In the Georgian era, where infidelity was widespread – even expected – among the aristocracy, scandals still resulted, but not necessarily for the reasons one would expect.
With the new resurgence of interest in Regency romances, I’ve been struck pretty often how wide of the historical mark some stories can be. The costumes of season three of Bridgerton also makes me wince (I still love Queen Charlotte’s ridiculous wigs though!). But reading Sex & Scandals in Georgian England reminded me that, while it’s one thing to know that the aristocracy generally wed for wealth and influence in those times, it’s quite another to understand what this meant for the people in those marriages, and how fundamentally it shaped their approach to sex and romance.
Rankin takes us through the Georgian affair from start to finish, explaining to us the whys and whos and hows with plenty of reference to historical cases which upheld or broke the rules. The tone was more academic than salacious, but that just helps you understand how different social mores were in this part of society and period of time. The crime in most sex scandals in this era were not necessarily that adultery occurred, but rather when the affair partners grew so attached to each other that the relationship affected their marriage and families. Indeed, romantic love seems to have grown rather unfashionable.
There were certain gaps that I would have liked to have more light shed on. The chapters on relationships between aristrocrats and servants, for example, focused on examples of affairs between high-born women and low-born men, so I was left curious about concrete examples with the other sex. I would have also been interested to learn more about same-sex affairs, which are sometimes alluded to but not really discussed.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.