The Basic Marriage Patterns

Abstract

This chapter sets out and interrogates the basic marriage patterns of British aristocratic women from 1485 to 2000. At its most fundamental it looks at the rates of endogamy, hypogamy, exogamy, and unmarriedness. The primary argument here is that the constancy in the rates of endogamous and exogamous marriages between 1485 and 1880–1920 indicates that there was a constancy in the self-understanding of noble rank identity during that period as well; a constancy that was shattered by the First World War. The hypogamy rate dropped sharply with the introduction of the baronet and remained extraordinarily low from the seventeenth century through the end of the twentieth, a rate that is so low as to indicate a distinct prejudice among the titled ranks against grooms from that level. The level of unmarriedness also provides an window into understandings of rank identity and the means of preserving such identity; beginning in the eighteenth century the percentage of elite women remaining unmarried sharply increased (a trend that continued through the end of the nineteenth century) indicating a belief that it was better for a woman of this rank to remain unmarried rather than marry below her rank, a belief that points to the idea that rank identity was essentially personified in the women.