Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939

This is the first book-length study of the history of working-class courtship and marriage in Scotland, from the establishment of civil registration to the introduction in 1939 of legislation which abolished irregular marriage and introduced civil marriage. Adopting a 'life course' approach, the book explores the social, economic, and cultural contexts of romantic partnerships, from courtship through to marital or family dissolution. Drawing from a wide range of sources that capture official accounts and discourses on the one hand, and the testimony and experience of working-class people on the other, the book offers a uniquely broad and textured view of courtship and marriage in this period. In so doing, it advances recent historiographical debates surrounding marriage in the Anglophone world, particularly the mutability of 'love', and whether the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries constituted a social and cultural 'turning point' for the working classes in terms of choice of marriage partner, the nature of the marital relationship, and the parent-child relationship. The book also engages with debates about extra-marital sexual activity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, whether the family was more or less 'stable' than the contemporary family, and the different ways that marriages broke down before the advent of divorce reform. This has important implications for wider European and North American historiography, and raises timely questions about the primacy of the 'traditional family' in policy and public discourse.

Eleanor Gordon is Professor Emerita, University of Glasgow. She has played a leading role in the development of gender history in Scotland and has made a significant contribution to national and international debates in her specialism. She has published widely in the history of class, the family and gender. She was an editor of Gender & History, 2008-2013 and has been on the editorial board of a number of other international journals. She has been in receipt of a number of awards and grants, including from the Arts and Humanities Council, the Economic and Social Research Council, Leverhulme Trust, and the British Academy. Jeff Meek is a lecturer in Economic and Social History, University of Glasgow. social & cultural historian with particular focus on 19th and 20th-century history. His research to date has examined the experiences of gay and bisexual men in post-war Scotland, as well as tracing the history of same-sex desire from the 17th century to the late 20th century in Scotland. His publications cover a variety of 19th and 20th century social history, from household formation and economics in early 20th-century Scotland, through to examining the intersections of religious faith and sexuality. He has provided support to the Equality Network has been active in the media as a consultant. Katie Barclay is Professor and Future Fellow, Macquarie University, Sydney. Between 2019 and March 2024, she was Head of Historical and Classical Studies and Director of the Fay Gale Centre in Gender Studies at the University of Adelaide. From 2019-2022, she was Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in the History of Emotions. With Kate de Luna and Giovanni Tarantino, she edits Emotions: History, Culture, Society. Barclay writes widely in the history of the family, gender, and emotions.