by Stephanie Laurens
To someone unfamiliar with the genre, the question fairly leaps to the eye–why, of all the time periods in history, is the British Regency (1811-1820) and its flanking time periods so
by Stephanie Laurens
To someone unfamiliar with the genre, the question fairly leaps to the eye–why, of all the time periods in history, is the British Regency (1811-1820) and its flanking time periods so frequently used as the setting for romances?
As a longtime reader of Regency romances, and as an author of 14 romances all set in the Regency, I have some inklings as to why that might be so–why romance authors and readers both find the Regency so rewarding.
First–and for a romance author very definitely foremost–the concept of love as an appropriate, useful, and perhaps even desirable element within marriage within the upper echelons of society evolved and gained acceptance during the Regency.
Prior to that time, while the concept of romantic love between a man and a woman had been recognized for centuries, among the upper classes, it had not been considered at all necessary in marriage. Indeed, in the minds of many who had lived primarily in Georgian times and were old in the Regency, the new-fangled fashion for ladies to wear their hearts on their sleeves was shocking. And even more shocking when the objects of their affections were their own husbands!
While there were rebels to this prevailing view, both in Georgian times and earlier, they were the exceptions, very definitely not the norm. While much milder “affection” was considered a felicitous circumstance within marriage and entirely appropriate, love was something else again.
The attitude against love (as distinct from affection) in marriage in all likelihood sprouted from the view that love was a potentially dangerous force, one too powerful to be allowed to influence such vital contracts as marriages then were. Marriages were the primary means of merging and
furthering familial estates, many of which were huge, politically powerful and wealthy. Divorce, and all the potential legal difficulties which could arise, or any form of marital disruption or instability, were to be avoided at all costs. Love is a force not amenable to the control of men and
their laws, it was considered too dangerous to be allowed to touch the institution of marriage. Marriage was, indeed, a civil contract blessed by the church, and as such should not be subject to emotional urges. Thus ran the prevailing wisdom.
Thus, until the Regency, marriage within the upper classes had very little to do with love. It was not only not required, but actively disapproved of. During the Regency, this changed.
What caused this fairly fundamental shift seems buried in the mists of time. But the romantic poets certainly heard the bugle call, and lent their strong and at the time highly influential voices to the push for change.
The waning of French influence on British society was one factor which not only contributed to, but was essential for, the emergence of the acceptance of love within marriage. When it came to love in marriage, the Frenc