A same-sex couple has won the Flitch of Bacon Dunmow for the first time in history. Local Dunmow couple, Emma Hynds and Emma D’Costa, convinced the jury at the Dunmow Flitch Trials that they had never wished themselves unwed, becoming the first same-sex couple in 900 years to win the Dunmow Flitch at the trial held 17 July.
Same-sex couples have been eligible to apply for the Dunmow Flitch trials since the law changed in 2014 to allow same-sex marriage. The constitution of the Flitch Trials states that couples are allowed to enter if their marriage is recognised under English Law, making civil partnerships ineligible.
Emma Hynds and Emma D’Costa, known as the ‘Two Emmas,’ were married in November 2022 and live in Dunmow. Emma Hynds is a local Dunmow girl who grew up here. She met Emma D’Costa at their football club. They share a home and a dachshund named Sonny.
They have become the first same-sex couple in 920 years to receive the coveted prize of a Flitch of Bacon (half a pig cut lengthways and smoked & cured), a first in the history of the Flitch Trials.
Three other Flitches were awarded to Jimmy Egerton & Barbara Egerton-Rowley from Northumberland, Ana & Kristian McMaster from Austin Texas, and Colin & Amanda Linacre from Buckinghamshire.
The historic trials, which date back to the 1100s, are held every four years and aim to award a flitch of bacon to married couples from anywhere in the world if they can satisfy a Judge and Jury of six maidens and six bachelors that in ‘twelvemonth and a day’ they have ‘not wisht themselves unmarried again’. Couples must have been married for at least a year and a day.
If a couple is fortunate enough to win a Great Dunmow Flitch, they are ‘Chaired’ (carried) shoulder high through the town in the Flitch chairs to Market Place, where they take the Flitch Oath ‘kneeling a-while’ on pointed stones.
For further information, visit www.dunmowflitchtrials.co.uk. Images supplied by organisers.
