Abstract
This study examines the marriage patterns of aristocratic British women in the period from 1485 to 2000, demonstrating 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 behavior of the women indicates that the concept of rank identity also remained remarkably stable for the British nobility.
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Notes
David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New York: Vintage, 1999)
The most notable example of a scholar who focuses on aristocratic women as a group is Barbara Hanis in her important book, English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550: Marriage and Family, Property and Careers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
Olwyn H. Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe (New York: Knopf, 1996), 65.
Barbara Harris, “Power, Profit, and Passion: Mary Tudor, Charles Brandon and the Arranged Marriage in Early Tudor England,” Feminist Studies 15 (1989): 60.
Quoted in Miriam Slater, “The Weightiest Business: Marriage in an Upper-Gentry Family in Seventeenth Century England,” Past and Present 72 (1976): 26.
Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 51-2, 59; Arthur Foss, Dukes of Britain (London: Herbert, 1986), 7.
Naomi Tadmor, “Early Modern English Kinship in the Long Run: Reflections on Continuity and Change.” Continuity and Change 25:1 (May 2010): 18.
Alexander Gerschenkron, “On the Concept of Continuity in History,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 106:3 (May 1962): 195.
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© 2014 Kimberly Schutte
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Schutte, K. (2014). Introduction: Marriages of Aristocratic British Women and Stability of Rank Identity, 1485–2000. In: Women, Rank, and Marriage in the British Aristocracy, 1485–2000. Studies in Modern History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137327802_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137327802_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-46021-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-32780-2
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