DR TIM MOORE: Dancing was a very sexual activity because it was

one of the only times you could actually touch someone of the

opposite sex in a kind of socially acceptable way.

HELEN ANTROBUS: Was dating harder in Jane Austen's day than

it is now? Georgian and Regency England were certainly eras

associated with love and romance but what were the rules you had

to date by?

Have you ever imagined being a fly on the wall of history? Join

me for an inside view of the stories of people, places and

moments that made us.

I'm historian Helen Antrobus. Lean in for a tale from time.

Back When.

It may be 2025, 250 years since Jane Austen, author of six

books, was born, but her work is now more widely known than ever.

The material for her stories came from her own life, the way

she lived and where she spent her time. She became an expert

observer of people and dating rituals and used what she'd seen

to create charming, intriguing and amusing characters, and

follow them as they navigated the 18th century dating scene.

In this episode, we're meeting Dr. Tim Moore, curator,

historian and lecturer in Bath, a location that featured both in

Jane Austen's novels and her life, to unpick just how you

went about finding a love match when swiping right wasn't an

option.

Jane Austen is an intriguing person to become one of the most

celebrated authors writing about love, dating and marriage,

because she never actually married.

DR TIM MOORE: She did actually receive a marriage offer and she

accepted that marriage offer, slept on it and actually

retracted the next day. So it wasn't that she didn't have the

option of marriage.

HELEN ANTROBUS: She found happiness with family and

friends, most notably with her sister Cassandra.

DR TIM MOORE: She was really part of these kind of quite big

thriving family networks. She was a really fun and quite

wicked aunt, actually. And she also had a kind of series of

female friends who she really took delight in spending time

with.

HELEN ANTROBUS: She devoured books from a very young age and

started writing when she was just a teenager. Her skill was

observation and creating characters from those

observations.

DR TIM MOORE: Anyone who's read Jane Austen kind of knows that

she's got such a keen, critical, satiric eye for all the kind of

little nuances and jokes and details about the process of the

Georgian marriage market.

HELEN ANTROBUS: And while the books may at first seem dated

because of the formality of the way you spoke in the Georgian

era,'Dear podcast listener, her subjects were such complex

beings that you could not begin to decide whether to love them

or to hate them'.

DR TIM MOORE: A lot of novels at the time had very virtuous

characters who you are supposed to read and then emulate their

behaviour. So they always say the right thing, they always do

the right thing, they, God forbid, would never kind of do

something sexual or make a wrong decision in that regard.

Whereas Austen, what her focus is on is how hard it is to

actually live out that behaviour in the real world when you are

surrounded by all these attractive young people and

you're expected to make a marriage and you might have

these feelings and you might not know what to do with them.

That's why her characters feel so relatable to me. They're

confused and don't know what to do sometimes in a way that a lot

of the novels of the time would never dream of kind of admitting

or confessing to.

HELEN ANTROBUS: With her characters standing the test of

time and the Georgian era being such a glamorous period, it all

makes for very good costume dramas. Think Colin Firth as Mr

Darcy in the lake in Pride And Prejudice, or Gwyneth Paltrow as

Emma in Emma, and there are countless others. Bridgerton is

said to reference every Austen novel through characters in the

series.

And let's not forget Bridget Jones's Diary, featuring Renee

Zellweger. Basically, a modern-day Pride And Prejudice,

even featuring its own Mr Darcy. Its author, Helen Fielding,

admitting to Jane Austen's brilliance, when she set out to

write the book.

ACTOR AS HELEN FIELDING: And so I just stole the plot. And then

the book increasingly began to mimic and nick stuff from Pride

And Prejudice. But it's a very good plot. And I thought Jane

Austen wouldn't mind. And anyway, she's dead.

HELEN ANTROBUS: But the one thing they all have in common,

the complicated, complex and emotional journey to finding

long-lasting love.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man

in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

The first line from Pride And Prejudice.

So how did it all happen? Who would make the first move? Where

and how? What were the rules of the day? Jane Austen was a

frequent visitor to Bath, even before she lived in the city

years later, and she would spend time at the Bath Assembly Rooms

to socialise and to watch as the very first stages of a love

match were beginning to emerge.

DR TIM MOORE: Assembly rooms were built all over Britain and

their purpose was really, we might just describe it as a

party house or a nightclub. They were always grand and built to

impress, there would usually be at least one ballroom. Typically

they also had tea rooms and they always had space for cards as

well.

The Bath Assembly Rooms are unique in that they were really

the most fashionable venue in the country at the time and one

of the main things that made it different was the diversity of

the crowds that it would attract. People of all different

kinds, different persuasions, different colours. We know there

was a really thriving black community in Bath.

It wasn't the only Assembly room in Bath But what it was known

for was very cheap tickets. It meant that even people who were

just ordinary working people of the city could attend the same

kind of balls that even the royals did. So that's why it was

such a kind of theatre of opportunity.

HELEN ANTROBUS: With balls on a Monday and Thursday every week

in the season, and a weekly concert, there was plenty of

opportunity. And it's thought Jane Austen may have been

attending dances and concerts every week, along with hundreds

of others.

DR TIM MOORE: She visited many times in the 1790s. She loves

the big city. She's absolutely swept up in the world of all the

social entertainments and amusements.

If you were coming to the Bath Assembly Rooms, you would

definitely have been chaperoned. Most probably you would arrive

here in a sedan chair, so you would have been carried in a

little box with two poles either side, up the hill by two quite

handsome burly men, often.

You would arrive at the front door, you'd kind of squeeze your

way through to the main rooms and if you were lucky you would

get an introduction from the master of ceremonies. His role

was literally just to know who was in the city, who was single,

who was not, who would make a good match for who. He could,

for example, arrange dance partners for yourself.

But we also know that it was quite common for people to

arrive at a ball without a formal introduction. In Jane

Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, this is exactly what happens

with Catherine Norland, where she first arrives, she's with

her aunt, but they don't know anyone there, so they feel like

they're imposing onto somewhere where they're not quite welcome.

Later, the master of ceremonies does actually learn about

Catherine, and he is the one who introduces her to Henry Tilney,

and that's the one that she marries at the end. So this role

of master of ceremonies, really kind of stage managing the

social world of the ballroom, and managing the flirtatious

potential is a really interesting role, I think.

HELEN ANTROBUS: Choosing a partner was as much a business

transaction as it was about falling in love. Women needed to

marry to secure they had a home and financial support. Men

needed to marry a woman who could bear children, or who had

money to bring to the partnership So people married

within their class, or a notch-up. And marriage was for

life. Divorce was costly and rarely happened in the Georgian

era. There was a lot riding on who you chose.

So while the Georgian party house was a lot of fun, there

was also a lot of pressure and a lot of structure to proceedings.

DR TIM MOORE: It's a really interesting kind of very

carefully curated program of events at a ball. So it would

start with what's called the'Long Minuet'. Only one

couple would do it at a time and this was where the kind of

judgment side of Bath would come out. You'd be observed for the

things that you were wearing, the perfection of your steps.

Then you would retire for tea. That would just normally be

quite simple fare, actually. Things like tea and cakes, there

would be buns, the famous Bath buns. We always knew there was

jelly and ice cream and syllabubs and things like that.

And then the second half of the evening was the really fun rowdy

parts. The whole room was dancing, lots of noise, lots of

confusion. This is where really you could dance with whoever you

wanted within certain limits.

HELEN ANTROBUS: And while it's the men that make the first

move, always, it doesn't mean women would just sit and wait

politely. There were ways and means at hinting who you'd like

to be asked to dance by.

DR TIM MOORE: So say you wanted to dance with a guy, you might

introduce yourself to that guy's sister and then you might say,

'oh who was that guy? I'd really love to dance with him'. You

would absolutely try and catch someone's eye, flash them a

little smile, not too much but just enough to let them know

that you're interested, that you've seen them.

To a very, very certain extent we think there might have been

some kind of fan language, as in kind of people using fans to

make different kind of coded signals to each other.

HELEN ANTROBUS: And if the coded signals worked and you secured

your dance, well... You were on your way, because it wasn't just

a dance.

DR TIM MOORE: Dancing was a very sexual activity because it was

one of the only times you could actually touch someone of the

opposite sex in a socially acceptable way. Even country

dancing where you at most kind of link elbows or kind of touch

hands. It's not what we would interpret as very sexual but

even that bodily touch on show meant that dancing was a really

flirtatious activity.

HELEN ANTROBUS: But dancing wasn't for everyone. Some people

didn't want the pressure of performing in front of others.

DR TIM MOORE: One of the reasons why cards were so popular was

that women could play cards as well as men. So this is another

place where you could openly sit down and talk to each other in a

context that isn't chaperoned.

HELEN ANTROBUS: And of course, there are other ways you could

meet. Maybe at church or through family parties or dinners. But

when you don't have a phone, how do you make a plan for seeing

each other again?

DR TIM MOORE: The Georgian equivalent of swapping numbers

at the end of the night would be a verbal promise. So you would

say goodbye for the night, you would go home with your

chaperone, but then the next day you might leave a card at that

person's house and it might invite them to an excursion or

it might be, for example, a kind of group invitation for the

family for dinner.

Another really kind of quite intimate thing to do was to have

a theatre box with someone. You could have a very small select

party which kind of means that instead of these kind of big

family dinners where there were lots of witnesses, it was quite

hard to get one-on-one time with each other. You could spend some

kind of time in close proximity. So there were ways and means.

HELEN ANTROBUS: In Georgian times, promenading was a big

thing. It might just be walking to me and you, but it was so

much more in Jane Austen's day. You might be prescribed

promenading as exercise, but it was also an opportunity to be

seen out and about with someone, chaperoned, of course, and get

the gossip among the town going that there might be a wedding on

the cards.

There were plenty of places in Bath to promenade, the now

world-famous Crescent being one of them, but this was also the

era of the Georgian theme park, or Pleasure Garden.

DR TIM MOORE: One of the places that we know Jane Austen loved

the most in Bath is Sydney Gardens. It was one of the kind

of most primary Pleasure Gardens in the country.

HELEN ANTROBUS: And it's just across town from the Assembly

rooms.

DR TIM MOORE: So we're in the Sydney Gardens, which is a

10-minute stroll through Bath, and it was really one of the

most exciting places in Bath. There'd be huge orchestras,

there'd be food and dining boxes, there'd be scores and

scores of entertainers, illusionists, magicians.

There was a canal and a little lake where you could have

pleasure boats. And one of the things that Jane Austen loved

about the gardens was there was a huge labyrinth, so a kind of

maze of hedges. And it was a really big labyrinth actually.

It's really interesting because you might not necessarily know

that any of that history existed if you stroll through the park

today. We're at the moment literally standing on top of the

railway, on top of a kind of bridge that goes over it.

So parts of the garden were literally kind of parceled up

and sold off as the railway came through, as the canal came

through. It kind of began as this really famous venue that

most people in the country would have heard of. And now it's a

very pleasant city park, but maybe you would never guess at

how significant it was if you just strolled through today.

HELEN ANTROBUS: But stroll through in Jane Austen's day,

and there would have been a lot to witness beyond fireworks, the

shows and the performances.

DR TIM MOORE: Because Bath was so small, people would always

notice who was talking to who, who was maybe linking arms with

who, how close or how far their chaperone was.

HELEN ANTROBUS: And it was a place you could engineer bumping

into someone that you might have danced with a few nights before.

DR TIM MOORE: There are all kinds of ways to get away with

saying, oh, I'll be at the bridge in the gardens at 10am.

You could find a way to meet someone if you could think

creatively and cleverly about it.

HELEN ANTROBUS: As the relationship enters this later

stage, it would be scrutinised and monitored by the town and by

the two families. Gifts may be given and there would be

letters.

DR TIM MOORE: But even letter writing to someone of the

opposite sex was very scandalous. So you could leave a

card for someone or you could leave an invitation, but

inviting someone for a correspondence was a very kind

of scandalous thing. Even in Jane Austen's novels, you can

see that the times when, for example, Marianne Dashwood in

Sense and Sensibility sends a letter, a direct letter to

Willoughby saying, what's going on?

That letter is responded to very coldly and everyone is really

shocked that she's had the guts to actually address a young man

in such a direct manner. Letter writing post-engagement was

accepted. But even then, all the normal rules about etiquette and

chaperones, until the deal was sealed.

HELEN ANTROBUS: And it might be just a month since that first

meeting, before the deal was sealed and the proposal came.

And then, the wedding.

DR TIM MOORE: A Georgian wedding would be a small family

gathering at the church. And crucially, the kind of people at

the wedding would really vary. It might be, for example, that

one family was much more approving of the match than

another, so it might be kind of much more heavily represented on

one family side than another.

We kind of think this actually might have been a little bit of

the case with Jane Austen's parents. George and Cassandra

Austen married very much for love and not money. So Jane grew

up in a family that had decided to prioritise romance over

money.

So her characters really kind of have this struggle and some of

the characters, like Charlotte Lucas, for example, in Pride And

Prejudice. She happily opts for a loveless marriage just so she

can feel security. She doesn't want the anxiety that Jane would

have experienced so much of her life, about making the wrong

match.

Personally, I think this is a really interesting reason why

she rejected her own love match. It would have been so much

easier for her just to accept a match and have financial

security. But actually, she decides to risk not marrying

someone that she didn't quite respect enough and she didn't

really think would be a compatible match in terms of

dispositions and personality.

I really think that in our modern day we kind of think the

dating scene is complex but in the Georgian era all of these

factors mean that it's really difficult and these things

aren't talked about in the same way you know kind of just being

honest about the way you're feeling you can't just kind of

sit down and have an honest conversation with someone in the

same way we can today, so young people navigating the dating

scene in the Georgian era would have felt intensely insecure,

intensely anxious, many of them absolutely wouldn't know how sex

works.

So all these things were really scary and coming to Bath on the

one hand might have been really exciting but on the other hand

you have all these social pressures not just kind of

getting your dance steps right in front of hundreds of people

but also saying the right thing, kind of meeting the right

person, not offending their family, kind of not putting them

off.

You might in your heart of hearts know that you want a kind

of good romance but do you actually just take the security?

HELEN ANTROBUS: Dating does seem very different in Jane Austen's

day. But, Dear podcast listener, should you not need to speak in

such a manner as this, and you can forget for a while the

complexities of Georgian etiquette, the dating scene

isn't so different after all, because it's about people.

It's why her work stands the test of time, it's why her

novels, her observations and characters continue to be

reimagined on the big screen, the small screen, on stage and

in new stories. It's why she still today has thousands of

fans, or Janeites, around the globe.

Bath Assembly Rooms is undergoing an exciting

transformation to turn it into a Georgian visitor experience.

And if you'd like to know more about Pleasure Gardens, why not

have a listen to A Garden Fit For Bridgerton, a podcast from

the National Trust.

Thanks for listening to Back When, Jane Austen and the

Georgian dating scene. I'm Helen Antrobus. See you next time.