Romantic relationships 1660–1837
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 →
From Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language Ah, those heady days of blossoming love. Here we have two couples at either end of the 'honey-moon' period, giving some hints of how a relationship changes in its early season - and perhaps some signs of foreboding for the future too. According to the OED, the origin of... 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 →
Who hasn't made some embarrassing error in the realm of love? Misinterpreting a potential lover's intentions can be humiliating, painful – even fatal. Published in 1777, one DIctionary of Love aimed to set the record straight once and for all, amidst concern at the recent enthusiasm for 'stabbing, poisoning one's self, and the like' in the name of love. No... Continue Reading →
Just wanted to share these two lovely prints, depicting a couple of women of dubious morals, or 'MANTRAPS' as the artists have it. The images are obviously meant to titillate, but the warning is clear, gentlemen: giving into such a temptation could be your ruin! The first dates to 1780 and shows a fashionable (and rather... 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 →
Five Things a Man don't like in a Wife - A Woman who will cuckold her Husband - She who carries false Tales from one to another - She who will be drunk before her Husband - She who runs her Husband in Debt without his Knowledge - She who pretends to love her Husband,... 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 lo, you find yourself embarking upon your first love affair. Egads!, I hear you cry, how am I to navigate this unknown terrain, such uncontrollable bliss, such exquisite ecstasy? Never fear, gentle reader, you merely have to consult this late-Georgian map. Your mindless optimism will be shot in no time. This 'Study for Youth' charts... Continue Reading →
A slight diversion from the romantic theme for a moment to wish you a happy new year, and to offer a (tiny) bit of solace to those of you who are feeling a little fragile this morning. Take comfort in the fact that you are selflessly prostrating yourself at the feet of a long-established historical... Continue Reading →
And so, as we draw towards the end of the year, it seems only fitting to mark the occasion with a peek at a year in the life of a decidedly unsuccessful Georgian marriage. After marrying on New Year's Day, our happy couple spend the next twelve months swinging wildly from love to loathing (probably... Continue Reading →
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 →
As it turns out, waiting until someone falls asleep and then drawing a fake moustache on them is not a new phenomenon – still hilarious after 200 years. Nice to see some immature nineteenth-century behaviour immortalised in print... (not entirely relevant but couldn't resist sharing – a Movember double whammy) Image: Detail from 'La Moustache'... Continue Reading →
In the spirit of Halloween, I present a lovely (if slightly out-of-time) c17th drawing and a brilliant Cruikshank print of 1808, both of which illustrate the very last liaison any of us can look forward to – the dance with Death. Whatever your trade, age, sex or position in society, he catches up with you in... Continue Reading →
In the eighteenth century, one of the favoured methods of catching a potential suitor's eye was to head to a fashionable ball and astound the opposite sex with your sparkling wit and effortless mastery of the dancefloor [consider, if you will, the modern nightclub as the preferred venue for going out 'on the pull']. The anticipation... Continue Reading →
Detail from 'Bucks of the First Head' by Thomas Rowlandson (c.1785) The streets of Oxford are once again filling with swaggering youths. Around the country other university towns – left to their own devices during the summer – are already faced with the returning swarms of bright young things. Each year, the papers offer their wisdom... Continue Reading →
In eighteenth-century England, there were many reasons why families might have been torn apart, or why dutiful wives and hardworking husbands could suffer a fall from grace. Heart-rending tales of orphaned children, abandoned lovers and destitution fill the pages of contemporary newspaper columns and court records. For some, one of the prime suspects behind the... Continue Reading →
Inebriated women clearly do not make the most delicate wives and sweethearts. This satire on drunkenness in the fairer sex, published in 1795, depicts eight ladies young and old drinking gin, falling over, vomiting and walking into things (also featuring the occasional disgruntled gent). The print is vaguely reminiscent of Thomas Nashe's 'The Eight Kindes... Continue Reading →
Weddings today seem such a stressful, complicated affair. If you have cast off the misery of a single life and plunged into all the misery of someone in pursuit of the perfect day, why not follow this eighteenth-century model of the Broomstick Marriage? a) Get married with a number of other couples, ensuring reduced expense... Continue Reading →
THE RUINED GIRL. 'Oh! fatal Day when to my Virtues wrong, I fondly listen'd to his flattering Tongue, But oh! more fatal Moment when he gain'd, That vile Consent which all my Glory staind.' In this print of 1786, a young woman of some fashion appears to have received a letter from her beau, informing... 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 →
It is almost three years now since I bid a fond farewell to Nottinghamshire, in favour of what most would deem the more sophisticated climes of Oxford. [In defence of this statement I remind you that the county is possibly named after a Saxon leader named Snot. Sophisticated this is not]. There are many things that... 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 →
“Observe how I step in the Line, Though eight Quarts I have carried away; O Bet! you will never be mine If thus you get drunk every Day. As drunk as a Piper thou art; O tell me how could’st thou do so; Thou wilt ne’er from the Ale-house depart Till unable to walk, stand,... Continue Reading →
The c18th print below serves as a reminder that indulging in too much gin can cause mischief. A grim-faced husband trudges and sighs his way along the street, regretting that he has (once again) allowed his merry wife to be to free with the Strip-and-go-naked. ‘A Poor Man Loaded with Mischief, or Matrimony… drawn by Experience,... Continue Reading →
The History of Love 