The Constant: A History of Getting Things Wrong Love and Marriage
Feb 11, 2025
Dive into the tumultuous history of love and marriage, starting with Edward Gibbon Wakefield's scandalous 1826 kidnapping-elopement. Discover how clandestine weddings thrived in England due to corrupt clergy and legal loopholes. Explore the medieval debates shaping marriage definitions and the impact of the Hardwick Act, which sought to regulate this chaotic domain. Uncover gripping kidnapping cases that shocked society and set the stage for legal reforms. It's a captivating look at how control over marriage has evolved through history!
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Wakefield’s Gretna Green Abduction
- Edward Gibbon Wakefield tricked Ellen Turner out of school and into marriage by faking her mother's injury and ferrying her to Gretna Green.
- The episode recounts the carriage plot and how it was a kidnapping rather than a romantic elopement.
Consent Replaced Consummation
- Medieval Christian emphasis on Mary's perpetual virginity shifted marriage away from consummation toward mutual consent.
- By the late 12th century, consent, not sex, became the key marker for marriage in religious thought.
Marriage Was A Hierarchy Of Contracts
- Pre-18th-century English marriage had layers from promises for the future to present-tense vows, and many forms lacked legal weight without clerical solemnization.
- Rebecca Probert's scholarship challenges myths that informal vows gave women broad autonomy.