Conclusion

Most women expected to marry: they wanted love and affection; they wanted children; they were sexually and economically vulnerable; they desired respectability and security. The duration of marriage was very uncertain, and it was likely that one or other spouse would die before all the children left home. Class was the basis of extreme differences in lifestyle, life chances and possibilities for independent action in marriage. The upper classes, representing less than one per cent of the population, dominated social life in Society, and this was almost entirely controlled by women. Marriage a la mode , the fashionable, tolerant, free and easy form of almost open marriage which allowed the partners to have their own friends and go their own way, was at the heart of that lifestyle. The growing class of industrial wage labourers courted more independently and married oftener than their forebears, though the age of marriage remained high.

Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History