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Married Couples

If Protestant reformers argued that dances were “bad places, to meet nice girls,” dance proponents had a ready answer, “bring your own.” In the REED collections, there are a surprisingly large number of references to husbands and wives attending dances together. Surprising, because married couples are not mentioned in the antidance treatises, and so have received little attention from dance historians or other scholars. However, a survey of the archival material turns up ample evidence that this was a common practice.

Most of the records that mention married couples are prosecutions for dancing on Sunday. While these couples are in court because their dancing was deemed problematic, it is the day on which they dance that is at issue, not with whom, or in what style. These records therefore provide evidence of a dancing tradition that was neither adulterous nor illicit.

Examples of husbands and wives going dancing or hosting dance events together occur in almost ever county. In Herefordshire, Thomas Hulland and his wife Elizabeth were prosecuted in Brobury in 1616 for having guests dancing at their house; [53] James Poslons and his wife Mary were prosecuted in Bishops Frome in 1619/20 for having dancing and minstrels playing at their house one Sunday evening; and Richard Anderos and his wife Elizabeth were prosecuted for dancing there. [54] In Shropshire, Peter Edwardes and his wife Margaret were cited for keeping dancing on Sunday in Stokesay in 1606; [55] Thomas Doughtie of Wheathill and Margaret his wife were cited for dancing at the riotous wake in Farlow in 1608; [56] and Richard Bushop and his wife Frances were cited for dancing on the green on a Sunday at Stoke St Milborough in 1615. [57]

In Sussex there are also examples of whole families dancing together. In 1599 Brigit Jupe, her son Richard Jupe junior, and possibly Richard Jupe senior were cited “ffor daunceinge vpon Midsomer daye beinge Hallidaye in time of devine prayer” in Billingshurst. [58] Similarly in Cocking in 1616/7, John Joye, his wife, daughter, and two sons were cited for various offenses including skipping church services to attend a morris dance in a town for miles away, “in tyme of divine service at our Church his sayde Children with divers other youthes of our parishe made them selues ready in a morrice daunce and a hobby horse, and a mayde marryan and went 4^or myles to Cockeinge to daunce the morrice and the sayde Iohn Ioye Churchwarden, and his eldest daughter went after the sayde youthes the same daye to Cockinge wherae they spent all that whole sabboth.” [59] While married couples dancing is more common, families that danced together provide yet example of licit, chaste dancing.

These represent just a small sampling of the accounts in the REED collections of married couples attending or hosting dances together. By dancing together, couples embodied the perfect harmony of the ideal marriage, at the same as they strengthened their own relationship through shared experiences and enjoyment. Moreover, as most of these records were taken from court cases, it is quite likely that there were many more married couples who danced together, who never ran afoul of the law, than even these numbers suggest.

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