"The Matrimonial Bureau" revolves around the adventures of four whimsical young women who daydream about their Prince Charming. The ladies find themselves in a variety of amusing and intricate love triangles. Will they eventually find their Prince Charming?
At a time when internet dating is booming across all ages and classes and women are setting the agenda as never before, some things have not changed: You can’t always leave love to chance. And whether the search begins with an app in the 21st century or a visit to two young but savvy matchmakers in the 1940s, the desire for lifelong happiness with a perfectly suited partner remains the same. This is the remarkable true story of the Marriage Bureau; its successes, its rare failures and its many clients, told with wit and honesty in Mary and Heather’s own words.
Driving his wife crazy after his retirement, Mr. Ali is persuaded to open a marriage bureau, and when his business becomes a success he decides to hire an assistant, Aruna, who, hiding a tragic past.
A riveting glimpse of life and love during and after World War II—a heart-warming, touching, and thoroughly absorbing true story of a world gone by. In the spring of 1939, with the Second World War looming, two determined twenty-four-year-olds, Heather Jenner and Mary Oliver, decided to open a marriage bureau. They found a tiny office on London’s Bond Street and set about the delicate business of matchmaking. Drawing on the bureau’s extensive archives, Penrose Halson—who many years later found herself the proprietor of the bureau—tells their story, and those of their clients. From shop girls to debutantes; widowers to war veterans, clients came in search of security, social acceptance, or simply love. And thanks to the meticulous organization and astute intuition of the Bureau’s matchmakers, most found what they were looking for. Penrose Halson draws from newspaper and magazine articles, advertisements, and interviews with the proprietors themselves to bring the romance and heartbreak of matchmaking during wartime to vivid, often hilarious, life in this unforgettable story of a most unusual business. “A book full of charm and hilarity.”—Country Life
Conjugal Misconduct reveals the hidden history of controversial and legally contested marital arrangements in twentieth-century America. William Kuby examines the experiences of couples in unconventional unions and the legal and cultural backlash generated by a wide array of 'alternative' marriages. These include marriages established through personal advertisements and matchmaking bureaus, marriages that defied state eugenic regulations, hasty marriages between divorced persons, provisional and temporary unions referred to as 'trial marriages', racial intermarriages, and a host of other unions that challenged sexual and marital norms. In illuminating the tensions between those who set marriage policies and those who defied them, Kuby offers a fresh account of marriage's contested history, arguing that although marital nonconformists composed only a small minority of the population, their atypical arrangements nonetheless shifted popular understandings of marriage and consistently refashioned the legal parameters of the institution.
Are marriages made in heaven? In reality many people need a little help in the arrangement of such matters, whether from Jewish shadkhans (matchmakers), go-betweens, computer or video-dating agencies, marriage bureaux, Asian arranged marriages, gay dating agencies or personal ads. Originally published in 1984, the author’s clear-sighted look at the mating trade takes some of the mystique away from the subject and is the first serious and detailed account of the ‘third party’ in marriage. Dr Mullan looks at the ‘singles scene’ and the ‘arranged marriage’ historically and cross-culturally, and makes it clear that there is nothing necessarily odd or deviant about the mating trade. It is a business like any other, and as long as people continue to want ‘perfect partners’, marriage, permanent relationships, dates and sex, and while evolving social structures make such demands ever more difficult to meet, the business will thrive. It could even expand and grow, but the author believes that first it will have to clean up its act!
'Lonely Young Officer, up to his neck in Flanders mud, would like to correspond with young lady (age 18-20), cheery and good looking.' 1916 'Discreet, attractive couple 21 and 25 wish to meet couples and singles 21-35 for exciting and fun-loving adult relationships. Open-minded but not way out. No prejudices. Full length photo, address, and detailed letter assures same.' 1969 From the 'sporty' girls and 'artistic' boys of the Edwardian era to the 'lonely' soldiers of the Great War, the marriage bureaux of the fifties, and on to the internet dating sites of today, Classified tells the story of those who used personal ads to search for love, friendship, marriage and adventure.