Eloping - The history and modern interpretations

Matt Elliott • Jan 14, 2020

The tinge of scandal associated with the modern understanding of elopement has historical roots

When most people hear the term elopement, they often imagine a young couple desperately in love, scurrying off to some far-flung location for a secret wedding. Even in the modern sense of the term, eloping has a mystery about it, as if the couple involved have something they want to hide.

Photo Gallery - An elopement during the last sunset of the decade

The History Of Eloping

The tinge of scandal associated with the modern understanding of elopement has historical roots. Historians have traced back the first use of the term to the thirteenth century where the word meant to leap. Over the following centuries, the meaning developed, and by the 1600s, it had come to describe a situation in which a wife runs away from her husband to be with her lover. Distraught and angry husbands would often submit advertisements to local papers telling readers that they were not responsible for any debts incurred by their wives and that anyone offering them safe harbour did so at their peril.

Eloping historically, however, might not have had anything to do with being in love. Many men and women fled as a way to try to get a better life for themselves. Some did it to escape relationships they didn't like while others did it because they had a nose for money.

In the past, eloping was often criminal. On some occasions, men would leave their wives and run off with a pretty teenage accomplice to get married in secret, something that was against the law even at the time. Police departments would issue press releases in local newspapers informing the public that a particular person had broken the rules and committed a penitentiary offence, meaning that they could go to prison!

In Australia, eloping was common following western colonisation in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. People would leave the old world and travel to the continent to run away from their former lives and start afresh. There was very little chance of British authorities catching up with them.

Eloping, however, continued to progress as a concept through the modern era. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, for instance, many people simply didn’t have the means to throw an extravagant wedding. They didn't have jobs! Eloping was nothing sinister: it was just an adaptation to brute economic reality.

Later, however, eloping became once again associated with sleaze and scandal. The popular conception became that of a couple running away to somewhere like Las Vegas to get married in a casino with a couple of paid witnesses. It was where vagabonds and renegades conducted their love lives to the detriment of the rest of society.

The Modern Meaning Of Eloping

So, has anything changed? Fortunately, what eloping means today is different from the past. While some of the old connotations remain, elopement is no longer something that needs to stay in the shadows. It is perfectly compatible with our modern, egalitarian culture.

Modern eloping is a form of rebellion against marriage traditions and customs that we have inherited from past generations. Many couples respect the institution of marriage itself - the affirmation of their commitment to their partner - but they don’t like all the imposed financial expenses that go with it. There’s no fundamental reason the average couple needs to spend $50,000 on a wedding when it is just a declaration of love and commitment to the community.

Modern elopement, therefore, doesn’t mean getting married in private or in secret. Instead, it just means scaling back the wedding plans to something a little more reasonable. People who elope in Australia, for instance, might choose to forgo the expensive venue and caterers and, instead, conduct a simple ceremony in front of a small number of friends and relatives. Others may deliberately choose to avoid spending any money on the wedding altogether, hiring just the essential legal services they need for an official marriage.

The reasons for eloping today are sometimes the same as in the past, and sometimes different. Just like in the 1930s, one of the main motivations is money. Couples just starting their lives don’t want to spend their savings (or those of their parents) on a wedding event that will last a single day and then be gone. Instead, they’d prefer to make more financially prudent decisions and keep money in the bank to help them get on the property ladder.

Other couples don’t want the stress of a big wedding. Inviting hundreds of people you haven’t seen in years and spending tens of thousands of dollars on venues, dresses, rings, flowers and food is an administrative nightmare and can take away from the experience itself. Spending on a lavish wedding can obscure the underlying reasons for marrying in the first place.

Some couples just like the idea of running away to a far-flung destination and getting married there instead. Ceremonies at the top of mountains or on tropical islands can provide the perfect romantic setting. In general, they aren’t practical locations for big, expensive weddings.

Whatever the reasons for it, eloping is becoming more acceptable in Australia today. People are beginning to realise that they can get married without the thousand dollar price tags. Sure, the mainstream culture is to go big, but there’s no reason it has to be that way. Couples who want expensive, lavish weddings can have them if they wish but doesn’t mean that everyone else has to tread the same path. If you want to get married for less, nothing is stopping you from breaking free of cultural expectations and doing things you own way.

The definition of eloping is by no means black and white. Many of the people you know will still expect you to conduct a traditional wedding with all the usual trappings. If you don’t do that, they may see it as something scandalous and accuse you of getting married in secret.

Of course, that hearkens back to an old definition of eloping, not the modern one. Most couples who elope today do it for sound financial reasons, such as putting their family on a firm footing.