asked four ministers for advice before going through with the ceremony

  with his deceased wife’s sister. All ‘told him there was no harm in it,

  but it was contrary to law.’ Not surprisingly, Watson did as he wished.63

  Second, because such marriages were not against God’s law, any act to ban

  them was tyrannous and unreasonable. The Indian army officer insisted

  that ‘I consider such prohibition an infringement of my natural liberty.’

  Several of the witnesses warned that the laws were so far out of balance

  with popular views that they were bound to cause problems. As Garbett

  put it, ‘I think the argument, “You ought not to set the law at defiance,” is

  one which is very difficult to urge upon people when their affections are

  deeply interested … I do not think the law should put persons in such a

  position.’64 The couples involved, then, were not hurting marriage; the law

  itself was the problem. The law of affinal marriages undermined marriage,

  since normal y conventional couples went outside the law to marry – or

  worse, did not marry at al . Since the law defied both scripture and natural

  emotions, many people ignored it. This attitude would emerge again with

  adulterous and bigamous couples.

  Those who worked in the law also had divided feelings. Many judges

  and lawyers supported the ban. Baron Bramwel , though he sympathised

  with those who married irregularly, nevertheless castigated men for doing

  so, since it put their wives and children at risk. Chief Justice Coleridge was

  firmly against such unions and fought legalisation, as did Lord Hatherley,

  a mid-century Lord Chancellor.65 In contrast, others within the tight legal

  community supported repeal of the ban. Edward Clarke, a barrister, came

  out in favour of repeal in 1884, and Frederick Pollock, the third generation

  of the legal dynasty, was one of Hunt’s strongest supporters.66 Thus, those

  who wanted to marry within this prohibited degree could count on some

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

  high-profile support even within the conservative legal establishment.

  All the same, the defiance of most middle-class people went only so

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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.

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  living in sin

  far. Part of the reason for the support for these unions was that the majority

  had gone through a marriage ceremony, even though the English courts

  did not recognise them. Those few middle-class couples who chose not

  to marry were in more tenuous situations. In his testimony in 1848, T. C.

  Foster reported that of the 1,648 affinal unions he found, 88 did not marry

  because of the law; of these, 32 resulted in ‘illicit cohabitations’. Though

  most of these were working-class, Foster did not make any distinctions,

  which indicates he included all classes.67 Also, many couples may simply

  have announced that they were married wit
hout actual y going through the

  ceremony, since a trip to the continent was expensive and made no legal

  difference. Though many women wanted some sort of ceremony, others

  were less insistent.

  Several of the investigators in 1848 discussed middle-class cohabitees.

  Respectable people with no wedding at all could fall into serious difficulties.

  A Staffordshire widower with four children had his sister-in-law living

  with the family after his wife’s death. After a time, they wanted to marry,

  but the local clergyman refused them. When the woman became pregnant,

  the two knew marriage was impossible, so instead they procured an illegal

  abortion. Unfortunately for them, they were discovered and tried at the

  assizes in 1844. Though acquitted, ‘the effect upon their social position,

  which had hitherto been respectable, is, of course, a total blight.’68 In other

  words, respectable people faced a dilemma; they had to be nonconformist

  one way or the other, and some chose to abide by the marriage laws, but to

  live ‘in sin’. J. S. Thorburne reported a case of ‘a man of wealth’ who lived

  with his sister-in-law. He said ‘he would gladly marry but for the uncertain

  state of the law.’ According to Thorburne, ‘though he is living in open

  concubinage, his neighbours sympathize [sic] with him’.69 The choice to

  cohabit openly was out of step with the general middle-class solution to the

  problem, but perhaps these couples had a better grasp of the legal situation.

  If the marriage would be invalid, why go to the expense?

  In addition, any couple outside the narrow parameters of acceptable

  affinal unions had severe difficulties. Robert James was a ‘clerk in holy

  orders’ in Wales in the 1870s. When his wife died, he lived in a cottage

  with his stepdaughter, Emma Alice Hamer. The neighbours insisted that

  they ‘lived at a cottage in the vil age in every respect as man and wife’,

  and the rumours became rampant when Emma had a child and the two

  shared a hotel room when they went to register the birth. The Archbishop

  of Canterbury sent a commission to investigate, and the commission

  uncovered the fact that James had lied about his relationship to the child

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

  on the birth certificate. The authorities prosecuted him for putting false

  information on the register (he called himself the father, the cousin, and

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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

  the uncle of the child at different times). The jury convicted him, and Chief

  Justice Coleridge gave him five years in prison. Since few working-class

  men who perjured themselves got much punishment, this case indicates

  that, as in violence cases, a middle-class man who went too far outside the

  norm could suffer grave consequences.70

  With such examples before them, few middle-class or upper-class

  women agreed to cohabit; the vast majority of middle-class women insisted

  on a ceremony. Because so few economic opportunities for women existed,

  they were particularly vulnerable if the relationships failed. Most open

  cohabitees, then, were working-class, who had a more elastic definition of

  marriage and less to lose. Stil , even with a ceremony, middle-class affinal

  couples had many challenges. This was one reason that they worked so

  hard to legalise their unions, and, in this instance, they worked in tandem

  with poorer couples.

  Conclusion

  Both the working and the middle classes engaged in ‘incestuous’ unions

  during the nineteenth century. Often the couples went through some sort

  of wedding, despite the fact that this did not change their legal status.

  Working-class couples persisted in these ceremonies in the face of possible

  prosecution for perjury; many assumed, correctly, that juries would

  sympathise with them. On this issue, then, the legal definition of marriage

  was out of line with many Victorians’ views. Too close relationships by blood

  provoked disapproval and disdain, but marriages with in-laws seemed not

  only acceptable, but even desirable, to a large number of people.

  The preference for in-laws indicates several things, especial y

  the importance of proximity. In the working class, related women and

  men became intimate because the women served as housekeepers and

  stepmothers. The woman performing the roles of wife was often the key;

  she had already ‘tried out’ for the position. Men, women, and children

  all benefited, as well as the extended family, which preferred a second

  marriage that kept the family circle intact. These factors also influenced the

  middle classes and are good examples of the importance of siblings to the

  middle-class family.71 The grandmother might well be dead or still caring

  for her own young children, so when married daughters became il , sisters

  were their mainstays. In addition, keeping a son-in-law in the family was

  important to the maternal kin, to protect the rights of the children. With so

  many advantages, these marriages often seemed the best solution to homes

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

  broken up by death.

  For the most part, couples wanted to go through a ceremony; the vast

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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.

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  living in sin

  majority did not dislike marriage itself. In fact, they were willing to go to

  considerable expense and risk to have a wedding. The marriage law, on the

  other hand, was another thing. If marriage laws defied reason and scripture,

  couples need not follow them. Indeed, flouting the law of marriage was

  so common that the police declined to prosecute most cases. Eventual y,

  in the case of marriages with a deceased wife’s sister, Parliament changed

  the law, a result that shows the limitations of a view of law as emanating

  from the top-down alone. These unions also point out that all classes in

  Victorian society might ignore the marriage laws, not just the poor. This

  attitude would also be true of those who could not marry due to previous

  unions, as the next two chapters make clear. Divorce laws were so far out

  of line with the needs of many couples that they defied them. As a result,

  the Victorian criminal justice system faced yet another dilemma in dealing

  with irregular unions.

  Notes

  1 Atlay, The Victorian Chancel ors, pp. 115–16; A. Kuper, ‘Incest, cousin marriage, and

  the origin of the human sciences in nineteenth-century England’, Past and Present 174

  (2002), 163–5. For the prohibited degrees, see Reports From Commissioners on the Laws of
<
br />   Marriage and Divorce with Minutes of Evidence Appendices and Indices. Vol. I. Marriages

  and Divorce (Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1969), ‘Appendix of Evidence’, p.

  159.

  2 N. F. Anderson, ‘The “marriage with a deceased wife’s sister bil ” controversy: Incest

  anxiety and the defense of family purity in Victorian England’, Journal of British Studies

  21 (1982), 67–86; E. R. Gruner, ‘Born and made: Sisters, brothers, and the deceased wife’s

  sister bil ’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 24 (1999), 423–47.

  3 P. Morris, ‘Incest or survival strategy? Plebeian marriages within the prohibited degrees

  in Somerset, 1730–1835’, in J. C. Fout (ed.), Forbidden History: The State, Society, and the

  Regulation of Sexuality in Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992),

  139–69; J. Ayers (ed.), Paupers & Pig Kil ers: The Diary of Wil iam Hol and, A Somerset

  Parson, 1799–1818 (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1984), pp. 77–8; 190.

  4 H. Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor 4 vols (New York: Dover, 1968), I, 219;

  J. K. Walton and A. Wilcox (eds), Low Life and Moral Improvement in Mid-Victorian

  England: Liverpool Through the Journalism of Hugh Shinmin (Leicester: Leicester

  University Press, 1991), p. 110.

  5 Conley, The Unwritten Law, pp. 121–2.

  6 A. Wohl, ‘Sex and the single room’, in A. Wohl (ed.), The Victorian Family: Structure and

  Stresses (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1978), 197–216.

  7 R. Roberts, The Classic Slum: Salford Life in the First Quarter of the Century (London:

  Penguin Books, 1973), p. 27.

  8 Reports from Commissioners on the Laws, ‘Minutes of Evidence’, pp. 6, 7, 32, 74, quotes

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

  from pp. 6–7.

  9 Reg. v. St Giles in the Field (1847), 11 Law Reports, Queen’s Bench Division 173–204; The

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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

  Times, 15 June 1847, p. 7; Reg. v. Brighton, 30 Law Reports, Magistrates Cases 197–201.

  10 Justice of the Peace 68 (1904), 521; Morris, ‘Incest or survival strategy’, 149.

 

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