MAY READING: THE FISHING FLEET - HUSBAND HUNTING IN THE RAJ by Anne de Courcy

MAY READING: THE FISHING FLEET - HUSBAND HUNTING IN THE RAJ by Anne de Courcy.

Hard to believe now, but up until probably the time of World War II in Britain, if you were young and female you were expected to marry, produce children and be a devoted wife and mother for the rest of your days, in that order. Woe betide being labelled 'spinster', a word, when spoken aloud, sounds as dreadful as what it stood for - left on the shelf, destined to be a governess or companion forever. A failure.

But wait, all was not lost! From the early days of Britain's involvement/interference in India, women were thin on the ground. For a long time, it was acceptable for British soldiers, farmers, plantation owners, business men to marry or live and have children with local Indian women, with little prejudice to their womenfolk or children. But over time, this changed and it became more desirable and socially necessary for British men to marry British women. At first, women in want of a husband were paid to make the perilous journey to India to find a husband. They were given a year, and if a match was not made in that time, they sailed back home as 'returned empties'. What a fate.

India came under British government control in 1857 - the beginning of the Raj. The  export of well educated and well bred young men to India to govern this jewel in the crown became a flood. Along with the transplanting of the strictly hierarchical English class society.  From that time on, British men could marry only British women and once a year the ships left British ports, full of eager young women in search of a husband and an adventure, with hundreds of young and not so young men waiting at the other end. Let the fishing begin. After World War I, with the huge hole left in the young male population of Britain, the annual fishing fleet took on a greater significance, lasting  until the mid 1940s when India became independent of Britain.

The author has documented the many and various stories of these women through their diaries, letters, personal interviews with some of the women themselves, and their descendants. Most of these women were very young when they made the trip - late teens/early 20s. They knew little of life, little of relationships, nothing about the opposite sex, but they treated the whole thing as an exciting and thrilling adventure. The parties, the dances, the tiger hunts, polo matches, retaining one's virtue, the sheer logisitics of travelling around the country, the extravagant clothes, the heat, the isolation, the boredom, the fragility of life with illness and unexpected deaths.  To us an extraordinary way to find yourself a life, and it would seem, more often than not, successful.

For the women who did find themselves married and then mothers, the hardest most painful time came when their children reached the ages of 8, 9, 10, and the decision would be made to send them home to be educated. Did she also go to be with her children and leave her husband on his own for at least a year? Or did she stay and send her children to boarding school knowing she may not see them for some years. There are some interesting reviews by readers on Amazon.uk who are children/grandchildren of some women who were part of the Fishing Fleet, which do make the stories in this book just that much more interesting.   

As well as being the story of these brave and resourceful women, this book also gives fascinating insight into British life in India, especially covering the period from 1870s to early 1930s. Relations between the Raj, headed by the Viceroy, always a Lord or an Earl, and the many, many unbelievably wealthy Indian maharajahs were generally very cordial. The two societies mirrored each other perfectly in terms of a rigid social hierarchy, everyone fitting neatly into it, and each using the other to advance further up the social and economic ladder.

This is a truly fascinating and extremely well researched account of a time when Britain ruled supreme in the world, and boy did they know it. My only criticism is that it could have done with some more editing - there is a fair amount of repetition and padding out especially in the first few chapters; I don't know how times I read that young women had to be chaperoned at all times, or that men had to receive permission from their superiors to marry and were not allowed to marry too young so generally were ten years older than their intendeds. The narrative also jumped around a fair bit, and I did lose track of who all these young women were as they reappeared at different stages of the book.