344Chapter 18
bluntly: “The husband and wife are one, and the hus-
band is that one.” A compilation of Prussian law under
Frederick the Great, the Frederician Code of 1750, was
similar: “The husband is master of his own household,
and head of his family. And as the wife enters into it of
her own accord, she is in some measure subject to his
power” (see document 18.3).
Few ways of dissolving a marriage existed in the
eighteenth century. In Catholic countries, the church
considered marriage a sacrament and neither civil mar-
riage by the state nor legal divorce existed. The church
permitted a few annulments, exclusively for the upper
classes. Protestant countries accepted the principle of
divorce on the grounds of adultery or desertion, but di-
vorces remained rare, even when legalized. Geneva, the
home of Calvinism, recorded an average of one divorce
per year during the eighteenth century. Divorce be-
came possible in Britain in the late seventeenth century,
but it required an individual act of parliament for each
divorce. Between 1670 and 1750, a total of 17 parlia-
mentary divorces were granted in Britain, although the
number rose to 114 between 1750 and 1799. Almost all
divorces were granted to men of prominent social posi-
tion who wished to marry again, normally to produce
heirs.DOCUMENT 18.2
Arranged Marriages in the Eighteenth Century
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) was an Irish dramatist who
wrote comedies of manners for the London stage. One of his greatest
plays, The Rivals(1775), made fun of the tradition of arranged
marriages. In it, a wealthy aristocratic father, Sir Anthony Absolute,
arranges a suitable marriage for his son, Captain Jack Absolute (who
is in love with a beautiful young woman), without consulting him. In
the following scene, Captain Absolute tries to refuse the marriage and
Sir Anthony tries first to bribe him and then to coerce him.
Absolute: Now, Jack, I am sensible that the income of your
commission, and what I have hitherto allowed you, is but
a small pittance for a lad of your spirit.
Captain Jack:Sir, you are very good.
Absolute:And it is my wish, while yet I live, to have my
boy make some figure in the world. I have resolved, there-
fore, to fix you at once in a noble independence.
Captain Jack:Sir, your kindness overpowers me—such gen-
erosity makes the gratitude of reason more lively than the
sensations even of filial affection.
Absolute: I am glad you are so sensible of my attention—
and you shall be master of a large estate in a few weeks.
Captain Jack:Let my future life, sir, speak my gratitude; I
cannot express the sense I have of your munificence. —
Yet, sir, I presume you would not wish me to quit the
army?
Absolute:Oh, that shall be as your wife chooses.
Captain Jack: My wife, sir!
Absolute:Ay, ay, settle that between you—settle that be-
tween you.
Captain Jack:A wife, sir, did you say?
Absolute:Ay, a wife—why, did I not mention her before?
Captain Jack:Not a word of her sir.
Absolute:Odd, so! I mus’n’t forget her though. —Yes, Jack,
the independence I was talking of is by marriage—the for-
tune is saddled with a wife—but I suppose that makes no
difference.
Captain Jack:Sir! Sir! You amaze me!
Absolute: Why, what the devil’s the matter with you, fool?
Just now you were all gratitude and duty.
Captain Jack:I was, sir—you talked of independence and a
fortune, but not a word of a wife!
Absolute:Why—what difference does that make? Odds
life, sir! If you had an estate, you must take it with the live
stock on it, as it stands!
Captain Jack:If my happiness is to be the price, I must beg
leave to decline the purchase. Pray, sir, who is the lady?
Absolute:What’s that to you, sir? Come, give me your
promise to love, and to marry her directly.
Captain Jack:Sure, sir, this is not very reasonable.... You
must excuse me, sir, if I tell you, once for all, that in this
point I cannot obey you....
Absolute:Sir, I won’t hear a word—not one word!...
Captain Jack:What, sir, promise to link myself to some
mass of ugliness!
Absolute: Zounds! Sirrah! The lady shall be as ugly as I
choose: she shall have a hump on each shoulder; she shall
be as crooked as the crescent; her one eye shall roll like
the bull’s in Cox’s Museum; she shall have a skin like a
mummy, and the beard of a Jew—she shall be all this, sir-
rah! Yet I will make you ogle her all day, and sit up all
night to write sonnets on her beauty.
Sheridan, Richard. The Rivals.London: 1775.