Marriage and divorce in victorian britian-Preethi G raj 1114293

In the Victorian era, marriage was not as romanticized or fairytale-like as depicted in many novels of the time. On the contrary, love actually played a very minor role in the majority of matrimonies that took place. An engagement was entered into as one would approach a business deal, and there were some generally accepted rules and guidelines to follow.

There were rules that needed to be followed like

• It was illegal to marry your deceased wife’s sister. You could marry first cousins, but attitudes changed towards the end of the 19th century, and this became frowned upon.
  
• Victorians were encouraged to marry within the same class (remember the views on social mobility!). They could marry up, but to marry down meant marrying beneath yourself.
  
• A woman entering into the institute of marriage had to be equipped with a dowry. The husband-to-be had to prove that he could support his new bride in the lifestyle she was accustomed to.
  

An unmarried woman could inherit money and property after she reached the age of 21, but once married, all control would revert to her husband. A woman could not have a will for her own personal possessions; since the control was in her husband’s power, he could distribute her property in any way he likes, even to his illegitimate children (if he has any).



Views on Divorce

• Divorce was difficult to obtain; the only acceptable reason for divorce was adultery, and even then it was only a valid reason for a man. Women could use adultery as an excuse to divorce her husband, but she also had to supplement it with a reason proving her husband “engaged in incest, bigamy, or excessive cruelty” (Marriage and Divorce).
  
• Though this was a double standard, the reason for it was this: men were viewed to “take care” of their wives, and thought that their fidelity should not matter; women on the other hand, if caught cheating, were seen as disrespecting the “care” of their husbands.
  
• Laws were modified in the mid-19th century to make divorce more accessible to both men and women, but it was still scarce. Women saw marriage as a way to gain independence from their families and to start a new life, even though their husbands were granted all of the power.
• Divorce was extremely expensive; it entailed the loss of wealth and property. Since it accumulated from generation to generation and helped to strengthen the family line, divorce was neither economically or socially practical. It would guarantee the family losing some of its strength and influence by giving up property and wealth.