Green 1991: 69-79 - The commodification of wo/men in the English marriage market

Main Argument

Courtship novels of 1740-1820 introduce heroines with a blazon, a catalogue of their attributes (beauty, fortune, family, education, character). It borrows the language of the marriage market, which commodifies women. Novelists use it subversively, for feminist purposes. Over the decades they first adopt it, then complicate it, parody it and finally overturn it. The goal is a heroine who is a subject who chooses her own partner, not an object to be bought.

The law and the novel were responding to the same thing

Hardwicke’s Marriage Act (1753) shifted power over marriage toward parents. Richardson published Sir Charles Grandison the same year, with a heroine whose right to choose is the central issue. Green’s point is that the novel answers the law.

Historians disagree about what theHardwickes Marriage Act meant

1753. Both sides claimed to be defending marriage and morality, but critics and supporters used very different arguments. So the Act’s meaning is contested, and it can’t be reduced to love versus money.

How the blazon changed over time

• 1750s: Richardson uses it to expose male consumerism.

• 1778: Burney’s Evelina is introduced by a guardian’s letter.

• 1801: Edgeworth’s Belinda resists a matchmaking aunt.

• 1813: Barrett’s The Heroine parodies the blazon.

• c.1816-1818: Austen’s Catherine Morland is an anti-blazon.

Hardwicke’s Marriage Act date

1753

what is Hardwicke’s Marriage Act

(1753): the “Act for the better preventing of Clandestine Marriages.” It required marriages to be performed by ordained Anglican clergy in Church of England premises, with banns called three times or a special license bought from a bishop. Parental consent was strictly enforced for those under 21. It took effect in 1754, which is my addition, not Green’s.

• It outlawed ecclesiastical suits based on contracts de praesenti or de futuro (promises to marry). The ceremony, not the agreement, became the test of an English marriage.

• Critics said it increased aristocratic privilege and wealth, stopped younger sons from marrying middle-class heiresses, burdened the poor, and left seduced women without recourse. Supporters said it protected families and female virtue.

• Hardwicke’s own language lists motives beyond equality, such as “rank and quality of the person” and “convenience and propriety in families,” which is class endogamy in practice. The case of Buckinghamshire v. Drury (1762) is cited as showing the law had settled the power struggle in favor of parents.

Clandestine marriage

a marriage made in secret or without proper church ceremony or parental approval. The Act was meant to prevent it.

Blazon

• a verbal catalogue of a person’s attributes, borrowed from French heraldic usage and the Renaissance marketplace, where a merchant vaunts his wares. In the novel, it is the register-office-style description of a heroine in terms of beauty, fortune, family, education and character. It works as a normative taxonomy and operates subversively, using the language of male hegemony, landed interest and incipient capitalism, for feminist purposes.

Commodification

treating a person (here, a woman) as an object with a price, to be measured and exchanged.

A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage date

1750

A Serious Proposal for Promoting Lawful and Honourable Marriage

1750): an anonymous pamphlet that proposes a marriage-matching “dating service.” Register offices near Temple-Bar and Charing-Cross (the “Ladies’ Office” and “Gentlemen’s”) would keep files of eligible singles. Entries list age, height, complexion, condition in life and “fortune,” so the registrations are an early blazon.

Banns

a public announcement in church, repeated three times, of an intended marriage.

What did Hardwicke’s Marriage Act (1753) require, and why was it controversial?

It required marriage by an ordained Anglican clergyman in church, with banns read three times or a bishop’s license, and parental consent for anyone under 21. It ended suits based on contracts to marry, so the ceremony became the test of a marriage. Critics said it increased aristocratic power and wealth, stopped younger sons from marrying heiresses and hurt poor and seduced women. Hardwicke’s own language stresses “rank and quality of the person,” which means class endogamy.