So if you were in the top 1% of society
during Victorian times, it was essential that you married someone else in the
upper echelons to maintain your place in the aristocracy and show everyone
that you are very rich and fancy. But how exactly do you do that? Because most people in the upper
echelons definitely spent most of their time in the country, in
giant houses that were very pretty. But say, if you live out in the country
in this grand house, and all your neighbors are either peasants, maybe
that crabby Squire that lives a few miles from you, how do you ever meet anyone? Because this is definitely
before there was online dating. Well, society matrons had an
answer for you, and it is the Victorian Era marriage season. Which is a few months of every year
when the best of Society came out of their country estates and descended
on London to party like it was 1899. So in this video, we're going to get
into all the details of what does a glamorous marriage season was like. My name is Ellie Dashwood and this
is my channel where I talk about classic literature and history. If you like either of those
topics, please subscribe. So first let's just do a brief
overview of what the season was. Like I mentioned it was when all of
the country families of the Gentry, the nobility, the aristocracy, essentially
the popular kids of all of Society, would descend on London from the end
of April through the end of August. And they partied for
several different reasons. One was of course, They got
really bored all winter. They were in their houses. They're like, "All my friends
are also in giant castle-like manors only really far away. And I miss them." So when they had the opportunity, they
were like, "We got to get together, like all the time, while we're in London." And one of the reasons all these
families were in London at this time is because a lot of their
men served in parliament and were naturally be in town during that time. And instead of the men being able to go
to London by themselves, their wives were like, "You are not leaving me out here
in the country to be bored by myself. As said before I need to go party." And of course this created the
perfect atmosphere to mix all of their children and try to get
them married off to each other. And then another really important aspect
of why this season existed is because they needed to be fancy and impressive. Because again, you might be living in this
super expensive house, you might have the nicest clothes, the fanciest carriage,
but how's everyone going to know that? Because again, they all
live like 50 miles away. You're only impressive if other
people see you being impressive. And they can only see you being
impressive if you're in London together. So again, so many aspects of
important societal concerns are addressed by the London social season. And one of the main aspects
that you needed to impress everybody in was your clothing. And it was an acknowledged fact
that spending, in modern terms, $150,000 for one woman's wardrobe
for the season was a minimum. So yes, minimum as in, if you're spending
$150,000 in modern terms, on your clothing, wow, you're barely getting
by being fashionable in the season. So imagine what this meant for a family
that had a mother and two daughters, they had to wardrobe out every single season. That's right, it'd be like $450,000
for less than six months of clothing. Though, admittedly, when they're probably
back at their houses all winter, they're probably re-wearing those things. On a side note, of course the Gentry
and the aristocracy definitely had ways of mixing company, even during winter. That's one of the reasons it was extremely
common for them to go and stay with their relatives and their friends often and to
send their kids to go stay with people. Because that was their way
during the winter months to try and get their children married
off and in broader society. But again, nothing compared to
the opportunities of the season. Let's imagine the season as we go through
it as a debutante, like I talked about who was just presented to the queen. If you have not seen my video of "How to
be a debutante in Queen Victoria's Royal Court" then definitely go check that out. Then you will know everything
about coming out into society by being presented to Queen Victoria. Let's ay our imaginary girl, headed into
the season, has just been presented to the Queen and now she's ready to embark. But what does this season
actually look like? So the season was made up
of two categories of events. There were the public events like we're
going to talk about here that were open to everybody who could afford to go. And then there were the private
events, like dinners and balls, where you had to be invited to someone's
hospitality in order to attend. Now, these private events were ruled over
by the leaders of fashionable society. There were definitely more important
balls you could be invited to. And less important balls
you could be invited too. And it was very important
to know the right people and network in the right spaces. And we're going to talk about that
more in a minute, but you also had to ensure that you went to all of these
public events that were essential. And the first category up
are important horse races. Yes. Because you know, horse
racing is ultimately romantic. What's more romantic than meeting
the love of your life while watching horses run fastly? I don't know. Ascot was a very important race to
attend and it was actually a week long. Some of the days were more important
than others to make your appearance act. And it's very interesting that what
would happen is they would all have to drive out in their carriages or
take a train to the Ascot races. And what it turned into was this giant
group picnic, because they're all in their carriages watching the races. And so then, you know, they're
going to have to picnic because they're stuck out there. So then they're all picnicking
on the lawn while the horses are like way over there running. So you can tell that what was more
important was being seen there. And also it was considered
a major fashion moment. You had to wear like you're defining
dress to Ascot and then everyone see it and be like, "Wow, they're so fancy." If you were distracting everyone from
the horses, that was a good thing. Meanwhile, there was the ultimate place
to be, which was the Royal enclosure, which you had to apply to be in. Unless you were of course, close
friends with the Royal family. And the poor man responsible for
handling all those applications had to turn down around 5,000. So it was extremely exclusive
to get into the Royal Enclosure. Pretty much it's little fenced area for
the uber popular people to watch the race. But everyone else was just out there
camping out in their carriages, eating some picnic food in fancy dresses. But you can't get better
than that can you. Next up is boat racing with the Regatta
at Henley and this was essentially a giant fashion parade slash picnic on the water. That is correct. While, the horse races
were picnic on the grass. Now you're picnic thing on the
water while being fashionable. You see like less connection here? Just go places where sports are
happening, but look fashionable and eat tiny sandwiches is the
ultimate way to be in the pinnacle of society in Victorian times. Then next step is the Eton
versus Harrow cricket match. And of course, Eton and Harrow
were both very popular schools with the upper classes. So these were the schools that a
lot of the husbands and brothers and grandfathers had all attended, when
they were boys and it became another mass event to go watch those two schools
play cricket with each other while being fashionable and eating picnic food. Now, finally, we've hit a major attraction
you have to go to during this time period that does not involve picnic food. And that is the opera. The opera was much more expensive
than attending simply the theater, but you had to go to be anybody. And in fact, the fashions of the women
in the audience are just as much part of the entertainment as the singing was. So those are the public events
that anyone can attend during the season, as long as they have enough
money and enough picnic food. Next up are the private events. And this is where a lot of
the action really happened. And it's important to understand the
geography that lies under the social season because the people at the top
of British society stayed for the summer in a very concentrated area in
the fashionable west end of London, around a park called Hyde Park. And Hyde Park was the
London park to be seen in. And so much socially
went down in that park. So let's talk about our debutante,
who is coming out in society. She's now penciled in all of these
essential aspects of the season. And now she has to figure
out her day to day reality. Now a lot of that was entirely
dependent on receiving invitations. They'd be flooded with invitations to
different events and private parties if they were of a good station in society. If they were just barely trying to
break in to the upper-class, then they were working hard for those
invitations and having parties of their own, inviting people hoping
that they would be invited in return. But let's say this girl is
in the middle of Society. She's not at the bottom. She's not at the top, but she gets a
general good number of invitations. Well, what does her day look like? The first thing that she'd want to do
is go horse riding early in the morning. So at 9:00 AM, she would be out on her
horse in Hyde Park with a bunch of other women out on their horses in Hyde Park. So you couldn't really
just like ride freely. It had to be this very controlled ride. And this was of course done for
exercise, which while it was great exercise, also again, you had to
be fancy and seen by everybody. And of course, this debutante
would be either accompanied by a chaperone or groom to keep her
reputation perfect at all times. And if you want to know more
about love and marriage in the 1800s, then check out my video. "Regency Era Love and Marriage." Which while it is about the Regency
Era, a lot of these same concepts do apply to the entire century. So next up in the early morning,
she needs to go back home. Probably consult with her mother. Plan out the day. See what invitations they have. And if there are no late morning
appointments, she may need to go to her gown makers or do some other shopping. Because guys, it is really hard
to spend $150,000 on clothes. Like you have to work at it. So these girls they're working at it. And then up in her late morning, she
might have one of two events going. She might go to a breakfast party,
which were not very common, but were an option for women to give, to have some
form of hospitality that was honestly much cheaper than throwing a ball. You know, breakfast versus balls. Clearly, one is cheaper. Or she might also go out
driving in Hyde Park. Women could drive their own pair of
horses in the park with their little light carriages and there they would
meet and talk with other women, possibly get invited to something
or make plans to go picnic together. It's like, "Hey, I ran into
you while driving in the Park. Would you like to go to Ascot with us? We could picnic together." Next up would be possibly going to
a lunch party and lunch parties were heavily dominated again by women. Because men at this era had
something they called a club. Now clubs were essentially buildings
often with a restaurant like component where they could play cards
or billiards with their friends. Some of them had libraries. Basically, they were boys clubs
that they could go hang out at and avoid their wives and daughters. And they also usually had
pretty good food on top of it. And men preferred to spend
the day at their club then going to boring lunch parties. But these lunch parties, while
they may not help her meet her future love directly. Indirectly, they are essential
because like I said earlier, networking was so important. So I think this is a universally
acknowledged fact that in a lot of aspects, women are the
gatekeepers to men for other women. So the mother of this debutante might
be at this lunch and she might sit next to this woman, who of herself
might not look very consequential. But they perhaps start chatting and
discovers she has a nephew who is highly eligible and would love to
be invited to the next ball that this debutante's mother is throwing. So she adds his name to the list. They send out the
invitation and who knows? That guy might be a potential husband. So you see how networking was
an extremely important part. Usually the debutante's mom or chaperone
or a guardian AKA, whoever was trying to marry her off, understood that
networking with other women was key to expanding their circle and finding
those hiding eligible gentlemen, who are just all in their club. Okay. Next up is the afternoon. There are a lot of things
to do in the afternoon. So much stuff. So one essential aspect of afternoons
was calling on other people. But I'm going to do a whole other
video on morning calls, which is what they were called, even though
they were all done in the afternoon. So keep tuned for that. Subscribe, if you're interested in
people visiting each other for 15 minutes and having awkward conversation. But that was an essential thing
to do at least a few days a week. So the next thing that the debutante
might do in the afternoon is attend a sporting event like polo. Specifically one played by
eligible gentleman of her class. Because you see if you meet an eligible
guy, say while riding in the Park. And then he's like, "Hey, I play polo." And you're like, "That's so great." And he's like, "I have
this polo match tomorrow." And you're like, "Oh, I'm
definitely gonna go watch you like hit a ball while riding a horse. I couldn't imagine a better afternoon." So that might be on this debutante's
afternoon agenda, or if Ascot was a while ago or not really Regatta yet. And you're really in the picnic mood. Then what is better than a garden party? Which is again, a picnic in the garden,
but fancy and requires no sporting event for an excuse to hold it. Or especially if you're trying to climb
up that social ladder, you might be in Hyde Park in an afternoon drive. Which is when you have a servant
drive your more expensive carriage and you go and pay homage to
the top matrons of society. Who all had their own tree
they would park under. So you go and you pay homage to
these women, hoping that they will invite you to their next ball. Or if it's Sunday, you're back in Hyde
Park for prayer books socializing. Which is where after church,
you still hold your prayer book while walking through Hyde Park. So you look religious, but you're also
getting your networking marriage game on. See multitasking. Then, in the late afternoon,
this debutante might be attending something called an "At Home." And an At Home is an afternoon party. Sometimes that had live
music like a singer there. You had tea, you listened to some music. You networked, and you mentally
prepared yourself for what came next. Which was all the evening events,
which could be quite intense. So the evening events started with dinner. So dinners were super formal. They had to take the order of
precedents into consideration when lining up to walk into the dining room. And so many other aspects went into them
that again, I'm going to make a whole video on dinners during this time period. And so dinners where usually starting
around 8:00 to 9:00 PM and then after dinner, and there were a
few different later evening events that debutante might be attending. One is something called a reception. Receptions where essentially
balls, but with no dancing. Where it's very fancy and very
formal, but just no ever dances. And usually these were held
as more official functions by possibly the wives of men who
were important government offices. But they were still
important places to be seen. Another later evening event would be
going to the theater or the opera. Again, the opera is the ultimate
place to be seen fashionably. And the theater is where you can go
relax and enjoy watching the Prince of Wales' mistress act out some drama. Then next up are the night events,
which were the dances and the balls. And these started around 10 to
11:00 PM and ran until dawn. It's right, the party didn't
stop until the sun rose. Now dances and balls were essentially the
same, except for two important aspects. Dances were smaller with between
80 to 200 people there and they had less decorations and were
therefore less expensive to throw. Meanwhile, balls could have
200 to 500 people there. And they were expected to have
very grand decorations with flowers and all that greatness. So of course, in later Victorian times,the
preferred method of dancing was no longer the country dances we see in Regency
videos, like Jane Austen adaptations. But it was waltzing. Only waltzing was a very hard. Because if you imagine if 500 people are
invited to a ball and you're trapped in this room and there's all these couples
you couldn't really rotate very much. So you're essentially in this giant
mash of people sort of like going like this, cause you can't go anywhere. And so dancing at balls was
not always super enjoyable. I'm going to do an entirely
separate video on balls. So keep an eye out for that. And another aspect of balls
was that sometimes the young couples would sneak off into the
garden to have a moment alone. Where hopefully if the debutante had done
her job correctly, he would romantically propose and be like, "Will you marry me?" And she'd be like, "Yes, thank you. My family can't afford to spend
$150,000 on my clothes next year. And this is my opportunity
to get married." Or hopefully she's
like, "Yes, I love you." But I guess it depends on how romantic
your feeling when looking at this topic. So at the end of the day, this can be kind
of like a choose your own adventure book. Let's look at the option where
the debutante found husband and the one where she didn't. If she did find a husband, if her
mother had networked with the right women over lunch and got them invited
to the right ball and she did dance with the right guy who snuck out into
the garden with her and did propose. Then she could get married and not
have to worry about another season. But if she didn't find a husband, then
she just has to go back to the country with her parents, that winter and spend
months thinking about what went wrong, what she can do better next time. And then possibly visiting people at
their estates to try to throw herself in the way of other rich young men. And if that doesn't work and she's still
singled by the next marriage season. Then her parents are going to have
to spend another $150,000 to buy her clothing and more on entertainment and
opera tickets and throwing dinners and balls trying to catch her a husband. And so one of my epically awesome
viewers, you know who you are. You're awesome. Wanted to know how many seasons
these girls got before they were considered old maids and on the shelf. And I think it ultimately really
depends on a few different aspects. One is how rich your family is. Admittedly, the richer your family is
the less likely that you would ever go on the shelf because the amount of money
you would bring to the marriage would definitely entice some guy to marry you. As I talk about in the video, "Why is Mr. Darcy so rich?" One of the ways men stayed rich in the
18 hundreds was by marrying fortunes. But another aspect of why it would take
longer for a woman who was rich to be on the shelf is the fact that her parents
could continue to afford to spend that much money on her clothing every year. So it was this huge cost
every time they did the entire season to its fullest extent. So while there wasn't a set
number of times, I have read that usually it was around maybe three
before the family just gave up. But ultimately the path into old maidhood
was a slow one where maybe they stopped doing the season, but maybe they had
hopes that all those winter visits to their relatives would pay off. Usually by the time a woman hit
her late twenties, families had pretty much given up in despair
that she would ever find a husband. And you might also just be wondering
what happened to the season. And a lot of that just goes into what
happened to the aristocracy in England. Which is as the aristocracy declined,
the season naturally declined. And of course, World War I was
a huge hit on both of them. But that is a topic for an
entirely different video. Let me know in the comments
below, if you think partying all season sounds fun or terrifying. And subscribe to my channel,
if you like classic literature, history, or fancy Victorian parties. Because, you know, who doesn't love that. And keep being awesome
because you're awesome. Bye. I talk so much in this video, my is
throat sore and I'm eating a cough drop.
