The vast majority of European women in the nineteenth century married.

For all the incantations to women that the married state was a duty, an honour and a joy, it was also an economic necessity. It was expected that girls would marry, and much of their girlhood was spent in preparation for this eventuality.

Transient though it was, marriage remained a woman's ideal. Within marriage, those lessons in femininity learned since childhood could be put into practice. To be a wife conferred certain virtues on a woman as well as some power. In law, marriage legitimised the subordination of the wife by defining her as the property of her husband. In most jurisdictions she had no independent existence. In reality things were much more complex. Relations between husbands and wives rarely conformed to the gender roles depicted in sermons, conduct books and romantic novels. Everyday reality for the majority of marriages was messy, characterised by negotiation, compromise and sometimes conflict. Marriage was about the distribution of power and authority, the use of resources, the division of labour and the expression of sentiment. However, during the nineteenth century the institution and conduct of marriage did undergo some changes. Sometimes this is explained as the transition from the patriarchal to the companionate form of marriage.

But it can also be regarded as a gradual accommodation of women's needs. By the end of the century a small group of women had rejected marriage altogether, preferring to live a life of single independence. The majority of European women still married, but their expectations were higher than those of their mothers and grandmothers. They were also more critical of their husbands for not fulfilling their expectations; and for a small but grow­ing number of women, their greater economic independence allowed them ultimately to use the final sanction of the divorce court.