opposition of the church party in Parliament. However, another reason for
the great anxiety was the recognition that the definition of marriage was
variable. In making the laws of marriage, Parliament was, in many cases,
determining who was married and who was not. In other words, though
theoretical y eternal and sacred, marriage was, on the contrary, permeable
and unstable. One might be living in sin one day and respectably married
the next, or, alternatively, married on one side of the Scots–English border
and unmarried on the other. The relativity of marriage was summed up by
one respondent to the 1912 Royal Commission, who stated, ‘I do not look
upon compliance with man-made marriage laws as being synonymous
with morality, seeing that those man-made laws differ in every country
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
in the world.’4 Each time Parliament reformed marriage, MPs faced this
uncertainty anew. Secularisation and relativity in marriage were two long-
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conclusion
term outcomes of the Hardwicke Marriage Act of 1753, and many people
found this unsettling. In short, the century brought not so much a new
definition of marriage as a destabilising of it. The Hardwicke Act restricted
the definition of marriage, and in the resulting century, the English slowly
widened it again, first by practice and later by law.
The conservative attack on any reform of marriage is understandable
in light of the instability. Though many Victorians believed that marriage
would be strengthened by a few judicious reforms, for conservatives, the
reforms themselves were the problem. Ignoring much of the history of
marriage laws, conservatives insisted that people should not make the
decision on who was married and who was not; marriage was sacred,
eternal, and immutable. If not, marriage became an idea or an act of wil .
This was why, in many ways, those cohabitees who insisted that they were
‘married’ were a bigger threat to marriage than those who openly defied
it. If marriage was a relationship and an idea, rather than a sacrament
and an institution, it was possible to marry without any sanction at al .
Conservatives had reason to fear that every time the marriage law changed,
the relativistic approach took another step forward, and the sanctity of legal
marriage took another step backward.
As many examples in this work showed, though, refusing to change
anything, no matter how crying the need, was also risky. People who could
not make legal marriages went outside the law and made their own, further
destabilising its meaning. As many reformers pointed out, a law that was
completely outside of public opinion would not be followed – and, indeed,
many people held the law in contempt, which hardly raised respect for
marriage. The fact that some of those who could marry turned into marital
radicals was a clear example of the danger of refusing to address serious
domestic grievances. These arguments were strong, but not persuasive
enough in the nineteenth century, which only il ustrates how much was at
stake for the participants.
Marriage rejection?
Despite the controversy, the evidence of this book points to English
people’s attachment to marriage, however defined. The number of people
who wanted to marry far outnumbered those who disdained it, and even
those who chose not to marry usual y preferred monogamy and envisaged
lifelong partnerships. Moreover, though some people preferred privacy, the
majority craved public acknowledgement, to the point of breaking the law
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
to get it. And the vast majority of couples, including radicals, believed the
state did have a role in relationships whenever the partners became parents.
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living in sin
Thus, marriage, though much modified, has survived the onslaughts of
mass cohabitation and no-fault divorce.
Of course, the contemporary English marital regime is much looser.
Divorce is easier, cheaper, and quicker, and the rate has soared; illegitimacy
is no longer a serious stain on a child; and living together is a normal part
of a long-term relationship and does not inevitably lead to marriage. Stil ,
many couples do marry when they have children or if they want a public
acknowledgment of their relationship.5 The number of couples who never
marry is the highest in British history, but it has not yet replaced marriage.
In the 2001 census, cohabiting couples made up 10 per cent of households
(the figure for 1991 was 5 per cent). This is a large increase, but still a
minority. And though fewer people are getting married, those weddings
have become more costly and elaborate; the average cost of a wedding in
2008 was £20,000, and in 1996 the wedding market in the UK accounted
for £3.33 billion. In other words, the white wedding has become cultural y
more significant as the legal and social roles of marriage have diminished.
In addition, most cohabitees do not support promiscuity. Marriage is less
popular, but committed relationships remain the goal.6
Nor have women’s disabilities entirely disappeared. Numerous social
and legal changes granted women more equality, including suffrage, equal
pay statutes, and protection from domestic abuse. The birth-control pill
gave women control of their fertility, and the lessening of restrictions
on abortion in 1967 also limited unwanted births. The welfare state has
eased the financial burdens of motherhood, and has chipped away at the
advantages that men had from the sexual double standard. Yet women
remain more likely to stay home with children, married or not, and do
more of the housework than men, even when both couples work full-time.7
Women in cohabiting relationships value their independence, but these
unions have not brought equality.
The legal changes of the twentieth century have ended the heavy-
handed adjudication of divorce and marriage. Most English people agree
that consenting adults should be allowed to marry and divorce as they wish.
All the same, legal differences between cohabiting unions and marriages
remain. Men have fewer rights to their children born out of wedlock than
to those born inside the institution. Cohabitees are not entitled to each
other’s pensions in the case of death, and court decisions over property
disputes also disadvantage those without legal ties. Many cohabitees are
annoyed at having to consider these fac
tors, particularly as they do not
want state intervention in their lives and strongly value their privacy.8
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
Again, cohabitees show a mix of disliking the legal and public aspects, but
wanting the state to acknowledge their commitment.
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conclusion
Obviously, the differences between the Victorians and the English
population today outweigh the similarities. Stil , the survival of marriage,
if in an attenuated form, into the twenty-first century shows that the
institution has weathered the changes in its definition and roles. The
emphasis on the relationship, and on individual happiness as a goal, has
not eliminated couples’ desire for a public commitment. Indeed, gay
couples received the right to civil unions in 2005, thereby opening up a
whole new group of people to participate in the institution – but also to
argue over its definition. For some cohabitees, their union is a partnership,
not a marriage. But for others, it is still a relationship where the two live ‘as
husband and wife’, and often ends with those titles becoming literal y true.
Does this, then, include same-sex couples? A religious aspect? Gender
equality? Does it lessen the social and familial pressures in cross-class or
mixed-race families? And, most especial y, can any legal system adjudicate
fairly in a relationship when one partner wants to continue while the other
does not? No marital regime has all the answers. And though the English
have more alternatives to marriage than ever before, the reformed original
is still the most popular choice, as it was for the majority of those ‘living in
sin’ in the nineteenth century.
Notes
1 Frost, ‘“The black lamb of the black sheep”’, 299–303.
2 Myers, Reluctant Expatriate, pp. 93; 152–61.
3 See, for instance, Whistler’s treatment of his illegitimate children in Fleming, James
Abbott McNeill Whistler, pp. 278–80; 299–300; Weintraub, Whistler: A Biography, pp. 153;
258; 376–7; 423; McMullen, Victorian Outsider, pp. 140; 186; 271.
4 Report of the Royal Commission, II, 386.
5 Cretney, Family Law, p. 518; J. Lewis, The End of Marriage? Individualism and Intimate
Relations (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001), p. 134; Gillis, For Better, For Worse, pp.
308–16; H. Cooke, The Long Sexual Revolution: English Women, Sex, and Contraception,
1800–1975 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 332–5.
6 Cretney, Family Law, p. 33.
7 Gillis, For Better, For Worse, pp. 316–21; Lewis, The End of Marriage? , pp. 147–57.
8 Cretney, Family Law, pp. 520–4; 563–5; Lewis, The End of Marriage? , pp. 138–40.
Copyright © 2008. Manchester University Press. All rights reserved.
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Living in Sin Page 47
