ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the emotional communities present in eighteenth-century litigation through a study of the Chancery records pertaining to the self-styled ‘unhappy wife’, Mary Bangs. Litigants, counsel and deponents used both conventional and unconventional emotional language, reflective of the emotional norms of Chancery and general society, to create a collective narrative. Commonly used ‘tropes’, which might be considered legal fictions, carried legal and emotional significance. The emotive language in Bangs v Bangs demonstrates the significance of ‘unhappy marriages’ for law and wider society. Language pertaining to happiness was used as a benchmark of acceptable behaviour of husband and wife. As the household was the unit that made up the state, happy marriages were key to a happy nation.
