Private Courting

As you open the door you hear a noise as if somebody had suddenly recollected something, and when you get in Emily is over by the window, full of interest in the opposite side of the road, and your friend John Edward is at the other end of the room with his whole soul in thrall by photographs of other people's relatives.
'Oh,' you say, pausing at the door, 'I didn't know anybody was here.'
'Oh! didn't you?' says Emily coldly.

The naughty 'nineties cannot be left without a mention of the malign influence of Bank Holidays on courting morals. It is dear that the disorderly traditions of May Day in Merrie England were still being kept up. In his Life and Labour of the People in London, based on inquiries conducted in the years 1897-1900, Charles Booth says: 'Very rarely does one hear a good word for Bank Holidays. The more common view is that they are a curse and . . . the mischievous results from a sexual point of view, due to a general abandonment of restraint, are frequently noted in our evidence.' The vulgar crush, Booth admits, served as a safeguard of a kind, though in the words of one witness 'nothing can surpass the scenes of depravity and indecency that sometimes result. The trouble with Bank Holidays was that public-houses were almost the only places of refreshment to open, and it was already the custom for young men to take their girls to such places. Booth noted, with misgivings, that excursions by brakes were becoming very popular. Nor had it escaped his attention that open spaces were much in use by couples at night. It was essential, he thought, that these should be well lit, shut off and closed during hours of darkness.

Among the poor of London, Booth said, the chief cause of early marriages was a desire to escape the intolerable discomfort of overcrowded homes in the evenings. He quoted a doctor as saying that 'most young men are bounced into marriage', and a clergyman to the effect that 'it is always the woman who puts up the banns'. Sometimes the reason for marrying was that the possession of marriage lines was an essential in order to qualify for charitable relief.

As the century ended, trenchant moralists could still be heard in the land. The Reverend Harry Jones, who wrote a handbook Courtship and Marriage in 1890, complained that people married with as little thought as if they were sitting down to a meal. There was 'a heedless resort to the altar of God in order to gratify a half-grown smirking and wanton mood'. Courtship he denned as a period for 'the revelation of some ominous infelicity of temperament unperceived at the first blush of immature sensation'.

And, in the last year of the nineteenth century, the Reverend F. B. Meyer threw out this helpful advice, in Love, Courtship and Marriage:

I fear it is rather unlikely that any will act on my advice, but I should commend the man who consulted the family doctor of the girl to whom he was intending to propose, lest there should be any insanity or hereditary taint in her family; and surely the father of any girl or any woman for herself should be at liberty before giving the final answer to ask of any young man the name of some physician who would be able to speak for him and his. These are likely to be considered as cold and unromantic suggestions, but if they were universally acted upon they would avert anguish and disaster worse than death.

Not that the Reverend F. B. Meyer would have everything dragged up for the other partner's inspection. 'It is not impossible that a man should 'have dark secrets in his past of which he has repented bitterly and absolutely before God and has put utterly away. I do not think that he need tell these to a pure young girl, who probably would not understand what he referred to.'

Not only pure young girls may wonder exactly what Mr Meyer was referring to. He went on to condemn 'the fearful crime committed by fathers and mothers who do not hesitate to seek abandoned roues as suitors for their daughters; and actually seem to prefer one whose heart's affections have been sered by the fierce fires of passion which have worn themselves out'.