Speed Dating Events

Amazingly, Lord Randolph stood firm under this battery, and went on to repeat his proposal to Jennie Jerome in form. She married him, and subsequently became the mother of Winston Churchill. What more could any woman have done for England?

But Jennie’s life was to be dogged by domineering males poking their noses into her love affairs. Later, after she was widowed, she was courted by a much younger man. No less a person than Edward, Prince of Wales, intervened this time, to tell her that if she married her lover she would never be able to mix in court circles again. This was a royal act of humbug from the princely hypocrite, to condone an affair but not a marriage — and the Prince’s own dedication to the art of the horizontal hardly qualified him to give a moral lead! In the end Jennie cocked the aristocratic equivalent of two fingers at the whole pack of them, married her lover anyway, and did not lose either her friends or her position.

In the past the real threat came not from outsiders but in the person of the girl’s father. He was, after all, for many years the actual owner of his daughter in the eyes of the law. She was his chattel to dispose of as he pleased. The true situation of a girl under this system is sharply highlighted by Shakespeare in the brutal outburst of Juliet’s father when she refuses to marry the man of his choice:

If you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend;

If you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets!

Fortunately, most fathers do not take their disapproval of their daughters’ suitors quite so much to heart. Nevertheless they can still give young hopefuls a rough time. The qualities likely to make a girl fall in love with you can be the very opposite of those designed to appeal to her father, as Robert Browning found out when he courted Miss Elizabeth Barrett of Wimpole Street. The father, with his ex-officio power of veto, has to be won over, placated, or somehow neutralized.

Consequently, going to ask a father for his daughter’s hand in marriage was an even greater trial than securing the aforementioned mitt in the first place. Strindberg gives a humorous account of the process, thought to be based on his own experience, in Getting Married:

When he went to see the major to propose, the notary had not looked up the quotations for grain, but the major had. I love her,’ said the notary.

`How much do you earn?’ asked the old gentleman. `Only twelve hundred crowns I know, but we love each other, sir . .

`I’m not interested, twelve hundred’s too little.’

`I earn a bit more than that in fact, but Louise knows the ardour of my heart . .

`Don’t talk nonsense, how much do you earn?’ His pen was poised ready to write.

`And what about her feelings, sir? Do you know how . . .?’

`Will you give me an answer, sir, or won’t you! How much more do you earn? Figures, sir! Figures. Facts!’

`I do translations at ten crowns the quire. I give lessons in French. I’ve been promised proof-reading.’

`At ten crowns a quire. Comes to 250 crowns and then what?’

And then what? Under this harassment the young man, probably sweating like a horse by this time, begins to crack up:

`Then? I never know in advance.’

`That’s just it! You don’t know in advance. But that’s just what you must do. You think that getting married is merely a matter of moving in together and making fools of yourselves. No, my boy, there’ll be a child in nine months’ time, and a child needs food and clothing.’

`There needn’t be a child straight away. When two people love each other as we do, sir, as we do . .

`How the devil do you love each other, then?’

`Do you think I can put our love into words?’ placing his hand on the lapel of his waistcoat.

`And you think there won’t be a child when you love like that? Idiot! You’re a damned idiot, sir! However, they say you’re a decent sort offellow, so I’ll let you get engaged. But mind you spend the time of your engagement on bread- winning, for there are hard times ahead. GRAIN IS GOING UP!’

This sounds like a pretty rough ride for a would-be husband. But it is, in fact, par for the course. Nineteenth- century fathers used to seize with relish the chance to tyrannize over prospective sons-in-law, and shamelessly add to the anguish of mind the poor chaps were going through at this climax of their lives anyway!

Modern men have no idea of their good luck in being able to bypass this excruciating ritual. Some, of course, still have to do it. HRH Prince Charles did Earl Spencer the honour of asking for Lady Diana’s hand, eyes, shy smile etc. But he must have felt pretty confident that the Earl was not about to turn purple in the face, call him a bounder and a cad, grab the nearest shotgun and chase him off the ancestral acres. Among lesser mortals the future-father-in-law routine has become so disused that one recently-betrothed suitor found that though he’d been up all night writing the script, so to speak, the old boy didn’t know his words, refused to play his part, and the whole scene was over in forty-five seconds!

As this shows, some fathers would just as happily not be asked. This is particularly true for a father of many daughters, who can gloomily foresee it coming again and again. The chap who proposed to my eldest sister one Saturday night could not wait to get the man-to-man business over and done with. He presented himself at the house in his best suit, exuding aftershave and nervous tension from every pore, at ten to eight on the following Sunday morning.

But the other man was not quite so keen. The pater familiar was in fact detected trying to leave the house surreptitiously by the back door, still in his dressing gown and slippers. By the time he had been hotly pursued, apprehended, scolded rotten and turned into the sitting room to meet his fate, the future son-in-law was on the point of expiry. Listening outside the door, all the females heard the scene proceed in a series of blurts, gasps, and nervous tics. Afterwards Pa made just one proviso — that he should be allowed to receive all future requests for his daughters’ hands with his trousers on, and preferably with a glass in his hand!

But of all prospective fathers-in-law, the most sorely tried must have been the father of Olivia Langdon, the best beloved of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain’). Clemens was a great admirer of women and by common consent at his best in their company: `he loved the minds of women, their wit, their agile cleverness, their sensitive perception, their humorous appreciation, the saucy things they would say, and their pretty defiances’, recalled one of his friends. But he fell in love deeply only once, with the beautiful Olivia, as he confessed to his clergyman’s wife:

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