Arranged Marriages in the 1860s.

[AlanC]

Having transcribed a lot of marriages in the last few years, I have noticed that in many cases a Groom and Bride's father are of the same occupation or perhaps the parents of the wedding couple are also in same employment.
These are honest working classes and I often wonder how many are 'arranged' by visiting for 'Sunday Lunch' and deciding if a marriage would be suitable to all? If the Aristocracy can do it................................

[Vonny North West]

Could this be a case of small communities? The terraced streets where everyone knew everyone else and everyone worked in the same local industry. I wouldn't have thought they "arranged marriages" as such, but possibly encourage their offspring if it was noticed that the boy next door, whose father just happened to be a mate of the girl's father, fancied each other?
Vonny

[Guest]

I have quite a few Printers with Printer Fathers marrying Printers Daughters always imagine maybe the Daughter took her Fathers lunch to work and met them there

[kylejustin]

i don't there anything odd about people with similar jobs and work backgrounds getting hitched. it's when the two occupations have nothing to do with each other, that gets me wondering how they met, and the story behind marriage. i've got gentry ancestors, and do wonder if the marriages were the childrens choice (and if so, were they led to believe it was their choice) or arranged by parents without child's consent.

[dicole]

I have found that several of my families married within their professional or trade group, but I don't if was by design, or whether that was their social circle as well.

I have carpenters and carpenters children (and widows) marrying other carpenters, Harness-makers children who got hitched, a glaziers widows married another glazier (that one kept the business going). The mast and block makers family in Rotherhithe married into other maritime related trades. Except the ones who married the publicans daughters.

Here in NSW the work associations are less clear, but I can see how my families must have met at church, social functions or the local regatta.

[kylejustin]

yes in australia there wasn't a class system, so i suppose people were more free to marry outside their family occupations.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Rich or poor, it's always been the same I think. You wanted your children to marry someone who was KNOWN, whose background and attitudes were the same as yours, people who wouldn't land you any nasty surprises.

I've said this before, but no one in my family ever married a random stranger before about 1900, they were all related or known families.

OC

[Janet in Yorkshire]

You didn't have the same freedom or money to go out and about to meet people - you worked long hours and would have at most one day a week off. Most of mine married people from the same village, relations of relations (probably met at weddings or family celebrations, ) through employment or, with my Quakers, people met through trade, at meetings of Friends, or marriage with a relative of another Friends family.

Jay