Romantic relationships 1660–1837
Happy Valentine's Day! To celebrate, a look back at my chat with Dan Snow about love, romance and sex in the 18th century, including some of my favourite historical chat-up lines & a bit of a swoon over Sharpe and/or Mr Darcy. Podcast link below: History Hit Valentine's Day Special: Emily Brand on Love &... Continue Reading →
Confession: First Dates is my televisual jam. (For the uninitiated, in brief: strangers are set up on dates at a London restaurant by a suave Frenchman called Fred {above}, said date is filmed, & they are then subjected to having their dating style reviewed. It’s hugely high-brow.) From teenagers looking for their first love to... Continue Reading →
On My Thirty-Third Birthday JANUARY 22 1821 Through life’s dull road, so dim and dirty, I have dragg’d to three-and-thirty. What have these years left to me? Nothing – except thirty-three. Lord Byron did not like birthdays. He intentionally avoided his own 21st and 24th parties, and considering how miserable he was at the prospect... Continue Reading →
With my apologies for a foray into something entirely, disgustingly unromantic, I just wanted to share a little something that I came across in my researches this evening. Made in Germany at some point between 1701 and 1900, these metal buttons rather imaginatively depict two stages of the enema treatment: a) Physican applying said treatment to... Continue Reading →
What would you say makes the most solid foundation for a marriage? Trust? Financial security? The sort of profound and death-defying passion that would make Jack & Rose weep with envy? [let's face it, they are the modern-day Romeo & Juliet, and I'm only moderately ashamed to admit it.] It was in the latter half of the... Continue Reading →
I just wanted to share my latest blog for the Washington Post, revealing the secrets of seduction to be found in a late-c18th American publication (plus a really brilliant pic of 1808). Enjoy! [you can find the original article here] *** It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a gaggle of girls on a night out... Continue Reading →
Let us take a moment to consider an important but lost art of love – the sigh. Nowadays, very few languishing lovers will attempt to seduce a lady by looking her square in the eyes and forcefully expelling the air from his lungs. In the late seventeenth century, however, this was considered a crucial tool in... Continue Reading →
Alcohol has long been accountable for the peaks and troughs of many romantic relationships, from bleary-eyed beginnings to booze-fuelled disputes and divorces. It has been at the centre of social life for thousands of years, providing endless amusement for onlookers as well as excuses and encouragement for amorous behaviour – in The Art of Love (1st-century AD), Ovid recommended... Continue Reading →
Here is a particularly heartwarming (*cough*) report of one man's enthusiastic embrace of widowhood in London in 1733. Yes folks, the 'new holyday for husbands' is to be enjoyed when your troublesome wife drops dead. Charming. (Although I do appreciate the tactful description of said wife. Next time anyone asks me about a break-up I am going to... Continue Reading →
Being a 'beauty' in the eighteenth century was certainly a boon, and thankfully there were plenty of men around to inform the ladies exactly what was required of them. One such list, covering the 30 'capital points' of beauty, can be found in The Dictionary of Love (1787). Some are familiar, suggesting the abiding popularity... Continue Reading →
Courtesy of the Chester Courant, below is a foolproof guide to the Regency rake's perfect night out... Ladies, if you're looking for Mr Darcy, you're in the wrong place. Gentlemen, if you fancy recreating such a 'glorious frolic' yourself: 1) Impress your friends by drinking too much, loudly singing rude songs and telling obscene stories 2) Impress the ladies by... Continue Reading →
This charming epistle on the horror that is a woman choosing to better herself through education comes from The Modern World Disrob'd (1708), by satirical writer Ned Ward. I'm particularly taken with the idea that the more languages a lady speaks, the more varied the opportunities for scolding her husband with them. Her poor unfortunate husband will... Continue Reading →
... Clearly the gentleman doesn't have expensive taste. - 'The Economy of Love, or Two at a Time for a Shilling', attributed to Richard Newton. Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library.
And I think this bloke has got it covered. - Print probably from The Matrimonial Magazine, c.1775. Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library
Knowing how consumed most single ladies were with the mission of securing a husband, just imagine what harassment England's bachelors might have been subjected to if the women were given charge of romantic proceedings. The Leap Year tradition of allowing women to make their own amorous advances clearly played on the mind of one print-maker... Continue Reading →
Many a hopeful suitor has been disappointed because he falls short of his beloved's ridiculously high expectations. For anyone who has experienced such a heart-breaking rebuff, why not follow this seventeenth-century advice for how to bring her down a peg or two? 1) Tell her she is not as attractive as she thinks. 2) Cast... Continue Reading →
And lo, Movember is upon us. As gents around the nation compete to cultivate the most fabulous whiskers, the question is, ladies: the moustachioed man, yea or nay? Between the meticulously sculpted facial decoration of the Restoration era and the bushy luxuriance of the nineteenth-century sideburn combo, facial hair was rather out of fashion. Contravening... Continue Reading →
I once had the pleasure of living in a house with 5 boys. It was an eye-opening, stomach-turning sort of experience.* The bachelor pad – rarely lauded as a palace of hygiene and grace – has horrified genteel ladies (such as myself, *cough*) for centuries. The following verse was written in 1752 "in Answer to 'The... Continue Reading →
The tendency of women to gossip about their sex lives with their friends has set men a-fretting for centuries. Far from being a phenomenon of the 'Sex & the City' era, women of the seventeenth century were just as likely to have intimate discussions about their man's skills and equipment, past experiences, how to keep... Continue Reading →
In the era of instant messaging and online chat, the modern suitor is only ever a 'winky face' and a click away from declaring his amorous intentions. All things considered, I'd say courtship has taken a distinctly unromantic turn. Two hundred years ago, love tokens offered a far more enduring and emotive means of expressing devotion... Continue Reading →
Ah, Birmingham. In the eighteenth century, the city seems to have yielded a fair crop of men unable to behave in a gentlemanlike manner. It is by no means rare to come across 'Runaway Husband' advertisements in contemporary newspapers, usually in the form of a plea from the local parish authorities who have suddenly found... Continue Reading →
Ah, the age-old "What's wrong?" – "Nothing. *sigh* *huff*" dilemma. I'm fairly confident that few things are as likely to fill a man with a sense of his own impending doom. If anybody out there *hasn't* had this argument at some point I'd like to know about it. And then I'll tell you to stop being... Continue Reading →
"The 14th century is not 'Georgian', you raving lunatic!" I hear you cry. Quite right too. But this medieval suggestion for curing lovesickness is too brilliant not to share. And, in any case, who's to say some desperate soul didn't give it a shot a few centuries later (she asked, busily clutching at straws)? So,... Continue Reading →
Having looked at 'The Open Country of Woman's Heart' – with its largest territories being 'Love of Admiration' and 'Love of Dress' – here is the companion piece, 'A Map of the Fortified Country of Man's Heart'. As the titles suggest, the inner workings of the feminine and masculine heart are represented in quite different... Continue Reading →
The History of Love 