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Widowhood and remarriage in colonial Australia Susan Hart Bachelor of Arts (Honours) University of Western Australia This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Western Australia School of Humanities Discipline of History 2009 Abstract Widowhood and remarriage affected a majority of people in colonial Australia, yet historians have given them scant attention. Today, widowhood primarily concerns the elderly, but in the mid-nineteenth century a considerable proportion of deaths were amongst young adults. Thus many widows and widowers had children to care for, who were also affected by the loss of a parent and the possible remarriage of their surviving parent. Extended families might be called on for support, while communities, at the local and government level, were confronted with the need to provide welfare for the widowed and orphaned, including the older widowed. This thesis considers how widowhood impacted on men and women at all levels of society in the nineteenth-century Australian colonies, especially Western Australia and Victoria, taking into account the effects of age, class and numbers of children of the widowed. When men were the chief family earners and women were dependent child bearers the effects of widowhood could be disastrous, and widows had to employ a range of strategies to support themselves and their families. Men too were affected by widowhood, for the loss of a wife’s housekeeping skills could cause serious financial consequences. One response to widowhood was remarriage, and the thesis discusses the advantages and disadvantages of remarriage for men and women. Historians have regarded remarriage as the best option for the widowed, especially for women. Research into remarriage, especially in Britain and Europe, has focussed on demography. Assuming that all widowed wished to remarry, demographers have compared remarriage rates for men and women, within the context of the relative numbers of marriageable men and women in a given community. This thesis, however, queries the emphasis on demography in the study of remarriage decisions. Drawing on marriage and death certificates, the thesis calculates the rates and patterns of remarriage in Victoria and Western Australia in the early 1860s. It shows that the unequal sex ratio in Australia made some difference to remarriage rates, giving widows more choice than, for instance, their counterparts in nineteenth-century Britain. However, not all findings can be explained by demography. Thus the social, legal and economic frameworks within which the widowed made their decisions were also examined in this thesis. Personal responses to widowhood and remarriage varied according to temperament and individual family circumstances. Attitudes to remarriage were largely dependent on the gender and class of the widowed. The law treated men and women differently, and remarriage thus had different implications for widows and widowers. The economic effects of remarriage were related to the legal context, with men in a more advantageous position. While widowhood usually had adverse financial consequences for women, remarriage did not necessarily provide a satisfactory solution. The emphasis on demography in research into widowhood and remarriage has tended to obscure the importance of other factors. In remarriage decisions, class and age were at least as important as the apparent availability of potential spouses, for men as well as women, while the personal has been consistently underestimated and the impact of gender has usually been oversimplified. Contents Abstract Contents ..................................................................................................................i Acknowledgements...............................................................................................iii List of Tables and Figures....................................................................................vii Conventions and Abbreviations ............................................................................ix Introduction..........................................................................................1 Chapter One Approaches to widowhood and remarriage .......................................11 Widowhood....................................................................................................... 11 Remarriage........................................................................................................ 21 Sources and Methodologies.............................................................................. 33 Chapter Two Legal context of widowhood and remarriage in colonial Australia ..43 Marriage law..................................................................................................... 43 Divorce, Desertion and Separation ................................................................... 62 Irregular Marriage in Australia......................................................................... 68 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 77 Chapter Three Demographic context of widowhood and remarriage in colonial Australia .............................................................................................79 Introduction....................................................................................................... 79 Incidence of remarriage in Britain and Australia – a comparison .................... 80 Victoria and Western Australia – Remarriage Rate.......................................... 96 Findings: Numbers of widowed who remarried ............................................. 113 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 115 Chapter Four Remarriage patterns .........................................................................117 Introduction..................................................................................................... 117 Remarriage Patterns........................................................................................ 118 Summary......................................................................................................... 138 Relative marriage prospects for a widow and widower: Bathurst, New South Wales, 1891 .................................................................................................... 139 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 149 Chapter Five Economic context of widowhood and remarriage in colonial Australia ...........................................................................................151 Introduction..................................................................................................... 151 Financial consequences of widowhood .......................................................... 152 The family economy ....................................................................................... 160 Economic alternatives for the widowed.......................................................... 163 Remarriage...................................................................................................... 191 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 196 i Chapter Six Social context of widowhood and remarriage in colonial Australia199 Widowhood and Mourning in Colonial Australia .......................................... 199 Remarriage decisions...................................................................................... 212 Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 237 Conclusion .......................................................................................239 Appendices......................................................................................................... 245 Bibliography ...................................................................................................... 259 ii Acknowledgements As a mature-age postgraduate student, I feel particularly grateful to the many people who have contributed to the completion of this thesis. The receipt of an Australian Postgraduate Award made it possible for me to study full-time for the past three and a half years. The Graduate Research School of the University of Western Australia also provided funds for travel to a conference in Wales (“The Merry Widow”) and to conferences in Melbourne and Canberra. The School of Humanities and the History discipline at UWA provided extra financial assistance, enabling research in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney. Further support was available in the form of administration facilities, and I especially thank Muriel Mahony and Terri-Lee Sculthorpe for their help in many ways. Associate Professor Rob Stuart has been an able and interested Postgraduate Co- ordinator. Dr Sato Juniper of the Graduate Research School also deserves special thanks for her friendly encouragement of my endeavours. It is both an advantage and a disadvantage to study at a higher level in middle age. We bring considerable life experience, a wide range of skills such as practice in writing in different styles, and we have had time to read more than the average twenty-something student could hope to. We are also accustomed to hard work and the meeting of deadlines. On the other hand, we are not so familiar with
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