Women, Rank, and Marriage in the British Aristocracy, 1485-2000:

Women, Rank, and Marriage in the British Aristocracy, 1485-2000: An Open Elite?

Basingstoke: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2014

Inside the ancestral halls of Downton Abbey, Earl Grantham faces a challenge. He has three daughters whose marriages may well determine the future of his illustrious family. A great deal rides on the choices made by and for those aristocratic women. Lord Grantham’s challenge was one faced by aristocratic families for more than five centuries.

How open was the British elite? In Women, Rank and Marriage in the British Aristocracy, Professor Schutte addresses that question through British aristocratic women’s marriages from the beginning of the Tudor era to the twentieth century. For them, and for their families, making a suitable marriage to a groom of high rank was critical. Failure could well have catastrophic consequences. These noble daughters’ marriages, far more than their brothers’ unions ensured a family's continued place within the titled ranks.

By analysing thousands of aristocratic women’s marriages as well as diaries, letters, and memoirs, Schutte demonstrates that the English aristocracy remained remarkably closed for centuries, until it was finally shattered by the First World War and a new aristocratic order emerged.