Finding an ideal marriage partner can be a struggle, almost a mission, for many people.
Just ask British writer and journalist Anne De Courcy who in her fascinating new book, The Fishing fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj, sheds light on the untold stories of young women who sailed from Britain to India from the late 17th century onwards in a quest to try and nab a suitable husband from among the large numbers of single European men.
The journey often took several months and could at times prove perilous. Yet many women took the plunge as there was an acute shortage of eligible men at home. This was coupled with the lure of the luxuries of life in India, the “jewel in the crown”, and the fact that this was an age when career prospects for women were poor.
“During the time of the Raj there was an overwhelming pressure on women in England to marry,” De Courcy told Weekend Review. “In Victorian times if you weren’t married you were nothing because you weren’t really educated. If you were one of the middle or upper classes you were not educated to look after yourself. You were probably taught a bit of embroidery. There was nothing you could do and your money was never your own. You were supported by a father or a brother. If you were poor it was rather different. There was no man for you to marry, what happened to you?”
I went to interview De Courcy at her residence in the upmarket district of Chelsea, London. Once inside her home she made some offers of drinks and we headed upstairs to the sitting room, closely followed by her two cats. The stylishly decorated interior included historic portraits, potted plants and some books on the coffee table. As we began our conversation the cats made themselves comfortable on the sofa, listening intently to every word said.
I began by asking De Courcy how she researched the topic of husband hunting. “This phenomenon had been going on for 300 years almost and nobody had written about it before,” she explained. Her publishers preferred primary sources but it was difficult for her to find these. She tried the British Library but with little luck. While tomes of books have been published about the British Raj in India, the narrative of the “fishing fleet” women, surprisingly, has largely been ignored.
Through advertisements in different publications, alongside the help of her acquaintances, De Courcy was able to draw on previously unpublished sources including memoirs and letters. “I guess it probably took me about two, three years,” she said.
While she was speaking the cats began to make playful noises in the background as they tackled each other on the sofa. “Sorry, they are trying to catch our attention,” De Courcy said. I assured her it wasn’t a distraction. After a brief interlude during which the excitement quietened down, we returned to the interview.
It is a little-known fact that during the East India Company’s early days it wasn’t so uncommon for English officers to marry Indian women. “It was so accepted that if there was a baby born to a married couple the company gave them a christening present,” De Courcy said. “I think it was 5 rupees or something, but they showed their approval. And several of the most senior officers were married. The more senior the officer the more likely the woman was to be fairly aristocratic. They would send their progeny home to be educated and girls quite often stayed in England.” In fact one British Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, who came to power in 1812, had an Indian grandmother.
But the Anglo-Indian honeymoon didn’t last forever. As the years of British presence in India grew, such relationships began to be increasingly frowned upon. When a certain Lord Cornwallis was made governor of Bengal in 1786, he issued a ruling that nobody with Indian blood could have a senior job in the company. About a decade later, his successor Lord Wellesley said he was not going to entertain any Anglo-Indian at governor house.
“Well, none of these men wanted to see their wives and children made pariahs,” De Courcy said. “So, gradually, the custom came to marry English women instead. And then the fishing fleet which had just been a few batches of girls sent out, usually orphan girls who were poor, I mean volunteers but people who wouldn’t have made a good marriage in England. More and more started going out because India was seen as a marriage market. There were all these bachelors, not supposed to be marrying Indian women, longing for a wife.”
So it was not because of cultural reasons such marriages were frowned upon? “No, but by the time the policies were set in stone, it became cultural,” she said. “It wouldn’t have become cultural otherwise — I don’t think so economic sanctions really. Before that there had been no ban although some men preferred an English bride. Others, quite a lot, were much keener on Indian women. Quite a lot of English men got themselves circumcised to appeal to Indian women. Circumcision didn’t happen in England then. I mean how could you pay a greater compliment?”
I asked De Courcy to imagine me as a sweeper in Calcutta during the 19th century. If by some strange twist of fate I had ended up marrying one of the “fishing fleet” women of noble heritage — what would have happened? “Well her mother would have stopped it at once, for a start,” she said. “And if you had been a sweeper you would have been very much under the command of the head servant in the house, and if he thought you had been looking, that would have been stopped at once. If you would have been in an Indian court, an aristocratic Indian, or an Indian prince, you would have had more of a chance but even that was frowned upon. Don’t forget in the clubs in those days no Indians were allowed in.”
She mentioned one of the fishing fleet women she interviewed for the book who was in her nineties. The uncle and aunt of this woman knew the Maharaja of Mysore and his son. “She said many a time she danced with the son at the governor house but never at the club because he was never allowed in,” she said.
“And yet he used to come to our box at the races. One of the things that made it a bit difficult for English women was if you gave a dinner party or anything an awful lot of men would not allow their wives to attend. And it is a bit difficult if it is always just the men and one woman. Indian society, don’t forget, was very patriarchal. More so even than English. Women were kept absolutely in purdah and it was also very caste-ridden.”
Although it may sound daring and romantic, the reality was not always so. For many of these women the journey to India by sea lasted months during which time food and water would run out and they would suffer terrible seasickness.
“It was an awful journey,” De Courcy said. “You went out in these little sailing ships, which by our standards were tiny. They bounced about like corks on these enormous waves and the seasickness they went through was of a kind of virulence we wouldn’t know about — because most people today go long distance by aeroplane. A lot of people I am sure have not felt seasick because they have not gone on a fairly long sea journey.”
To make matters worse, while many women were successful in finding a marriage partner, those who failed had to journey back home as “returned empties”.
When the Suez Canal was inaugurated by Empress Eugenie in 1869, journey times were greatly reduced from months to weeks.
Prior to the “Fishing Fleet”, De Courcy has written a number of historical and biographical books including “The Viceroy’s Daughters” and “Snowdon: the Biography” — the latter was made into a documentary for Channel 4.
“I think it is terribly important to set everything in the context of the times, what it was like then,” she said. “I don’t think you can ever judge the past by the way we think today because the past was then and we are here now. We think differently over a lot of things.”
What will De Courcy’s next book be about? “I think it will be more recent history” she said.”I don’t really know what, perhaps about the two or three years before the First World War.”
I suggested maybe she should write about cats during the Victorian era. “Yes,” she laughed, looking at our feline friend who had been eavesdropping on the conversation. “He is a Burmese.”
Syed Hamad Ali is a writer based in London.
