Reading the Regency

Unhappy Marriages

"Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure:
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure."
[The Old Batchelour, by William Congreve, 1693]

Marriage, once entered into, was not easily undone. There were only a few situations where the church would grant an annulment. Impotence and marrying underage without parental permission were acceptable grounds for the marriage to be annulled. To annul the marriage meant to cancel it, as though the couple had never been married at all.

Non-consummation was not a good enough reason for a marriage in England and Wales to be set aside. If someone had lied about their wealth, or their rank, or if the bride was pregnant with another man's child, those too were not sufficient cause to be granted an annulment. They would just have to make the best of it, or consider the alternatives.

Men and women who found themselves in unhappy marriages rarely went as far as getting a divorce. Divorces were very difficult and costly to obtain. Once the proceedings had passed through an ecclesiastical court, (known as Doctors Commons) and a court of law, each marriage was ended by a private Act of Parliament, which had to be voted on and agreed by the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Not only was this process expensive, but it also exposed the character and behaviour of both husband and wife to public scrutiny. (and often ridicule) The proceedings were eagerly followed in the newspapers and provided fodder for gossip throughout society.

Because of this, divorce was often only considered if the husband wished to marry again, and could afford to pay the legal fees. Otherwise, many couples accepted the status quo, and either lived together unhappily or arranged official separations to live separate lives while legally staying married.

Lord Byron's brief marriage ended with a Deed of Separation, as it was impossible to imagine that the perpetually cash-strapped baron would ever be able to afford the expense of a divorce. After marrying Annabella Millbanke on 2nd January 1815, their daughter was born in December of that same year. The child was only a month old when her mother travelled home to visit her family, at which point she announced she would not return to her husband. The Deed of Separation was signed on 21st April 1816, to which Lord Byron appended an epigram:

"A year ago you swore, fond she!
'To love to honour', and so forth:
Such was the vow you pledged to me,
And here's exactly what t'is worth."

Due to a combination of his financial woes, the scandal caused by his wife's departure, and negative public opinion, Byron left England soon after he had signed the deed, and never returned. Later, he wrote to a friend:

"...I perceived that I had to a great extent become personally obnoxious in England, perhaps through my own fault, but the fact was indisputable; the public in general would hardly have been so much excited against a more popular character, without at least an accusation or a charge of some kind actually expressed or substantiated; for I can hardly conceive that the common and every-day occurrence of a separation between man and wife could in itself produce so great a ferment."

In Scotland, once a divorce had been granted, the adulterous party in the marriage was not allowed to marry the person they'd had an affair with. So if a wife had an affair with another man, and her husband divorced her, she would not, at any time, be allowed to marry the "other man". This was not the case in England.

During a debate in the House of Lords in May 1809, Lord Auckland put forward the suggestion that a similar restriction should also be included in English divorce law, as a disincentive for people to commit adultery. In the end they chose to make it an optional clause, which could be added to each individual divorce bill if necessary.