On Valentine's Day, 'every bird chooseth him a mate....'

Poor Margery, her intended was her 'well-beloved Valentine,' but to the essentials: there's the question of the uh, dowry, and then, umm, who pays for the maternity clothes?

Romanticists would have you believe--especially on St. Valentine's Day--that marriages are made in heaven. Perhaps there are some, but the 15th-century marriage of Margery Brews and John Paston of Norfolk, England, reads more like a corporate merger.

According to the voluminous Paston family letters, available at the Indiana University Libraries, Brews was called to Paston's attention by a good friend, Richard Stratton. Accordingly, Paston, who was a soldier, wrote to her. His first correspondence began in a friendly tone, but he soon made his intentions clear.

From: J. W. Riley To: Miss L.D. Kahle 'I send you the shadowy ghost of a face, To haunt you forever with eyes That look in your own with the tenderest grace Affectionate art can devise.' Editor's note: So wrote the Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley in 1879 to his correspondent, Elizabeth D. Kahle of New Brighton, Pa., a young woman he had met at a literary society meeting when she was a girl of 17. She and the lifelong bachelor had an intense postal relationship until her marriage to salesman Harry Brunn in 1889. The correspondence was "revived" some years after Riley's death in 1916. Spiritualism was the rage, and Riley's poems and letters to Ms. Brunn, delivered through "spirit writing," were published in the 1922 limited edition "Love Letters of the Bachelor Poet." Related Link: http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/lilly/mss/html/brunn.html

Poor Margery... Poor Margery. Should she have searched for love in the late 20th century instead of the 15th, she'd have had OPTIONS. Take the School of Flirting, "relationship therapist" Susan Rabin's New York City-based operation, where study of "seriousity" is meant to cure the disease of the loveless. The author of 101 Ways to Flirt teaches modern singles the art of love and laughter. In Los Angeles, author Ginie Sayles teaches a class on "powerflirting." One crucial component of courtship is lost in a relationship by mail. Sayles insists that eye contact is essential for the powerflirt; in fact, the flirter's peepers must lock on the flirtee's baby blues or browns for three to six seconds for an effective flirt to transpire. Why the outpouring of instruction on flirting? Home Pages asked IU Southeast professor James Kaufmann, who has taught a continuing education class called Romance 101. "Powerflirting is partly pop phenomenon and partly a response to the lack of clear guidelines for courting in the 1990s," he said. "Flirting, the first step in the courtship ritual, is essential to modern relationships. However, the blurring of traditional gender roles and changes in the work place have created confusion for men and women about courting and relationships. "Many men are frightened to flirt on the job or at school for fear of being labeled chauvinistic or insensitive or for fear of being accused of sexual harassment," Kaufmann said. Similarly, women have been encouraged to be more assertive in pursuing relationships, but they fear being labeled pushy, aggressive or "desperate," he said. "The instruction on flirting seems to reflect a desire by some men and women to identify clear norms and guidelines for what constitutes socially acceptable flirting." See related story: At Southeast, non-credit class for men explores the language of love (IU Home Pages, February 7, 1997)

"Here I send you this bill written with my lewd (unrefined) hand and sealed with my signet to remain with you for a witness against me, and to my shame and dishonour if I contrary it. And, mistress, I beseech you, in easing of the poor heart that sometime was at my rule, which now is at yours, that in as short time as can be that I may have knowledge of your intent and how ye will have me demeaned in this matter..."

That letter was written in 1476, but the long-distance romance continued until the next year. There was no question about the response of Margery's mother. "And, cousin, upon Friday is Saint Valentine's Day," she wrote, "and every bird chooseth him a mate..."

As for Margery, she sent a couple of letters to Paston in February.

"Unto my right well-beloved Valentine, John Paston, Esquire, be this bill delivered, etc. Right reverend and worshipful, and my right well-beloved Valentine, I recommend me unto you, full heartily desiring to hear of your welfare, which I beseech Almighty God long for to preserve unto His pleasure and your heart's desire..."

It was in Margery's second letter near Valentine's Day that the subject of money reared its head. "As for myself, I have done and understood in the matter that I can or may, as God knoweth; and I let you plainly understand that my father will no more part withal in that behalf, but 100 pounds and 50 marks, which is right far from the accomplishment of your desire.

"Wherefore, if that ye could be content with that good and my poor person, I would be the merriest maiden on ground."

The negotiations dragged on. Paston's mother, who had control over several pieces of property, added to the prospective couple's income with a manor called Sparham. Her other son, also called John, approved, but warned that the land was entailed (could not legally go out of the family), and that could cause complications in the next generation.

The two were married in August 1477. By December, Margery was pregnant and complaining by letter to her absent husband that she didn't have enough clothes for the winter. She had already tried to get her father to buy the cloth.

"Praying you to wete (know) that my mother sent to my father to London for a gown cloth of musterdevelers to make of a gown for me; and he told my mother and me, when he was come home, that he charged you, if it be not bought, that you will vouchsafe to buy it and send it home as soon as ye may; for I have no gown to wear this winter but my black and my green a lyer (heavily pleated), and that is so cumbrous that I am weary to wear it."

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