Whether you loved it or you hated it, Emerald Fennell’s sexually-charged reimagining of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights – featuring a brooding Jacob Elordi – still has us all talking over a week after its cinematic release. While the original 1847 novel didn’t feature any sex scenes, Fennell’s film is far more ‘Heathcliff, it’s me, it’s Cathy, I’m horny.’
But for all the sneaking out of bedroom windows, romping in carriages, grinding in the moors, finger sucking and… puppy play that Fennell portrays in her take of Wuthering Heights, how much of this raunchery was actually going on during the period in which the original novel was set?
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When you think of sexy periods of time in history, we tend to think of the promiscuity of the Ancient Romans or even the more recent free love movement of the 1970s – not the late Georgian era. So before we all start wishing that we could jump in a time machine to 1770 and find our own Heathcliff to romp about the moors with, we asked leading UK historians what sex and relationships back then were actually like.
Social Class Dictated Your Sex Life
Right from the first opening scene, Fennell’s version of Wuthering Heights features public hand jobs at the gallows and crowds snogging during a frenzied public hanging in an impoverished town centre – and you’ll be surprised to know the film was actually onto something historically accurate.
As the London Museum explains, public executions were more like a fair and a party atmosphere would be in the air as thousands of people gathered to watch someone’s final moments. Gruesome, we know – however, apparently it wouldn’t be enough to turn the Georgians off.
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You see, according to Dr. Ruth Larsen, Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Derby, pre-marital sex was really common among poorer classes during the time in which Wuthering Heights was set (1770 to around 1801). “Poorer people tended to marry older and engage in sexual activity prior to that, especially those living in urban areas,” she tells HuffPost UK.
So: thousands of people, likely from poorer classes, gathering en masse in an urban area with drinking and partying going on? You do the math – it would appear that this is a big old tick for Fennell’s uninhibited Wuthering Heights adaptation.
But what about those lucky enough to be born into aristocracy? Unfortunately you wouldn’t be ‘getting lucky’ as often as your less well-off counterparts.
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“For the wealthier classes, it was very unusual for women to have sexual relations before wedlock,” Dr. Larsen explains. For people like Cathy, pre-marital sex would be off the cards as “the usual form of courting would have been through assemblies, formal gathering and family acquaintances.”
The sense of familial obligation, to uphold the positive reputation of the family, was felt by many, not just the richest in society – and the film yet again gets this right with Edgar Linton, whom Cathy marries, despite her love for Heathcliff in order to improve her family’s social standing.
And her choice wouldn’t have been uncommon in the late Georgian era either. As Dr. Larsen adds: “For most young women, marriages were an opportunity to find their place in society, to become mistress of the house and, if they were landed, of the estate. To decide to take a different path would have been seen by most people as unwise.”
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The Logistical Nightmare Of Affairs In Georgian Britain
Of course, the sauciness in Fennell’s Wuthering Heights really ramps up when Heathcliff and Cathy give up yearning and instead start a steamy affair (cue the famous sex scene montage).
However, as easy as the duo make it look, having an affair in the late 18th century was far from plain-sailing.
“The scenes where Heathcliff crawls in through Cathy’s window are very much representative of the literary tropes we love today, but this might have been difficult to pull off in historical reality,” Lauren Good, Senior Content Producer from HistoryExtra, tells HuffPost UK.
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If you were rich enough, you’d be lucky enough to have a separate bedroom to that of your spouse (as Margot Robbie’s iteration of Cathy thoroughly enjoys), however your bedroom would be adjoined – which, as Good points out, “isn’t ideal in allowing for a quick exit from your illicit lover!”
And if you did manage to get some time alone with your ‘bit on the side’, trying to then have sex wasn’t straightforward thanks to the fashion of the era.
“Women’s dress of the era wouldn’t have been so easy to get into,” Nichi Hodgson, author of the Curious History of Dating: From Jane Austen to Tinder explains.
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“Women typically wore a chemise, corset, under petticoat, hoop skirt or crinoline, over petticoat and long sleeved gown – plus gloves.” Good luck trying to remove all of that while your husband snores next door.
At least Cathy wouldn’t have had to try and get her knickers off, as Hodgson points out that drawers did not come into fashion until the 1870s: “If a hooped skirt tipped to one side, you may have got an eyeful!”
In fairness to Fennell, we don’t see a nude Cathy in any of the film as Heathcliff navigates her many, many layers of opulent clothing during the daytime sex scenes in the montage – so once again, we have another historical accuracy win!
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The Surprising Sadomasochism Of The Late 18th Century
Excuse our phrasing but buckle up – this might be the most surprising historical accuracy of the entire film.
Arguably the most shocking portrayals of sex in Fennell’s film come in the shape of sadomasochistic relationships, namely two servants enjoying off screen flagellation in the stables and Isabella Linton’s submissive role to Heathcliff’s dominant. And it turns out, in the words of Hodgson, “bondage and kink were alive and well in the 18th century!”
“We often assume that the stricter societal expectations placed upon those who lived centuries before us translated into their intimate lives, but that wasn’t always the case,” Good explains.
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“We might dismiss this as shock factor in Wuthering Heights but flagellation, as Hilary Mitchell told us at HistoryExtra, ‘played a prominent role in English sex work from about 1700 onwards’.”
But before we get ahead of ourselves, it’s worth noting that BSDM-inspired activities were most likely services that men paid for, or engaged in with women in their service (female maids were often treated as household sex workers) as Hodgson explains.
And as for Isabella panting on a lead, you can forget about it happening in real life she adds – “not because those sort of dynamics didn’t exist but because no middle class gentleman and woman would ever be that brazen in front of a visitor like Nelly Dean in the film.”
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While the release of Wuthering Heights has us yearning for moody Georgian era romance, it’s surprising how much of it is rooted in reality. If we do hop in that time machine, we’ll just have to remember to pack easier to remove clothing.
