The stacks and stacks of courtship advice books, etiquette guides, and love-letter writing manuals available to Victorian readers set forth a complex set of courtship rituals that were sanctioned by class-conscious parents who wanted their children to make marital matches that would improve the status of their families. These books generally pointed toward one recently entrenched ideal as all-important when it came to choosing a spouse: the companionate marriage. Marriage was no longer seen as a transaction between families facilitated by the heads of households, rather it was imagined as a union of companions who were supposed to emotionally enrich each other’s lives. As a result, those who were marrying were given more control over choosing their own spouses. Matrimonial advertising emerged at mid-century as one way for individuals to find like-minded partners without relying on parents, family, or friends.
I argue that this sensational form of match-making gave women a wider range of marital possibilities and afforded them greater rhetorical power to construct their identities and articulate their desires. Despite—or perhaps because of—their reputation for attracting liars, swindlers, and criminals of all kinds, matrimonial ads became wildly popular among readers and women who dared to use them were considered wild themselves. If Victorian girls gone wild were exposing themselves to danger by advertising for husbands, they were also betting that they could satisfy their financial and personal desires by taking charge of courtship.
— Jennifer Phegley