Before the internet, modern laws and women’s right to split with a partner, breakups were often one-sided – and far more brutal

Ghosted again? Spotted your ex on a dating app? The trials of 21st century breakups feel never ending. Not only is your ex at your favourite bar, they’re also on your socials, in your call log and all over your camera roll. Those pesky Snapchat memories always pop up at the wrong time.

Sometimes it feels like technology makes a heart hurt more, but is that true? What were relationships and heartbreak like 200 years ago?

Cast your mind back to England in the 1800s – the air was thick with smog, horse and carriage was the primary mode of transport and any vegetable you ate was boiled to high heaven. Your mornings started with a healthy bowl of gruel and beer, or wine if you could afford it – cleaner than water and tastier too. 

Charles Dickens had been married to Catherine for 20 years when he became infatuated with 19-year-old actress Ellen Turner, who became his secret mistress. He paid Catherine today’s equivalent of £80,000 a year in hush money. 

“He always had a fascination with younger women, which is why it’s no surprise he pursued a relationship with a girl exactly as young as his oldest daughter,” says Peter Thompson, 19th century enthusiast and volunteer historian at the Charles Dickens museum. “I don’t think a lot has changed. It’s only that you can’t keep secrets in a society that has paparazzi and social media.” Just look at Leonardo DiCaprio. 

It was almost impossible for a woman to divorce a man at the time. “The legal system was profoundly misogynistic,” Thompson explains. “If Catherine had decided to divorce Dickens, she would have to prove something much more severe than adultery, like relationships of a homosexual nature.” Of course, Dickens could have divorced Catherine very easily, but he was preoccupied with upholding his reputation. 

Mary Kean might have divorced her husband too, if she lived in 2025. She married actor Edmund Kean in 1808. Despite his alcohol dependency, he earned fame and fortune (almost £1.2 million a year in today’s money) after a triumphant performance as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

Like many ego-driven men, he spent his money recklessly and had affair after affair. His four-year fling with Charlotte Cox, wife of a senior councillor and banker, culminated in a lawsuit from Cox’s husband. “Moral of the story is: don’t marry someone who’s going to become famous!” Thompson advises. 

If your spouse was unfaithful in 1825, it was common practice to sue the paramour – if only you could do that to your ex today. The trial was a scandalous sensation. Their love letters were read aloud in court, and Edmund had to pay a sum worth over £95,000 today in damages. 

Regency era society was outraged at Edmund’s behaviour. They shouted insults and rained fruit down on the stage during his performances. Quickly his reputation became totally mired by his sordid hobbies. Edmund died only eight years later, disgraced and drunk.

Speaking of infidelity, poet Percy Shelley was married to his wife Harriet when he began to court fellow writer (and soon-to-be Frankenstein author), Mary, who he would later marry. Mary’s half-sister Fanny looked on in silence, harbouring her own secret obsession with Shelley.

Wrapped up in their love bubble, Shelley and Mary eloped to France. Fanny was left in England, lonely and loveless. She wrote to the happy couple expressing her desire to join them, but they never extended the invitation, which worsened her depression.

Fanny would’ve been a prime candidate for dating apps. But instead of an awkward Hinge date, in the 1800s you were forced to mingle in formal settings like balls. Private meetings were frowned upon. “There would be very significant paternal influence over who a woman married,” Thompson says. “The higher up the social ladder you were, the more significant the influence would be, particularly if you were going to inherit a lot of money.” Meeting a partner was less formal in the lower classes, but “the father would still be the decision maker for the daughter”. 

It was at one of these formal social events that 22-year-old Anne Lister was introduced to Mariana Belcombe. Lister fell head-over-heels in love with Belcombe.

Just like you write about your ex in shameful locked notes on your phone, Lister wrote all about Belcombe in her diary, in coded language to keep prying eyes away. She would’ve loved Face ID. The two conducted a secret relationship, under the guise of just being really close friends. Haven’t we all heard that one before?

Three years later, in 1815, Belcombe’s parents betrothed her to another man. Lister, of course, was heartbroken. Though their relationship continued, Belcombe grew distant after marriage, more involved with her new husband. Lister tried in vain to move on. She had relationships (well, situationships) with other women, but couldn’t shake her feelings for Belcombe. 

Even worse, Belcombe’s husband gave her an incurable STI (sexually transmitted infection), which she passed to Lister. Thank heavens for modern medicine! 

“Same sex relationships were not talked about at the time,” says Thompson. “You might be locked up. But, it’s very much not accepted in some social groups now – some religious groups are much more restrictive and paternalistic. Women’s opportunities have certainly changed beyond recognition.”

Despite women’s limited prospects, Mathilde Dembowski made the most of the little power she did have: the power to reject. When Marie-Henri Beyle fell hopelessly in love with her, she did not share his feelings. For him, it was love at first sight. When he wasn’t writing, he was womanising. But, Simone de Beauvoir classed him as a feminist writer and said he saw women as people, which apparently wasn’t all that common at the time. The bar was low.

Dembowski’s distant demeanour only made Beyle desire her more. Playing hard to get? No, Dembowski was genuinely disinterested. Unsurprisingly, he did not get the message. He would frequent places he thought she might be, including loitering outside her house, and sent her letter after letter.

Dembowski ended up cutting him off – no longer writing back or engaging in conversation. Set those boundaries, girl! Beyle was devastated, to put it mildly. As it turns out, stalking women does not make them love you back. Take notes, boys. He left the city in a heartbroken strop, but was inspired to write about romantic obsession, based on his own experience. 

“Male reputation, using women as disposable objects in relationships, and the importance of women looking youthful has not changed,” says Thompson. “A lot may seem to have changed, but it hasn’t really.”