By the Act 8 & 9 Will. III., 'For making good the Deficiencies of Several Funds therein mentioned,' these taxes were kept on, and were to be paid until Aug. 1, 1706, so that they were in force during four years of Anne's reign.
In a most amusing tract[36] this Act is alluded to as a law discouraging marriage, and proposes to make bachelors of 24 and widowers of 50 pay 20s. per annum, and estimates that a revenue of 2-1/2 millions sterling would accrue.
There was every freedom of intercourse allowed between the young of both sexes: they visited, and we have seen that they mixed in the dancing academies. There was also the custom of valentines, now become obsolete and unmeaning. Misson describes it well, as indeed he did everything he saw in England: 'On the Eve of the 14th of Feb., St. Valentine's Day, a Time when all living Nature inclines to couple, the Young Folks in England, and Scotland too, by a very ancient Custom, celebrate a little Festival that tends to the same End. An equal Number of Maids and Batchelors get together, each writes their true or some feign'd Name upon separate Billets, which they Roll up, and draw by way of Lots, the Maids taking the Men's Billets, and the Men the Maids; so that each of the Young Men lights upon a Girl that he calls his Valentine, and each of the Girls upon a young Man which she calls hers: By this means each has two Valentines; but the Man sticks faster to the Valentine that is fallen to him, than to the Valentine to whom he is fallen. Fortune having thus divided the Company into so many Couples, the Valentines give Balls and Treats to their Mistresses, wear their Billets several Days upon their Bosoms or Sleeves, and this little Sport often ends in Love. There is another kind of Valentine; which is the first young Man or Woman that Chance throws in your Way in the Street, or elsewhere, on that Day.'
The whole of the literature of the day speaks of the tendency of young men to avoid the trammels of matrimony. Most probably the wild blood engendered in Charles the Second's time had not yet cooled down, and the licence then habitual, had hardly been superseded by decorum; but there were other causes, one of which was the introduction of marriage settlements. These were comparatively new. Steele calls attention to it:[37] 'Honest Coupler, the Conveyancer, says "He can distinguish, upon sight of the parties before they have opened upon any point of their business, which of the two has the daughter to sell." Coupler is of our Club, and I have frequently heard him declaim upon this subject, and assert "that the Marriage Settlements, which are now used, have grown fashionable even within his memory."'
When the theatre, in some late reigns, owed its chief support to those scenes which were written to put matrimony out of countenance and render that state terrible, then it was that pin money first prevailed; and all the other articles were inserted, which create a diffidence, and intimate to the young people that they are very soon to be in a state of war with each other; though this has seldom happened, except the fear of it had been expressed. Coupler will tell you also 'that jointures were never frequent until the age before his own; but the women were contented with the third part of the estate the law allotted them, and scorn'd to engage with men whom they thought capable of abusing their Children.' He has also informed me 'that those who are the oldest Benchers when he came to the Temple told him, the first Marriage Settlement of considerable length was the invention of an old Serjeant, who took the opportunity of two testy fathers, who were ever squabbling, to bring about an alliance between their Children. These fellows knew each other to be knaves, and the Serjeant took hold of their mutual diffidence, for the benefit of the Law, to extend the Settlement to three skins of parchment.' This was undoubtedly the substance of a genuine conversation with a lawyer, and is further referred to in a subsequent paper. Nor did Steele like pin money: he not only declaims against it in his essays, but in his dramatic works—in 'The Tender Husband,' where two fathers are squabbling over settlements. One, Sir Harry Gubbin, says—
Look y', Mr. Tipkin, the main Article with me is that Foundation of Wives Rebellion—that cursed Pin Money—Five hundred Pounds per annum Pin Money.
Tipkin. The Word Pin Money, Sir Harry, is a Term——
Sir H. It is a Term, Brother, we never had in our Family, nor ever will. Make her Jointure in Widowhood accordingly large, but Four hundred Pounds a Year is enough to give no account of.
Tipkin. Well, Sir Harry, since you can't swallow these Pins, I will abate to Four Hundred Pounds.
Sir H. And to Mollifie the Article, as well as Specifie the Uses, we'll put in the Names of several Female Utensils, as Needles, Knitting Needles, Tape, Thread, Scissors, Bodkins, Fans, Playbooks, with other Toys of that Nature.