Free men and women who courted were considered to be ‘promised in marriage’. Expectations were set as to how the forthcoming marriage would advantage both parties socially and economically. When a promise of marriage was broken—or breached—the offending party could be pursued through the civil courts for the value of ‘lost expectations’.
The Colony of NSW had been established with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. When Lachlan Macquarie arrived two decades later as the fifth Governor of NSW, the future of the Colony was considered to be at risk of moral degeneration. Cohabitation—the practice of living together in an unmarried state—was deemed ‘highly injurious to the interests of Society’, and Macquarie sought to rectify this by encouraging lawful marriage.