Eighteenth-Century Fiction

This book explores a topic, the development of the marriage plot in eighteenth-century English literature, that has been well examined—so well examined that a reader might wonder what is left to learn. Lisa O’Connell answers that scepticism handily: The Origins of the English Marriage Plot is thoroughly researched, meticulously organized, and written with refreshing clarity. Oriented toward political rather than social history, it handles complex and potentially unfamiliar material with ease. A reader specialized in literature and literary scholarship comes away with an expanded context for the rise of the marriage plot and a much deeper understanding of the political and religious circumstances that occasioned that rise.

O’Connell argues convincingly that the English marriage plot is neither a primarily literary phenomenon nor a pure expression of secular social concerns about marriage. Rather, she explains, the marriage plot rose to primacy as it did and when it did “in response to changing relations between the Anglican church, the English state, and the commercial sphere” (3). Lord Hardwicke’s Act for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage (1753) becomes central to those changing relations. The Hardwicke Act is already familiar to scholars of the eighteenth century as a check on impetuous young lovers, as a backstop against stolen fortunes, and as a complete redefinition of what constituted marriage. O’Connell deepens these situation-specific understandings: The Hardwicke Act, she argues, was the most successful of a handful of major laws that enacted the Court Whig project of “consolidat[ing] the state’s role in the lives of the people often, but not always, by turning to the church” (17). In other words, the Anglican marriage ceremony mandated by the Hardwicke Act makes marriage simultaneously a civic and a religious duty, using the Church to standardize a then-disorganized aspect of social order. Marrying according to the rules of the Established Church would make one a proper spouse, a better person, and an English patriot. This book’s value lies in, among other things, its ability to explain the ways in which evolving conceptions of marriage served both sacred and secular ends, rather than one or the other. It ties political history to literary criticism in detailed ways that would make it an asset to scholars in either field, as well as to students looking for a better understanding of the interconnected world of eighteenth-century culture and an explanation of the marriage plot’s primacy. Because it summarizes a complicated philosophical and political situation that involves some strange bedfellows, this book—especially the opening chapter or two—could be a challenging and dense read for nonspecialists. But O’Connell handles the material deftly, moving from the [End Page 478] ideological stance of the Court Whigs to its expression in the Hardwicke Act to the Act’s public reception without leaving the reader behind.

Neither does O’Connell leave literature behind. The book pivots smoothly from political and religious history to an impressive series of close readings tracing the evolving depiction of marriage in literature. The evolution begins with Gay and Fielding’s stage depictions of “mock marriage” before 1740 and their connections to the dubious marriages for sale in the Fleet marriage market and available at Scotland’s Gretna Green. Here, O’Connell introduces an intriguing examination of eighteenth-century beliefs-cum-superstitions about the depiction of marriage on the theatrical stage, illustrating that in the public understanding, considerable slippage existed around the question of what made a marriage legitimate. As marriage was standardized via the Hardwicke Act, the Licensing Act “organized the distribution of marriage tropes across the mid-century stage” in such a way that the theatre could reinforce what was—and was not—a proper marriage (77). O’Connell thus lays the groundwork for the novel’s marriage plot as legitimating specifically Anglican marriage in the public imagination. From that starting...