Engagement in Nineteenth-Century England

The intent of this dissertation is to fill a lacuna in the current social and cultural historiography of nineteenth-century England. It does so by expanding and nuancing the study of romantic culture from the current narrative of ‘courtship and marriage’ to include the crucial period of engagement. Making a suitable, compatible marriage was, for most individuals, the greatest determinant of lifestyle — financially, professionally, emotionally, socially, and sexually. This dissertation aims to recover the role of the engaged couple broadly, while bringing to the fore the experiences of middle-class engaged couples. It was in and among the middle-class that engagement developed as a ritualised life period — replete with unique behaviours, ceremony, and material culture — the reflection of a society increasingly focused on the primacy of individual couples and organised around the nuclear family and conjugal marriage ideals and values. Within this system, securing a spouse elevated social statuses of both men and women, afforded them social currency, status, and categorised them into a group identity shared among engaged individuals. Engagement was a period of transition and reorientation of the self, affecting one’s familial and social position as well as one’s self-concept. Emphasising material culture, emotional, and sensory history, this dissertation will look at the engaged individual and couple on both an individual and societal level through varied source materials including: personal correspondence, diaries, prescriptive literature, works of fiction, pornography, periodicals, sermons, botanical guides, and hairdressers’ pamphlets. Through the lens of engagement and the experiences of engaged individuals, this dissertation explores and enriches various historical concepts crucial to our understanding of social and cultural history, including gender history, family culture, intimacy, commercial culture, and identity.The Old Girtonian