Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Marriage for Men
Marriages were considered a family affair because the entire family was involved and considered in the decision of who a son was to marry.[1] Arranged marriages were characterized by financial concerns, low priority of emotional feelings towards the partner, and a patriarchal and authoritarian character of family life following the marriage.[2] The eldest son was clearly in the best position to attain a desirable match for his family.[3] The success of a son was dependent on the ability and the willingness of his relatives to advance the family.[4] This type of arranged marriage provided the family a solution to the problem of the preservation of the family’s property, making sure it stayed within the family.[5] The expansion of social connections was one of the most important benefits that could result from a marriage.[6] Another benefit of the marriage for a son was receiving his new wife’s dowry.[7] Of course, the dowry was even more of a benefit to the second son, who often had to live on limited funds throughout his life.[8] The other important aspects that these men looked for in a bride were virginity, and that, generally, the woman had similar attitudes and values towards the inner workings of married life.[9] The thought of a companionate marriage, in other words marriage for love, did not occur to the gentry families.[10] (I'm not sure about this last one. Opinions seems to differ, so more info would help).
- ↑ Miriam Slater, “The Weightiest Business: Marriage in an Upper-Gentry Family in Seventeenth-Century England,” Past and Present, no. 72 (Aug., 1976), 25.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid., 28
- ↑ Ibid
- ↑ Ibid., 31
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid., 41.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid., 34, 41.
- ↑ John R. Gillis, For Better, for Worse: British Marriages, 1600 to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), www.googlescholar.com, 14.