Rather than marry for convenience, or for economic or social reasons, by the 1850s the middle-class couple was supposed to meet, fall in love, and join for life because of a shared emotional bond. Of course, economic considerations in marriage by no means disappeared. But an entire culture of romantic love now surrounded the middle-class couple. The growing popularity among all classes toward the end of the nineteenth century of what historians call companionate marriage underscores the way historical contexts influence human emotions and behaviors.

Strict rules for courtship and engagement enshrined in the concept of falling in love ensured that middle-class individuals would make an appropriate match. Young couples were seldom alone before they became engaged, and people rarely paired off with someone from an inappropriate class background. Premarital sex was taboo for women, though men might experiment, a double standard that expressed middle-class assumptions about sexual morality and especially women’s virginity before marriage.

Engagement also followed a complicated set of rules and rituals. Secret engagements led to public announcements, and then the couple could appear together, though only with chaperones when in potentially delicate situations. They might walk arm in arm, but custom placed strict limits on physical intimacy.

Marriage had its own set of rules. Usually a middle-class man could marry only if he could support a wife, children, and a servant. He was supposed to be fairly prosperous and well established in his career. As a result, some middle-class men never married because they could not afford it. The system encouraged mixed-age marriages. A new husband was typically much older than his young wife, who usually had no career and entered marriage directly out of her parents’ home or perhaps a girl’s finishing school. She would have had little experience with the realities of adult life.

Since women generally were quite young when they married, the man was encouraged to see himself as the protector of a young and fragile creature. In short, the typical middle-class marriage was more similar to a child-parent relationship than a partnership of equals. The inequality of marriage was codified in European legal systems that, with rare exceptions, placed property ownership in the hands of the husband.