How to date like a duchess
What aspects of 19th Century dating would feel strange to us today?
Chaperoning is one of the stand-out differences between courtship in the 1800s and courtship today.
Dating was very public and women were chaperoned just about everywhere.
A chaperone wasn’t to encourage the relationship (like today’s wingman/woman), their role was to keep an eye on both the male and female’s behaviour.
They were also listening in to conversations to determine if the couple were compatible.
Chaperones tended to be a family member and they ultimately played a role in giving a relationship the green light, or forbidding a marriage to go ahead.
Balls are portrayed as some of the highlights of young ladies’ and men’s lives in Bridgerton, but what role did these parties really play in finding a match?
Young, unmarried women were confined to the house and generally, women and men spent the majority of their time apart.
The winter months in Edinburgh were the highlight of the social season, with dances held in the Assembly Rooms.
These weekly dinners and balls were one of the few occasions to meet a potential suitor.
Choosing a dance partner was exciting and flirtatious, and couples danced together while being watched by others.
But there were protocols to follow – a man could only ask a woman to dance if he had been introduced to her and both of them had to wear gloves while dancing.
Were there any families in Edinburgh who would have been similar in standing to the Bridgertons or the other families portrayed in the TV show?
Families such as the Lamonts, who lived in The Georgian House, had extravagant lifestyles and often lived beyond their means to maintain their place in the upper classes, just as you see some of the families behaving in the show.
How much effort did families put in to secure matches they deemed fitting?
No expense was spared when hosting for potential suitors for daughters, with only the best beeswax candles on show and protective covers removed from the best furniture.
Meals would be feasts fit for kings and some of the dishes would have taken several days to prepare.
At the time, men that married beneath their standing would be shunned, so it was important to marry within your social sphere.
With chaperoning and so many rules in place, how did young couples actually get to know one another?
When it came to flirting, women and men found ways to communicate without using words.
Women often let their fan do the talking. Where you placed or how you carried the fan would signal a variety of different messages.
Carrying your fan in your left hand, for example, meant that you wished to make the acquaintance of the person at whom you waved the fan, but drawing the fan across your forehead meant that you and your admirer were being watched by someone.
Other messages included drawing the fan through your hand, indicating that you hated the person with whom you were conversing, whereas sliding or pressing the fan against your cheek signalled that you loved them.