Hi, my name is Ellie Dashwood and this
is another episode of Dashie Notes. Today, we'll be talking about Lydia
Bennet, Wickham and Gretna Green. Oh, Lydia Bennet. She just loves making
trouble for her family. Not only is she the most determined
flirt in England, she also decides to run off with Wickham to Gretna Green. But wait, what is Gretna Green
and why would Lydia Bennet want to runaway to there. After all, London is
definitely more her jam. Those are great questions. And we'll be answering those for
you today here on Dashie Notes. My name is Ellie Dashwood, and this is
Dashie Notes where we answer your modern day questions about classic literature. So if you love classic literature or
a period drama set in England, you may have heard of characters running
away to a place called Gretna Green. But, what is Gretna green? Well, it's a small town in Scotland that's
on the border of Scotland and England. You know, actually when I was over
there visiting the UK, which is the awesomest thing ever, we drove
past the motorway sign that says, "This is the exit to Gretna Green." And I was so excited and you can't even
really see the town from the motorway. So. But I saw the sign. But I did not run away there. So what does this small Scottish
town have to do with Lydia Bennet and Wickham and elopements? Well, let's look at a few legalities
of Jane Austen's world that will help us understand this better. The first we'll be looking at
is Regency marriage basics. And the second is the
Marriage Act of 1753. Doesn't that sound exciting. Regency marriage basics. So in Regency England, there was
about three different ways you could legally get married: the reading of
the banns in church, getting a common license or getting a special license. The first and most basic way
to get married was having the banns read in church. Now the banns were essentially
an announcement that the preacher would get up and say, "So-and-so
wants to marry so-and-so. If anyone has a reason, they shouldn't
be getting married, please let me know." And he would say that for three
consecutive, Sundays in the church that the people getting married attended. And that gave anyone the opportunity
to come forward with, you know, something super dramatic like, "No,
they have a secret wife, that's locked in their attic, who's been crazy since
they've married them in Jamaica." Named that classic novel. Most of the time, it was just a formality. Nobody objected
dramatically to these banns. And after the end of the three weeks,
they could simply get married in their church, be happy, little married people. This was most common among the
poorer classes, because, well, it was the cheapest way to get married. The second way was to get a common
marriage license, which was a very similar to getting a marriage license today. You buy a marriage license
and you get married. You don't have to have these
big announcements or the three week waiting period. You do have to of course have
consent and show up to your wedding. But it was more of a slightly
higher class way to get married. It was more expensive. People like Emma Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley probably got married
with a common marriage license. Because getting their marriage
banns raad was more of something like Harriet and Richard Martin
probably would have done in Emma. Getting a special license. Now, if you were nobility or you were like
super rich and maybe like in parliament, or something super cool like that, you
could get a special marriage license. Which was of course super expensive
because it's special and you would get it from the Archbishop of Canterbury. And you get it. You go get married, you didn't
have to have bannds or anything. And you'd just be all like,
"I'm so special and rich." Now in Pride and Prejudice, Mrs.Bennet
is like so excited when she finds out that Lizzie is going to marry Darcy. She's going to be like, "You're going
to have a special marriage license." Now it's much debated, whether Mr. Darcy could have a
special marriage license. Because even though he was very,
very rich, he was not nobility. So there's a big debate of
whether he could actually have a special marriage license. I don't know, either way Mr. Darcy is still great. The second thing we'll be going
over today is the Marriage Act of 1753, AKA an act for the better
preventing of clandestine marriages. That's such a dramatic name for a law. I mean, you have to love the Regency
and the, well, that was before Regency, the Georgian era law, naming people. I mean, those members of parliament
had flair when they were naming stuff. This marriage act. Let's talk about it. So we went over the three ways that people
could get married in Regency England. And if you think of there's so many
awesome ways you can get married, why would you run off to Scotland? And the answer is of course, age. Now this act in 1753 was basically
solving the problem the British had with apparently runaway teenagers
getting married clandestinely. That was a big problem they were
having, I don't know, British problems. Life. First world problems really
let's face this here, teenagers running off and getting married. This act in 1753, required that anyone
getting married under the age of 21 to have their parents' permission. Which creates a really big
problem if you're under 21 but he was just met this officer. And he's so cute and you need to
marry him, even though like a couple of weeks ago, he was hitting on your
older sister was just kind of weird. But that's okay because you
guys need to be together. And it doesn't matter that you're a 15
year old girl on vacation at the seaside. Yes. I'm talking about Lydia Bennet. So why is Lydia Bennet and Mr. Wickham running away? Because Lydia knows that her father, Mr. Bennet would never agree
to her marrying Mr. Wickham. So they need to go somewhere where
the Marriage Act of 1753 will not prevent them from getting married. And where is that? Scotland. Because in Scotland at this
time, you could still get married if you were a girl at 12. And if you were a boy at 14. Which is incredibly young, and I don't
know what they were thinking at the time. However, all Lydia and Wickham
needed to do is get over the English-Scottish border and get married. Now, Gretna Green was a town in southern
Scotland and it was the first town when you're on the major road going up
that you're going to run into once you got across English-Scottish border. So that's why it was so popular
because young couples could run away there and get eloped. And that legal marriage was still legally
binding when they returned to England. And that's why Gretna Green became the
original Las Vegas of the world, because people were running away to elope there. And marriages were not as good
of an idea there as they are mostly in Las Vegas today. So that is Lydia and Wickham's plan. They're going to run away to Scotland, get
eloped and come back down as man and wife. Of course, Mr. Wickham, being the slime ball
that he is, doesn't even have the decency to marry Lydia. And instead on their way, he
stops in London and just convinces Lydia to shack up with him. And this raises another question. This is a question that one of my
Instagram followers submitted and wanted to be answered in a Dashie Notes episode. So here it is. The question is why would Mr. Darcy use his influence to have
Lydia marry Wickham, when Mr. Darcy already used his influence to
have his own sister not marry Wickham. So it's sort of like this double
standard, like everyone knows Mr. Wickham is going to be a horrible husband. So why would you marry Lydia
off to him, but not Georgianna? Why don't you save Lydia from Wickham
just like you saved Georgiana? That's a great question. But the answer all goes back to
Regency morality, because if you remember, Lydia ran away with Mr. Wickham and shacked up with him in London. Which means she committed immorality. Which means she has essentially
destroyed her reputation and any hope she has of making a good marriage
match or really any marriage match. Girls at this time, losing their good
character, ruined the rest of their life. If she does not marry Mr. Wickham, she's going to live
out the rest of her days in loneliness, poverty, and shame. Pretty much marrying Mr. Wickham is the only way she can to
somewhat save her reputation, help her sisters out because her ruining
her own reputation is now affecting their reputation by association. And it's pretty much the only
way she's not going to end up in complete poverty as she gets older. And so marrying Mr. Wickham is the better of
two evils there really. Meanwhile, Darcy's sister Georgiana
did nothing to ruin her name. She did not commit
immorality with Mr Wickham. And even though she planned to run away
in elope and marry him, that was not something that would ruin her entire
future, like what Lydia had done. So that allowed Mr. Darcy to step in prevent this
horrible marriage and save his sister. Meanwhile, since Lydia had
already run off with Mr. Wickham, Darcy had no way to essentially
prevent the big domino effect on her life. And instead he helped her choose the
lesser of the two evils of marriage to Mr. Wickham or, you know, essentially playing
out the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne for the rest of her life. And really that was so great of Mr. Darcy. Isn't that why we all love him. So in conclusion, why does
Lydia runaway to Scotland? Because she's too young to get
married in England and Gretna Green is the closest place she can go and
marry her beloved like him without her parents standing in the way. And because she doesn't make very good
life decisions, that's really the big, bigger reason we're dealing with here. Big reason: Lydia makes
bad life decisions. So my name is Ellie Dashwood and this
has been another episode of Dashie Notes. I hope you've enjoyed it. In the comments, let me know if
you lived in Regency England, how would you get married? Would you have the banns read
or do you have a common license? Would you have a super special license? Or would you run away to Gretna Green. Comment below and let me know,
also make sure to subscribe to my channel for more awesome videos about
classic literature and Jane Austen. Thank you so much for watching again,
and I hope you have a great day.
