Tea at Trianon: The Institution of Marriage in 17th-Century England

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, April 4, 2019

The Institution of Marriage in 17th-Century England

From The Seventeenth Century Lady:

Once at the altar, marriage for a man meant primarily the chance to father a lineage, to become master of a household, and to take control of his wife’s finances, wealth and belongings. It also made him eligible for various offices, such as to be a reeve (official supervising a landowner’s estate) or a member of a jury, or warden or constable of a Parish. Husbandry was originally control of livestock for profit, and the idea of this control for profit still permeated 17^th century marriage.

Marriage for a woman, on the other hand, meant imminent motherhood, giving up her rights and lands, and a means of determining her social standing. She was ‘graded’ as a woman according to the status of her husband, so a ‘good match’, in other words a profitable match, was essential. A married woman also was granted access to other women’s births and deaths, as these were usually attended by married women, and so to the network of wives and the hidden knowledge of menstruation and midwifery.

Women were regarded as the ‘weaker vessel’ (a phrase taken from the New Testament) and so physically, intellectually and morally inferior to men; therefore, the man had a right to chastise his wife, by physical punishment and beatings if she disobeyed him. (Read more.)