Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Women, Rank, and Marriage in the British Aristocracy, 1485–2000An Open Aristocracy?

Women, Rank, and Marriage in the British Aristocracy, 1485–2000: An Open Aristocracy? [The myth of the open elite has been an anecdotal truism about Britain for some time. Commentators and historians long accepted, almost without question, that the British nobility succeeded, in part, because of its relative openness to newcomers and the rapid assimilation of those newcomers into its ranks. Since the mid- 1980s, historians have begun to look at the assumption more carefully and in many cases to challenge the idea, using various means to judge both the openness of the rank and the willingness of more established members to accept the recently ennobled. This chapter, using the marital patterns of aristocratic women, explores the concept of the open elite from a new perspective. What the evidence shows is that Britain did not have an open elite, at least not at the highest levels. All aristocratic families, new or established, showed a marked preference for marrying their daughters into the established or old aristocracy, which indicates a lack of acceptance of the newcomers into the rank. This lack of acceptance further indicates the desire on the part of the British aristocracy to maintain rank identity.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Women, Rank, and Marriage in the British Aristocracy, 1485–2000An Open Aristocracy?

Download PDF
14 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/springer-journals/women-rank-and-marriage-in-the-british-aristocracy-1485-2000-an-open-lcXW0FfcbX

References (2)

Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2014
ISBN
978-1-349-46021-2
Pages
69 –83
DOI
10.1057/9781137327802_5
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[The myth of the open elite has been an anecdotal truism about Britain for some time. Commentators and historians long accepted, almost without question, that the British nobility succeeded, in part, because of its relative openness to newcomers and the rapid assimilation of those newcomers into its ranks. Since the mid- 1980s, historians have begun to look at the assumption more carefully and in many cases to challenge the idea, using various means to judge both the openness of the rank and the willingness of more established members to accept the recently ennobled. This chapter, using the marital patterns of aristocratic women, explores the concept of the open elite from a new perspective. What the evidence shows is that Britain did not have an open elite, at least not at the highest levels. All aristocratic families, new or established, showed a marked preference for marrying their daughters into the established or old aristocracy, which indicates a lack of acceptance of the newcomers into the rank. This lack of acceptance further indicates the desire on the part of the British aristocracy to maintain rank identity.]

Published: Nov 29, 2015

Keywords: Nineteenth Century; Eighteenth Century; Marriage Pattern; Rank Identity; Established Family

There are no references for this article.