The Marriage Bureau

May 15, 2017

Debut author Halson presents a highly readable story of a matchmaking bureau on London's Bond Street created by two pioneering women in the months before World War II. In 1992, Halson took over this historic business, operating it until 2000. Here she utilizes the bureau's extensive archives of letters, advertisements, newspaper accounts, registration forms, and photographs to open a window into the lives of men and women, rich and poor, between 1939 and 1949. From a historical standpoint, this book is valuable for what it reveals about how the gloom of wartime society. Men were eager to marry before they were sent to the front while women, remembering the gender imbalances of the years after the Great War, were anxious to secure a husband. The class consciousness of the age is also apparent, as each client was assigned a "category" and socially typecast by the astute matchmakers, who came to be seen as reliable observers of social life and mores. The appendix offers a detailed listing of what clients were seeking in a spouse, which should interest historians. VERDICT A breezy social history for readers interested in tales of a bygone age.--Marie M. Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ

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