Tag Archives: marriage

Georgette Heyer: the problem of brothers (for sisters)

False Colours by Georgette Heyer Cover by BarbosaBrothers, in Georgette Heyer’s Georgian and Regency novels, can be a sad trial for their sisters. Not always, but often.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about children in Heyer’s novels. That produced some interesting feedback and a really fascinating related blog by Elizabeth Hawksley about children in the nursery.

Elizabeth’s blog made me think about the problem of brothers. Not children, but grown-up brothers. So in this blog, I’m exploring those relationships (with quotations in blue which, sorry, make this blog pretty long).

Male children, primogeniture, the law and more

Back in the Regency, males definitely had it over females. Upper class males could, and did, do a lot of what they liked, even if it was reckless or dangerous. Females were hidebound by rules about what they could and couldn’t do. Mostly couldn’t. Continue reading →

Special Licence Marriage — Heyer’s Research Failing?

a special licence marriage?

Signing the Register Edward Blair Leighton

Marriage by special licence plays a very important role in historical romance. Georgette Heyer used it often. And today’s writers of historical romance use it too. Why? Because with banns or a common licence, the couple had to marry in a public church or chapel between the hours of 8 and noon.

Goblin Court typical English village

 

 

Those restrictions would have put paid to many a fictional marriage, like the one in Georgette Heyer’s The Reluctant Widow.

The heroine’s wedding takes place in the middle of the night.
And in a local PUB! Continue reading →

Wedding Dilemma

wedding dilemma to show or not to show on the pageAt some point every romantic novelist faces the Wedding Dilemma.

Will they?
Won’t they?
If they do — how, when and where?
On the page?
On the last page?

Of course, the purist’s answer is: whatever is right for the characters. But, just as organising a real-life wedding needs to take account of friends and family, the end of a story — perhaps more than any other part of the book — is there to satisfy Readers. To provide emotional closure.

wedding dilemma for the child bridesmaid

 

Do Readers want, need a wedding to achieve that? Even if the characters don’t? Continue reading →