Tea at Trianon: Of Dowries, Dowers, and Dowagers

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

Friday, October 2, 2015

Of Dowries, Dowers, and Dowagers

From English Historical Fiction Authors:

Dowers on the other hand were women’s property. In the early Middle Ages, dowers were inalienable land bestowed on a wife at the time of her marriage. A woman owned and controlled her dower property, and she retained complete control of this property not only after her husband’s death, but even if her husband were to fall foul of the king, be attained for treason, and forfeit his own land and titles.

In the early Middle Ages, dowers were usually negotiated in advance of a marriage. Generally the father of the bride and the father of the groom would negotiate both the size and nature of the dowry and the dower at the same time. In short, the father of the bride would agree to transfer certain properties or a combination of properties and money to the groom at the marriage, and in exchange the father of the groom would designate properties as the new bride’s dower. These could, obviously, be identical. I.e. the father of the bride might agree to transfer certain properties to the bridegroom on the condition that they were designated his daughter’s dower, i.e. they were effectively transferred not to the control of the groom but to the bride after her marriage. Formally, however, the groom bestowed the “dower” on his wife at the church door immediately after marriage, and its size was variable. (Read more.)