Marriage Patterns of Aristocratic British Women, 1485-2000 By
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Marrying by the Numbers: Marriage Patterns of Aristocratic British Women, 1485-2000 By: Kimberly F. Schutte Submitted to the graduate degree program in History and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dr. Katherine Clark Chairperson Dr. Victor Bailey Dr. J.C.D. Clark Dr. Geraldo de Sousa Dr. Leslie Tuttle Date Defended: April 18, 2011 The Dissertation Committee for Kimberly F. Schutte certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Marrying by the Numbers: Marriage Patterns of Aristocratic British Women, 1485-2000 _________Katherine Clark_____ Chairperson Dr. Katherine Clark Date Approved: April 18, 2011 ii Abstract This project is a study of the marriage patterns of aristocratic British women over the more than five-century period between 1485 and 2000. It employs a two-fold evidentiary base, combining a demographic analysis with a more traditional analysis of primary sources such as letters, journals, and diaries. Together, the statistical and the written evidence provide a window into the intersection of marriage and rank among elite British women between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. As a result of this research, this dissertation argues that there was a remarkable level of consistency in rank identity among the British aristocracy despite great changes in government, religion, and society. iii Acknowledgements A project that has been a lifetime in the completion necessarily accumulates a number of debts, both professional and personal, debts that I gratefully acknowledge here. This work has been conducted under the painstaking guidance of my advisor, Dr. Katherine Clark. Dr. Clark read drafts with uncommon care and her comments have done a great deal to sharpen the argument and to add some elegance to the prose. The other members of the British Field at the University of Kansas, Dr. J.C.D. Clark and Dr. Victor Bailey, provided much assistance as this study took shape. My friend and former student Dawn Baker taught me the intricacies of EXcel; without her sage advice I would still be trying to count exogamous marriages using hash marks. The members of the History department at Missouri Western State College (now University), both past and present, have been unflaggingly supportive as I learned how to teach and worked out what it means to be a historian. In particular, Dr. Jon Kepler provided early inspiration and made me realize that it is possible to be a professional academic. Dr. Daniel Trifan, with contributions both professional and personal, patiently read drafts of this work and provided encouragement when it all seemed to be beyond my reach in short, he has been a true friend and mentor and indeed, this could never have been done without him. On a more personal level, I am lucky to have family and friends who supported me through the long dark nights of the soul that are the inevitable result of writing a dissertation. To the other members of the KU history graduate student community, especially the members of the dissertation writing group, I owe a deep debt for their inspiring discussion, cogent criticism, and most importantly their consistent empathy. Mark Elting taught me that there are many rhythms in the universe and that life is richer and more balanced if you keep your ear tuned to them. My mother Joyce Schutte has provided support and encouragement throughout my life and has never been satisfied with my excuses. I am blessed to have a daughter Marina Trifan, who is wise and compassionate beyond her years. This undertaking has perhaps cost her more than anyone else and she has never flagged in her encouragement and understanding. Knowing that there are young women such as her in the world gives me great confidence in the future. The great sadness is that my father, Wayne Schutte, did not live to see this completed though I know that he never doubted that it would be. iv Table of Contents Introduction . 1 Chapter One: Endogamy. 21 Chapter Two: The Practical Considerations of Marriage . 62 Chapter Three: The Romantic Considerations of Marriage . 101 Chapter Four: Elopement and Defiant Matches . 132 Chapter Five: An Open Elite . .177 Chapter Six: To Catch A Man . 207 Chapter Seven: A Woman of Independent Means . 241 Conclusion . 276 Appendix I: Changing Concepts of Femininity and Masculinity . 283 Appendix II: British Marriages . 307 AppendiX III: Biographical Information . 328 Bibliography . 396 v The Introduction This study eXamines the marriage patterns of aristocratic British women in the period from 1485 through 2000. It demonstrates that these patterns remained remarkably stable. The underlying assertion at work in this project is that the marriage patterns of noble women are a good suggestion of the conception of rank identity held by aristocratic British families. The constancy in the marital behaviour of the women indicates that the concept of rank identity also remained remarkably stable for the British nobility. Members of the British aristocracy belong to it largely by virtue of their birth. Over the centuries, family politics consumed a great deal of the aristocracys attention, as these were frequently the means by which they maintained their power and prestige. They took great care in arranging the marriages of their children. Historians such as Lawrence Stone and David Cannadine1 have eXamined aristocratic marriage patterns, but they have done so by focusing on men. Even when women are under discussion,2 no study has ever looked at their behaviour over a long chronological period as does this one. The evidentiary base of this project, combining the statistical analysis of a large number of women over five centuries with the written evidence produced by and about these 1 David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New York: Vintage, 1999) gives quite a lot of attention to the marriages of aristocratic men. The subject also looms large in Lawrence Stones analysis in several of his works including, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977), An Open Elite? England, 1540-1880 (OXford: Clarendon, 1984), Road to Divorce: England 1530-1987 (Oxford: OXford University Press, 1990), and Uncertain Unions: Marriage in England, 1660-1753 (Oxford: OXford University Press, 1992). David Thomas provided a statistical examination in his article The Social Origins of Marriage Partners of the British Peerage in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Population Studies 26 (1972): 99-111. 2 The most notable eXample of a scholar who focuses on aristocratic women as a group is Barbara Harris in her important book, English Aristocratic Women, 1450-1550: Marriage and Family, Property and Career. (Oxford: OXford University Press, 2002). 1 women,3 enable the historian to understand continuities and changes in conceptions of rank identity over the longue durée. As early as the sixteenth century and extending well into the twentieth, the goal for an aristocratic woman was to make a good marriage, or a fitting match. As Olwen H. Hufton writes, An appropriate union was one in which wealth and status, religious affiliation and age, as well as less easily defined qualities such as temperament and moral qualities, were seen to be approximately consonant.4 Barbara Harris is a bit more cynical in her assessment, The eXplicit purpose of marriage among the upper classes was to advance the political and economic interest of the patrilineally defined family.5 This was, perhaps, particularly true of women. Lawrence Stone has estimated that more than 95 percent of all surviving daughters of this rank eventually married.6 After the Reformation, there were no nunneries in which to place daughters as a reasonable alternative to marriage. This new limitation of what a family could do with its daughters happened in a time when it was a moral obligation on the part of families to see that their daughters married their social equals. Marriage at this level was a very complex affair in which the needs and desires of the couple were subordinated to the needs of the family as a whole. Fulfilling this obligation frequently cost families a great deal of money and 3 This study uses primary source material written both by aristocratic women and men in its analysis as long as the sources comment on the marital eXperience of the women. There is no question that the men played an important role in determining whom their daughters would marry, though as discussed in Chapter Two, the womens role was not to be discounted. Since a foundational assumption for this project is that the way in which aristocratic families disposed of their daughters in marriage reveals their own self- conception, the attitudes of the men are important in understanding this phenomenon. 4 Olwyn H. Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe (New York: Knopf, 1996), 65. 5 Barbara Harris, Power, Profit, and Passion: Mary Tudor, Charles Brandon and the Arranged Marriage in Early Tudor England, Feminist Studies 15 (1989): 60. 6 Lawrence Stone, The Family Sex and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1977), 43. 2 resources.7 Elite families had to consider many factors when arranging appropriate, profitable matches for their daughters. An eXamination of the marriage strategies of aristocratic families over five centuries reveals three paramount concerns: 1) continuation of the male line, 2) preservation of inherited property, and 3) the acquisition of more property and prestige.8 The importance of a good marriage was largely a point of agreement between children and their parents. Socialization had seen to it that British noble children on the whole looked for the same type of benefits from marriage that their families wished for them.9 In 1644, Sir Ralph Verney wrote to his younger sister about her upcoming marriage, I pray mistake me not, for this is the weightiest business that ever yet befell you, for in this one action consists all your future happiness in this world; therefore, do nothing rashly.