COURTSHIP & MARRIAGE

A large audience of members, guests & new members welcomed our speaker Tom Doig. In his humorous & demonstrative manner he soon had us enthralled in his talk. It is known that wherever people were born, so they often got married & buried in the same place, misleading researchers into thinking that our ancestors never moved far away. This is in fact not true for when a person was an Ag. Lab for example, he would ‘follow the work’. A household servant would move with the family several times & people travelled to find work. The working classes often had contracts for 364 days a year & if they were not re-employed by the boss or wanted to leave ,then they would have to make themselves available for hire at places like a hiring fair to gain further employment, this again could take them from their home area. If a person was hired the new employer would give them a shilling to have their personal box sent to their new workplace. Celebrations would take place with drinking & eating & so relationships were formed. Initially a boy & girl would ‘walk out’ & with a chaperone, if you belonged to the middle classes. Kissing in public, usually in the market place, was seen as a statement of commitment. This was not considered an engagement but tokens were exchanged& in Victorian times very thin gold wire bands in a zig-zag pattern were worn by the boy & girl. Marriages often took place when the bride was pregnant, this carrying no stigma especially amongst the Ag. Labs. The groom’s parents encouraged the situation by providing a meal & a bed; because it had to be proven that the bride was fertile before the marriage took place. This was known as bundling. Banns were called on three consecutive Sundays but the pregnant bride to be was not allowed in Church for this as it was thought the baby would be born deformed or be an idiot. The boy & girl were considered to be married when, at the end of a church service the groom would present himself to the clergy & then go to the south door where his friends would have erected a barrier over which the groom had to step to reach his bride , hence ‘marrying over the broomstick’. This occasion was followed by a church service about a week later. Tom told us of several myths & facts about the marriage ceremony & its associations. In 1240 a prospective groom had to pay the steward of the Lord of the Manor a sum of money, to cover the loss of work from his bride if she was pregnant. This was known as The Merchett Tax. A dowry was given to the groom as payment for taking the bride, but the bride’s belongings, known as paraphernalia, remained her property always. Marriages often took place on Christmas day, as this was the only day off with pay for workers. Weddings on other days meant the groom lost a day’s wages. The woman would collect & make things for her marriage (bottom drawer) & often included 2 matching shrouds embroidered by the woman! Today’s saying stating that a woman is in the club means she is pregnant but in Victorian times it meant the opposite, in that to be in the club meant the woman had made contributions to a ‘lying in’ club, this money being available to pay for the birth of the child or should she die in childbirth the money was for the funeral. A woman could not join the club if she was already pregnant! It was thought unlucky for the bride & groom to have surnames beginning with the same letter, as the marriage would be doomed. Signing the register with a cross did not always mean the person could not write but chose to make an X instead. Tom’s talk was followed by refreshments & many questions. [Barbara Holmes]