"Marrying Out in the Sixteenth Century"

"Marrying Out in the Sixteenth Century: Subsequent Marriages of Aristocratic Women in the Tudor Era" The Journal of Family History, January 2013.

As one looks at the marriage patterns of aristocratic women in the Tudor Era, it is difficult not to be struck by the relatively large number who, upon their subsequent marriage, married mates outside of their social rank. While the reasons for these choices are likely to be as numerous as the women who made them, some generalizations can be made. These generalizations provide a window through which attitudes toward social rank and female roles during the sixteenth century can be viewed. It is my aim to use the phenomenon of subsequent marriages by women whose father held the title of Baron or above to men to men who held no title (that is, an exogamous or out marriage) as a lens through which to examine attitudes toward rank and gender, particularly the level of agency that such women could exercise. This project focuses on those aristocratic women who entered into marriages with men below them on the social scale at the time of their subsequent unions. It is easier to see the workings of agency in actions that society and elite families tended to consider transgressive rather than in those actions, such as marrying within their rank, that were considered appropriate by society, though there is no question that many chose to marry well.