Promises Broken: Courtship, Class, and Gender in Victorian England

by Ginger S. Frost

In the nineteenth century, a woman who could prove a man had broken his promise to marry her was legally entitled to compensation for damages. Bridging the gap between history and literature, Ginger S. Frost offers an in-depth examination of these breaches of promise and compares actual with fictional cases. Althought the most important factor in determining the outcome of such trials was gender, class was also vital in assessing the suitability of mates. Promises Broken highlights the courtship practices of lower- and middle- class Victorians, a group much neglected in previous scholarship.

Genres: Nonfiction, Victorian

260 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1995

Reviews

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Promises Broken: Courtship, Class and Gender in Victorian England I read this book much earlier in the year but haven't been able to write about it yet, but now as the end of the year approaches and I need to get it all books tallied I thought I'd better. The book looked closely at breach of promise cases, women who sued men for promising to marry them and then breaking off the engagement. . The book was rather dissapointing. The book did have some interesting points, such as the argument that most women bringing these cases were not of the upper classes and the fact that these cases gave women agency, and that the majority of women seemed to have sex as part of their courtship, or after a long courtship, and weren't that hard to convince when it actually came down to it. However, a lot of the evidence seemed to be a bit anaecdotal and she also took examples from other countries (such as Canada on one of the pages I had marked) to back up her arguments. I did learn some interesting things from the book, and the book definitely seemed to support the idea that Victorians had a lot more sex than tradionally assumed. It was a fairly interesting read, but definitely not the best book I've read about Victorian sexuality and gender.