2004
Volume 57 Number 2025
  • ISSN: 2589-4617
  • E-ISSN: 2667-2081

Abstract

Abstract:

This article explores youth, female agency, and the colonial marriage market in seventeenth-century Virginia through the case of Lucy Burwell. Even before her fifteenth birthday Lucy was the object of Governor Francis Nicholson’s courtship efforts, which she famously refused. Drawing on Nicholson’s surviving correspondence with Lucy and her parents, the article reveals the growing disparity between early modern English and Virginian perspectives on youth, authority and agency on the marriage market. Whereas Lucy and her parents believed in her right to choose her own partner, Nicholson invoked her youth as proof of immaturity when addressing her parents, while emphasizing his faith in Lucy’s decision making when addressing her. Lucy actively navigated female information networks to assess suitors, using advice, gossip, and reputation as tools of social control. This case study calls for a reassessment of early American marriage conventions, recognizing how settler societies provided young women with unexpected forms of autonomy distinct from English norms.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.5117/DAE2025.004.KONI
2025-09-01
2025-12-05
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Blackstone, William, Commentaries on the Laws of England Volume I (Oxford1765).
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Brewer, Holly, By Birth or Consent. Children, Law, and the Anglo-American Revolution in Authority (Chapel Hill2005).
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Brown, Kathleen M., Good Wives, Nasty Wenches, and Anxious Patriarchs. Gender, Race, and Power in Colonial Virginia (Chapel Hill2012).
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Capern, Amanda L., ‘Rumour and Reputation in the Early Modern English Family’ in: ClaireWalker en HeatherKerr eds., ‘Fama’ and her Sisters. Gossip and Rumour in Early Modern Europe (Turnhout2015) 85-113.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Capp, B. S., When Gossips Meet: Women, Family, and Neighbourhood in Early Modern England (Oxford2004).
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Cinlar, Nuran, ‘Marriage in the Colonial Chesapeake, 1607–1770: A Study in Cultural Adaptation and Reformulation’ (doctoraatsproefschrift, Johns Hopkins University, 2001).
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Downey, Fairfax, ‘The Governor Goes A-Wooing: The Swashbuckling Courtship of Nicholson of Virginia 1699-1705’, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography55:1 (1947) 6-19.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Hardwick, Kevin R., ‘Narratives of Villainy and Virtue. Governor Francis Nicholson and the Character of the Good Ruler in Early Virginia’, The Journal of Southern History72:1 (2006) 39-74.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Hening, William Waller ed., The Statutes at Large. Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619 (New York1823).
    [Google Scholar]
  10. ‘Lucy Burwell (1683–1716)’, Encyclopedia Virginia, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/burwell-lucy-1683-1716 (geraadpleegd 23februari2025).
    [Google Scholar]
  11. ‘A Memoriall Concerning the Mal-Administrations of His Excellency Francis Nicholson, Esqr., Her Ma’ties Lieut. and Governour Generall of Virginia (1703)’, s.d.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. McIlwaine, H.R. ed., Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1619-1776 (Richmond1905).
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Morgan, Edmund Sears, Virginians at Home. Family Life in the Eighteenth Century (Williamsburg, Virginia1952).
    [Google Scholar]
  14. ‘Notes and Queries’, The William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine3:2 (1894) 135-44.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. ‘Papers Relating to the Administration of Governor Nicholson and to the Founding of William and Mary College (Continued)’, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography7:3 (1900) 275-86.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Potter, Jennifer, The Jamestown Brides. The Bartered Wives of the New World (Londen2018).
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Swinburne, Henry, A Treatise of Spousals, or Matrimonial Contracts Wherein All the Questions Relating to That Subject Are Ingeniously Debated and Resolved (Londen1686).
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Syrett, Nicholas L., American Child Bride. A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States (Chapel Hill2016).
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Zacek, Natalie, ‘Francis Nicholson (1655-1728)’, Encyclopedia Virginia, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/nicholson-francis-1655-1728 (geraadpleegd 25februari2025).
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Zug, Marcia, ‘Lonely Colonist Seeks Wife. The Forgotten History of America’s First Mail Order Brides’, Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy20:1 (2012) 85-126.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.5117/DAE2025.004.KONI
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error