Bathsheba's 7 Years' Celibacy

In Chapter 49 of Far From The Madding Crowd, Bathsheba says that she intends to remain unmarried for seven years.  The seven year period mattered so much in the 19th century England. A person missing for seven years was commonly presumed dead under English law.  Bathsheba, somehow was aware of this legal safeguard available to a person who remarry after the 7years period.

Troy had disappeared and was presumed drowned, but there was no absolute proof. In the nineteenth-century a person missing for seven years was commonly presumed dead under English law.  Bathsheba's choice therefore corresponds to the traditional period after which all doubts about Troy's survival would effectively vanish.


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