Breach of Promise of Marriage Denise Bates uncovers the antics of Victorian women who made multiple claims for damages after being jilted before getting to the altar
W
hen women began to take their first tentative steps towards equality at the end of the nineteenth century, they were more than equal in the eyes of one law. And they knew it. Breach of promise of marriage was a flourishing legal action that allowed a jilted person to demand compensation from their faithless intended. In theory, the claim was gender neutral. In practice, men seldom sued for damages as they usually left the court hearing with the smallest coin of the realm, and the catcalls of spectators ringing in their ears. Women were very clued up about their legal rights, and enforced them, regularly winning a hundred pounds or more to make their continuing solitary state more tolerable. At today’s values, this is comparable to receiving around £10,000. It would not keep the woman in luxury for the rest of her life, but used sensibly, it could 58
provide a little something for a rainy day. As Victorian women had few opportunities for saving because of the lack of well-paid work available to them, claiming damages after a broken engagement was a sensible insurance against hardship. Most scorned women were content with just one claim for breach of promise, but an unlucky few found themselves having to sue more than once. Farmer’s daughter Harriet Roper was already 30 when her fiancé decided not to go ahead with the wedding unless her father gave the pair a wedding gift of £500. In 1871, Harriet obtained £100 damages for her broken engagement. A few years later, the now middle-aged spinster met a young man who worked in his father’s grocery business. The couple became engaged, but James Bagley said he would only wed her when he could afford to maintain a wife. After two years, Bagley ended the engagement and Harriet wrote, ‘I think you ought to be made an
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example of to prevent others being deceived as I have been.’ Her opportunity came in 1880 when Bagley married someone else, proving that he could afford to support a wife and family. This time Harriet obtained £80 and The Times commented that she was in a remarkable and unique position having obtained two lots of damages for being jilted.
Repeat offenders Harriet was not the first woman to obtain damages from two different men. The first may have been dressmaker Matilda Ubsdell, who made two successful claims in the 1840s, netting £300 and then one farthing, which was the smallest coin of the realm. At this time juries seem to have disliked a woman enriching herself more than once for being jilted, probably wondering if she had given the men good reason not to want to marry her. In 1860, Fanny Davies unexpectedly lost what appeared to be a very strong w w w. d i s c o v e r y o u r h i s t o r y. n e t