[A humble request: If you can, please donate to help me carry on tracing word histories. Thank you.]
The phrase love in a cottage designates a marriage for love, or a romantic relationship, faced with insufficient financial means.
For example, Allan Massie used this phrase in the following from A funeral so ordinary in every sense of the word, about the funeral of Princess Margaret (1930-2002), Queen Elizabeth II’s sister, published in The Scotsman (Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland) of Saturday 16th February 2002 [page 5, column 6]:
Such publicity as she has had in the last 20 years was often bad. This eagerness to disparage even extended to the treatment given in this past week to the great and agonising decision of her life: not to marry the man she loved. This was made, we were assured, because she valued the privileges attached to being a princess more highly than romantic love in a cottage. Well, that is one way of seeing it. There is another; that she put duty above her private happiness. It was then less than 20 years since her uncle, Edward VIII had abdicated in order to marry “the woman I love”. The example of a second Royal putting private happiness above public duty would, in the 1950s, have damaged the monarchy.
The following paragraph (in which the nouns love and cottage are associated with each other) explains the notion conveyed by the phrase love in a cottage—this paragraph is from From the Connoisseur, published in Aris’s Birmingham Gazette: or, The General Correspondent (Birmingham, Warwickshire, England) of Monday 11th November 1754 [page 2, column 1]:
The great Convenience of expelling Love from Matrimony, is very evident: Married Persons of Quality are never troubled with each other’s Company abroad, or fatigued with dull matrimonial Discourses at home: My Lord keeps his Girl, my Lady has her Gallant; and they both enjoy all the fashionable Privileges of Wedlock, without the Inconveniences. This would never be the Case, if there was the least Spark of Love subsisting between them, but they must be reduced to the same Situation with those Wretches, who (as they have nothing to settle on each other but themselves) are obliged to make up the Deficiencies of Fortune by Affection. But while these miserable, fond, doating, unfashionable Couples are obliged to content themselves with Love and a Cottage, People of Quality enjoy the Comforts of Indifference and a Coach and Six.
These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase love in a cottage that I have found:
1-: From The Devil upon Two Sticks: or, The Country Beau (1745), by the Irish author Charles Coffey (died 1745)—as quoted in the Oxford English Dictionary (June 2026—s.v. love, n. 1):
Love in a Cottage contentedly flows,
And e’ery dear Minute is blest.
2-: From The Deuce is in Him. A Farce of Two Acts. As it is performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane (London: Printed for T. Becket, P. A. De Hondt, and T. Davies, 1763), by the English playwright and theatre manager George Colman (1732-1794) [Act I, page 9]:
Emily: I declare, if he had not a friend on earth, or a shilling in the world—if he was as miserable as the utmost malice of ill fortune could make him, I would prefer Col. Tamper to the first duke in the kingdom.
Bell: Oh, sister! it is a mighty easy thing for persons rolling in affluence, and a coach and six, to talk of living on bread and water, and the comforts of love in a cottage.
3-: From The Gold-Finch, a choice Collection of the most celebrated Songs, Scots and English: Many of which never before in Print. Likewise a Variety of favourite Catches, with Toasts and Sentiments. To which is added, The Edinburgh Buck: An Epilogue, written by Mr. R. Fergusson (Edinburgh: Printed by W. Darling, for A. Brown, 1777), by the Scottish poet Robert Fergusson (1750-1774) [Toasts and Sentiments, In Three Classes.—Class III.—page 11]:
May the honest heart never feel distress.
Sunshine and good-humour all the world over.
Love in a cottage, and envy to none.
Success to the Ladies in all their undertakings.
4-: From St. Cecilia; or, The Lady’s and Gentleman’s harmonious Companion: Being a select Collection of Scots and English Songs; many of which are Originals. Together with a Set of favourite Catches and Glees: Also a Variety of the most celebrated Toasts and Sentiments (Edinburgh: Printed by W. Darling for C. Wilson; and sold by J. Dickson and C. Elliot – 1779), by Charles Wilson [Toasts and Sentiments.—page 373]:
Perpetual spring to friendship, youth, and love.
May we never want a friend, and a bottle to give him.
Love in a cottage, and envy to none.
May we have in our arms whom we love in our hearts.
5-: From Rosina; or, Love in a Cottage, the title of a comic opera by the English author Frances Brooke (née Moore – 1724-1789)—as mentioned, for example, in the following advertisement for the Theatre Royal, Smock Alley, Dublin, published in The Dublin Evening Post (Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland) of Thursday 6th March 1783 [page 2, column 4]:
A new comic Opera, in two Acts, never acted in this kingdom, called ROSINA; or LOVE in a COTTAGE. Performed this Season upwards of 60 Nights, at the Theatre-Royal, Covent-Garden, with the greatest Applause.
word histories 