He Said He Loved Me: A Real-Life Colonial Wedding Scandal
Picture this.
A wedding chapel full of flowers, onlookers and guests seated in the pews, a smiling groom standing at the alter dressed in his best black suit, looking down on his nervous bride wearing white and waiting for the reverend to pronounce them man and wife.
Suddenly, the doors of the chapel are flung wide open, a woman rushes in and declares in front of the whole audience:
Stop the wedding. He said he loved me! He said he’d marry me!
This happened in my family; a story handed down through the ages. A great-aunt of my father’s, fell in love and was ultimately jilted and rejected before her wedding day in favour of another.
The ultimate betrayal. And she did not let him get away with it! She took him to court. She sued him for Breach of Promise to Marry.
What Was “Breach of Promise to Marry”?
When I began researching for The Dear Viv Letters, I was interested to find out more about this quaint legal tort: “breach of promise to marry”. It sounds almost absurd now, but in colonial Australia, you could sue someone for changing their mind about getting married, and up until the early- to -mid 1970s, it was a real (if increasingly rare) cause of action. This is not so long ago.
In the colonial era, though, it was deadly serious.
Why This Was a Big Deal in Colonial Australia
Back then, if a man proposed and then backed out without a very good reason, the woman could take him to court. A promise to marry was treated like a contract. Something binding. Break it, and you might owe more than just an apology.
Love, Lawsuits, and Lost Reputations
Marriage wasn’t just a romantic ideal; for most women, it was economic survival. A proposal might mean a dowry changed hands. It certainly meant expectations were set, socially, financially and morally.
A woman’s reputation meant everything and being jilted was the greatest humiliation. The rumour mill was rife in small country towns – still is. You could sue for emotional distress, social damage and financial losses for wedding preparations. A broken engagement could turn into a full-blown scandal.
A woman’s worth, sadly, was determined by if she deserved to wear white.
If intimacy had occurred, her chances at another proposal and a respectable life could be ruined. And in court, love letters became Exhibit A.
Private letters were read aloud in court, whispers of impropriety spread around the courtroom. Everything went public.
And they loved it.! Every. Juicy. Little. Piece.
The courts mostly sided with the woman. This wasn’t just sentimentality. It was about preserving the social order. A jilted woman might receive damages to offset her ruined prospects, particularly if her “virtue” was in question.
Men could sue too, on occasion, especially if misled. But overwhelmingly, the law protected women whose futures were torpedoed by a man’s cold feet or better offer.
The Case of Sarah McDonald: When Love Went to Court
Sarah McDonald is a perfect example. She was stood up by her fiancé who went on to marry a wealthy widow instead. Sarah showed up at his wedding and yelled: “He is a scoundrel! He promised to marry me!”
He then claimed there was never a proposal. She had the details and the letters. He implied she wasn’t as innocent as she’d claimed. The court saw through him, and she walked away with damages and her dignity.
From Breach of Promise to Ghosting: Is Dating Any Better Now?
Society has moved on since then. Today, you can’t sue someone for dumping you, even if they did it via text message and at the last minute.
Still, it says something that for nearly two centuries, courts treated love gone wrong as more than just a matter of the heart.
It was a matter of justice.
And is there any difference to the dating game today? Was being jilted by a suitor then that much different to being ghosted in today’s online dating community?
Now, women (and men) may not need a court to validate their broken hearts, but the emotional fallout is just as real.
Then vs Now: How Things Have Changed (and How They Haven’t)
Today, women aren’t financially doomed by a failed romance. We (thankfully) don’t need a husband to access housing, credit, or social survival. But the emotional logic? That desperate hope that this one might be your person? That part hasn’t evolved much at all.
Needless to say, heartbreak has a way of leaving its mark across centuries. In a way, the law back then acknowledged something we still wrestle with: when someone makes you believe in a shared future, and then vanishes, it leaves a mark.
What’s Your Family Story?
Have a family story like this that belongs in the history books?
Share below in the comments if you’re game.
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