Weddings in the 18th Century

Marriage and wedding traditions in the 18th century were a bit different from the way they are today. Many of our wedding customs come from the Victorian age, in the 19th century, and were unknown to our Colonial ancestors. For instance, white was not yet the standard wedding dress color, and a poor bride might not have had any special dress made at all, but simply worn her best clothes.

Courtship

Courtship was initiated by the interested man. If he expressed interest in a certain woman, he must first convince his own father that the match would be good and beneficial one. If his father agreed, his father would then contact the woman's father to propose the match and convince him that the match would be beneficial. If the woman's father agreed, the man was then free to court the woman. However, in poorer families in which little or no wealth or property was at stake in the match, couples were more free in choosing their mates. Courting usually took place at public functions such as dances, church services, and market fairs or by the gentleman calling upon the lady at home.

A good match was one that would be considered beneficial to both families. Love matches, while not unheard of, were uncommon. In the lower classes, a man might look for a woman who showed proficiency in cooking, sewing and child rearing while a woman would be looking for a man who was a hard worker and able to provide for a family. First and foremost, a marriage was a social and public contract.

The average age to be married (in 18th century lower-class Virginia) was 23 for women, 26 for men. (It was even higher in England; the marriage age in the Americas decreased the more land there was available-- for instance, on the frontier. The upper classes often married younger as well.)

Who could marry?

• Any free white over the age of 21 could marry provided they had obtained the lawful license or published banns.
• It was illegal for anyone under the age of 21 to marry without consent from a parent or legal guardian.
• It was illegal for servants still serving an indenture or apprentices to marry without their master or mistresses permission.
• It was illegal for any white to marry an enslaved or free black.
• Virginia did not recognize marriages between slaves.

Marriage License...

A marriage license was a document issued to those intending to marry. These licenses stated to both the minister and to the public that both parties were either of legal age to marry or had the consent of a parent or guardian; that there were no objections to the marriage; and that both parties were legally able to wed.

Marriage by license was more expensive than marriage by the publication of banns, but couples did not have to wait the extended period of time to wed.

... or Publication of Banns?

The publications of banns required that notice of a couple's intention to marry be published either verbally or in writing for three consecutive meetings of the church. If the bride and groom resided in separate parishes, the banns must be published in both parishes. Banns were to be published under the rubric of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The publication of banns over a period of three consecutive weeks allowed any member of the community who might object for whatever reasons to the union to be heard. Upon the successful publication of banns, a document certifying the eligibility of the two parties to marry would then be issued.

Marrying by publications of banns was cheaper than by marriage license, but required the couple to wait longer.

The Wedding Celebration

• The popular months for weddings were late December, January and early February, but people married at all times of the year except for the four weeks of Lent leading up to Easter and the week of Advent before Christmas.
• By the 1770s, many of the rituals that had been traditionally performed in churches, including marriages, were being performed in homes. If a marriage was conducted in a church it was always done before noon. Regardless of where it was performed, the ceremony had to be done by a minister of the Church of England for it to be recognized in Virginia.
• Those attending the wedding would dress in the finest clothes they owned. The bride's dress did not have to be white.
• Wedding day events included games, singing, dancing and a great deal of food. Some typical dishes served would be beef, venison and pork. One tradition was to bake a cake with a piece of nutmeg cooked inside. The person who received the piece with the nutmeg would be the next to marry.
  
  

Sources:

"The Freshest Advises: The Advancement of Matrimonial Felicity." Colonial Williamsburg, December 1999/ January 2000. V. 21 No.6

Bloch, Ruth H. Gender and Morality in Anglo-American Culture, 1650-1800. Berkeley: University of California Press, c2003. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt129017bs/ (chapter: Women and the Law of Courtship in Eighteenth Century America, p. 88)

Isaac, Rhys. Transformation of Virginia 1740-1790. University of North Carolina Press

Kulikoff, Alan. From British Peasants to Colonial American Farmers. University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

Lizon, Karen Helene. Colonial American Holidays and Entertainment. New York: Franklin Watts, 1993.

Middleton, Richard. Colonial America. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1996
Observations on the American Backcountry 1728-1836, p. 88-89

Stone, Lawrence. The Family, Sex & Marriage in England 1500-1800. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.

Taylor, Dale. The Writer's Guide To Everyday Life in Colonial America From 1607-1783. Ohio: Writer's Digest Books, 1997.