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The great majority of people in Victorian England were not chaste before their wedding night. Nationally somewhere around a third of brides were pregnant when they got married, and in country areas like Stogumber, the figure could be much higher – a study of Colyton in Devon for instance found that the great majority of brides were pregnant at the altar – or in other words it was only a minority of brides who were not pregnant when they got married. Living together before marriage and sexual relations between engaged couples were both the norm and socially acceptable.
The reason for marriage then was very often pregnancy. At this point marriage might be voluntarily entered into, or it could be an altogether more forced shotgun type of marriage. Elsewhere on this site you will find details of William Bacon who sold his wife and children to Robert Jones in Stogumber Square – William had got a Stogumber girl pregnant when he was 19 and had subsequently married her in Stogumber church after being liberally entertained by the parish authorities – an event he said he was unable to recall as he claimed he had to be carried to the church ‘being high in liquor’.
So despite this fairly liberal and what we might think of as modern attitude to sex before marriage, there was a much less relaxed attitude toward children being born outside of marriage, and instances of bastardy were fairly limited. The reason for this wasn’t so much based on any notion of sin, but that children born out of wedlock stood to become a burden on the wider community of ratepayers. If a couple, and particularly if a father refused to accept responsibility for the child they had created, the authorities would step in and secure a magistrates’ maintenance order against the father.
This was however quite a rare event. There was only about one case every three years or so.
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The earliest record for a case of bastardy in the parish of Stogumber concerns a woman from the early 1600s who it was recorded ‘is burthen with childe by a stranger and further that one nicholas lid a pedlar is father of her child'.
The problem here was the father was itinerant and had presumably long since left the parish.
The difficulty in the pregnant woman getting married to the putative father was altogether more difficult in the case of Alice Burd
The examincaon of Alice Burd of Stogumber taken before Sr John Windham knight one of his majesites justices of the peace at Orchard the second diay of ffeb[ruary] 1613
[Alice Burd] saith that John Carse of Monksilver, clothier, is the father of her child she goeth withall and had the carnall knowledge of her bodie one week after St James diae last once onlie and noe more At W[hi]ch tyme the said Carse his wieff and his children were at one Thomas Shutts howse in Stogumber at a Christeninge, [Alice] and the said Carse being gon at hombe together and alone
You will notice that the father in this case is again alleged to have been a non Stogumber man – and most of these bastardy cases concern men from outside the parish, a blacksmith from Bishops Lydeard, a tailor from East Quantoxshead, a labourer from Monksilver, a printer from Brompton Ralph, another labourer from Shapton, a thatcher from Cannington, a tea dealer from Wiveliscombe and so on.
Of course we have no way of knowing if these people were the actual fathers as the evidence of the woman concerned was itself enough to secure an order for them to maintain a child. There must have been many cases when unpopular or relatively wealthy men were singled out by pregnant women who did not want to reveal the true identity of their lovers. Given the unpopularity of millers this might well have applied to Jane Sealy
The examination of Jane Sealey of Stogumber 1696
Jane Sealey saith that she was never married but a singlewoman and is now quick with a bastard child begotten on her body by one Bernard Hawkins of ye parish of Stogumber , miller
who had ye carnal knowledge of her body onse upon a bed in her fathers house about a fortnight after Whitsudntide last past when the said Bernard Hawkins begat her with ye bastard child she now gooeth with and that noe other person had ever ye carnall knowledge of her body
Of course sometimes even magistrates orders could be of no avail in cases where the woman was as stubborn – or as brave - as Sarah Chaple
Sarah Chaple the daughter of John Chaple being now with child is now settled and abiding with the above John Gardner in the said parish of Stogumber in order there to lay down her great belly and doth refuse to give an account who is the father of such child she now goeth with
©Duncan
Taylor 2009
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