to call on the help of their families and friends, particularly in the working
classes. In the majority of cases, the families answered the cal . The wider
society also had a nuanced approach to marital nonconformity, and this
grew as the century went on. In short, the amount of ostracism depended
on many factors, including class, gender, generation, and most crucial y,
the reason for cohabitation.
The consequences also came out in the legal system. The role of the
state in defining marriage, but also partly supporting cohabitation, is a third
major issue in the book. Criminal and civil assize courts, police courts, and
church courts had great difficulty in adjudicating a status that did not, in
fact, exist in law. Over time, the actions of thousands of couples, and their
public redefinition of marriage, helped to change social and legal norms.
By the end of the century, voices from all classes protested the strictness
of the divorce law, and a combination of working-class and middle-class
actions had lifted the ban on one type of affinal marriage (to a deceased
wife’s sister) in 1907. Critics revealed inequities in marriage and demanded
changes to the laws of divorce and illegitimacy. Though reforms only came
after the First World War, the social basis for them was already in place
beforehand, showing the importance of pressure ‘from below’ in revising
marriage laws.
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
In order to explore these three themes, I have located as many
examples of cohabiting couples as possible, collecting approximately one
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introduction
thousand. These couples divide into three major groups. The first and
largest group were those, like Eliot and Lewes, who lived together because
they could not marry. Such couples include people who were too closely
related by blood or marriage as well as those who already had spouses and
could not divorce. Couples in this section wanted to marry and blamed the
law, not themselves, for their irregular status. The challenge these couples
posed was to the legal definition of marriage, making them especial y
troubling to the state, but allowing family and neighbours to sympathise
with their plights more readily.
The second group were those who did not marry, either from
indifference, lack of social pressure, or class concerns. This section includes
the very poor, those in ‘criminal’ pursuits, and the parallel world of the
demimonde. Some professions required flexible domestic arrangements,
but in all occupations of the poorest classes, stable cohabitation offered
a rational alternative to legal marriage. Since these couples chose not to
marry, they challenged marriage more directly, though they did not often
dissent from its expectations, especial y in gender roles. The second group
in this section were cross-class couples. These pairs were almost always
a well-off man with a poorer woman, putting both class and gender
differences in stark relief. The relations to the state in all of these instances
were, again, complex. The demands that men keep promises and support
dependants could sometimes mitigate the disadvantages of poorer women
and their children.
The third group were those who would not marry, as a conscious
protest against the institution. Though this group was the smallest, it had
cultural impact out of proportion with its numbers, due to the public
nature of its marital dissent. This section, unlike the previous two, is
organised chronological y, showing both the continuities and the changes
in challenges to marriage. I have called these couples ‘radicals’, though I
am aware that this term is problematic, since it indicates a specific political
approach in the nineteenth century, and also because some of the couples
wanted only reform of marriage rather than abolition. I use the term simply
for convenience; it indicates those who had conscious reasons to disdain
marriage and then acted on those beliefs. Readers should remember this
definition when perusing these chapters.
Within each of these groups, I highlight class and gender differences.
In general, the working class had a more tolerant attitude than the middle
class, especial y in urban areas. On the other hand, the sexual double
standard meant that men faced less ostracism than women in all classes.
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
Men’s gender advantage recurred in every type of cohabitation; the male
partner was reluctant to marry far more often than the female one. In
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Frost, Ginger S.. Living in Sin : Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England,
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living in sin
addition, women fulfilled wifely roles and made long-term commitments
more readily, whatever the legal status of the union. Stil , the issue was
not simple. Precisely because of men’s roles as providers and protectors,
the courts expected them to keep their words and enforced demands for
support from women and children. As a result, men paid a legal price for
cohabitation, though the social and economic costs were greater for women.
Though most of the chapters centre on socio-legal history, I also
demonstrate the difference between the cultural and social significance of
figures such as Mary Wol stonecraft and George Eliot. These public ‘fallen’
women acted as touchstones for conservatives and reformers alike, but their
family experiences were much like other cohabitees. This was also true for
many of the ‘pioneers’ historians have studied, including painters, novelists,
and socialists like Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling. When put against
the backdrop of hundreds of similarly circumstanced couples, the way that
these pairs both resembled and differed from their peers becomes clear,
and the similarities outweighed the differences. Moreover, circumstances,
not choice, usual y forced these couples into irregular unions.
Whatever the context, most couples, including those who chose
not to marry, showed a desire for a ritual and a life-long commitment. As
this work will make clear, those who lived in free unions usual y wanted a
permanent, stable union, not promiscuity. Thus, cohabitees’ challenge was
to the terms of the union, and to the role of the state, but not to the idea
itself. In light of this, marriage’s survival into the twenty-first century is not
a surprise. Ironical y, by dissenting from marriage, these couples helped to
redefine it, but also equipped it to survive an age of mass cohabitation and
no-fault divorce. This conclusion would ha
ve horrified some, and delighted
others, of the couples in the following pages.
Definitions and limitations
I have limited this study in a number of ways. Due to limitations of space, I
was unable to explore generational tensions between parents and children
in any detail, though I hope to return to that subject in my next project.3
I have also largely eliminated the aristocratic couples. Their social mores
were distinct, and they made up only 2 per cent of the English population.
A few nobles appear in the sections on the demimonde and cross-class
cohabitation, but they are otherwise absent. I have also limited this study
to those who resided in England and Wales. Scottish and Irish laws were
different, and including those countries would have added many more pages
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
to a book already too long. In addition, I have concentrated on couples
who lived for substantial parts of their lives in England, rather than English
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Frost, Ginger S.. Living in Sin : Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England,
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Created from nscc-ebooks on 2019-06-18 23:44:10.
introduction
subjects abroad. Expatriates in Paris and Italy had communities with laxer
social mores and offered an escape for those with irregular relationships,
but because of those differences, they need a study all their own.
Final y, I have limited myself to heterosexual cohabitees, for several
reasons. First, other historians have written on gay history and done it
very well; I do not need to replicate that work.4 Second, such a discussion
would add to the length of the book by hundreds of pages. Third, and
most important, same-sex couples were in a different legal position than
opposite-sex couples. The latter at least had the possibility of marrying.
Even if they were already married, they might outlive their spouses and
then be able to marry their cohabitees. This was not the case for same-
sex couples; the law did not allow civil partnerships for them until 2005.
Thus, the dynamic with the state was distinct from opposite-sex cohabitees
in a crucial way. Because of all of these reasons, this book will focus on
heterosexual cohabitees.
Except for Chapters 8 and 9, these chapters are organised holistical y.
My time frame is the long nineteenth century, from the 1760s to the First
World War, but, because of the limitations of sources, much of my evidence
is from the 1830s to 1914. The continuities are greater than the changes in
most of these groups, but I have tried to indicate change over time when
important. Overal , the period between 1760 and 1840 had more open
marital nonconformity, while mid-century had stricter propriety, at least
in appearance. After 1880, the fin-de-siècle period saw renewed openness
about sexuality and criticism of the ‘hypocrisy’ of mid-century. But all of
these changes were tendencies rather than strict rules and differed by class
and region. The working class always had a higher percentage of couples
outside marriage than other groups, and the laws of marriage tightened
in the course of the century, thus pushing more couples out of the marital
fold. Rural areas also tended to have fewer such couples than urban areas,
where they could be more anonymous.
Natural y, the definition of ‘cohabitees’ is vexed. In general, I defined a
couple as ‘cohabiting’ if they lived ‘as husband and wife’ for a month or more.
This term was a common contemporary phrase and meant that the couple
had sexual relations, but also that they presented themselves as married to
society. At least one of the partners, then, believed that the relationship was
committed. These unions might not be permanent, but they were exclusive
for the time they lasted (at least for the women). Because the sources are
often silent on sexual issues, some couples are included who may not
have had sexual intercourse, but who lived together and had emotional
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
intimacy. I also included couples if the bulk of their relationship occurred
before 1914, even if it continued past the First World War. In addition, some
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Frost, Ginger S.. Living in Sin : Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England,
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living in sin
couples, unsurprisingly, do not fit neatly into one category or the other. For
example, many of the couples who could not marry legal y also dissented
from marriage for philosophical reasons. I have, then, included a handful
of couples in more than one category.
Sources
Middle-class cohabitees have left numerous records, and some are famous –
the writings on Eliot alone run to thousands of pages. The sections on these
couples, then, are necessarily partly synthetic. I did not redo work already
done well by other historians, though I did consult printed collections of
letters, autobiographies, and diaries when available. I have supplemented
these accounts by finding a number of more obscure cohabitees, drawn
from legal records, diaries, Court of Arches records, Royal Commissions
on Marriage in 1848 and 1912, and newspapers. The legal sources include
disputes over bonds and wil s, bigamy and violence cases, and church court
cases such as nullity, incest, and false declaration of marriage. Though only
a minority of the latter dealt with cohabitation, they are valuable in giving
insight into higher-class couples when other types of evidence are scarce.
Middle-class couples also appear in government documents. The
Royal Commission on Marriage in 1848 was primarily concerned with
affinal and consanguineous marriages, illegal after 1835; the commissioners
took hundreds of pages of evidence, including testimonies of those who
had defied the law. The Royal Commission of Marriage and Divorce of 1912
centred on divorce reform – the expansion of grounds, equalisation between
the genders, and lessening the cost. This Commission’s report contained
numerous statements and letters from those who lived in adulterous
unions. Those giving evidence wanted to influence the government
to change the law, but this does not mean that their testimony was not
valid. Many subjects described their own situations, and their problems
were echoed in a variety of sources. These more obscure examples show
that though the famous couples reaped more publicity, their experiences
were not unique. Eliot was cultural y more significant than others, but her
decision to cohabit, the reaction of her family, and the consequences for
her life, were mirrored in the lives of others.
The working-class sources were of a wider variety. Some couples
had biographies and diaries, but these were, by definition, unus
ual. I have
used the work of historians such as John Gillis and Barry Reay to make
generalisations about the numbers and change over time of working-class
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
cohabitation. To find more specific examples of working-class couples, I
amassed collections of both bigamy and violence trials from newspapers
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Frost, Ginger S.. Living in Sin : Cohabiting as Husband and Wife in Nineteenth-Century England,
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Created from nscc-ebooks on 2019-06-18 23:44:10.
introduction
in London, Lancaster, and York, as well as neglect and desertion cases
and trials involving the Poor Law. I used newspapers, rather than assize
or Old Bailey reports, because I wanted to get cases from the police and
magistrates’ courts as well as the high courts. Once I identified the cases,
though, I consulted the relevant court records, especial y those in the Home
Office files and the Old Bailey Session Papers, so I could get a complete
picture of the trials.
Newspapers are also limited in that most of them published regularly
only in the last half of the nineteenth century. To cover the first half, I
consulted the Foundling Hospital records at the London Metropolitan
Archives. I looked through all of the rejected petitions from 1810 to
1856 (the last year then available to historians under the 150-year rule). I
consulted only the rejected petitions, since, by the rules of the Hospital,
no cohabiting woman could have her child adopted. The Hospital only
accepted the infants of women who had ‘fallen’ with one man, due to a
promise of marriage, had only the one child, and whose child was under a
year old. The Hospital rejected any woman who lied on her petition or who
had lived with her lover. The rejected petitions were also by far the largest
group and so would have been the majority of applicants in any year.
From these records, I found 177 petitions by women who cohabited with
the fathers of their children.5 These are a small percentage of all petitions,
which numbered over one hundred a year by the 1840s. But this was
unsurprising, since cohabitees were not welcome, so many women would
Living in Sin Page 2
