Women Who Never Married & Religion: 1500-1700

Abstract

In the 1670s Margaret Blagge, a maid of honour at Court refused to marry her suitor Sidney Godolphin in order to devote her life to religion. In her refusal Margaret wrote, “I will keep my Virgin, present it unto Christ, and not put myself into the temptation of loving anything in competition with my God”. The Reformation in England ended the practice of women residing in convents. My thesis investigates the prevalence of women choosing a religious life over marriage in the generations immediately following the Reformation. In this period an unprecedented rise in the numbers of women who never marry is apparent. Using the ‘Last Will and Testament’ of over one hundred women who never marry, my thesis reconstructs the religious beliefs and experiences of this marginalised group. My work puts forward a theory that a significant portion of women who never marry in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries devote their lives to the pursuit of their religious beliefs. I develop several models for a religious life in this period, arguing, that like Margaret Blagge, these women are identifiable in society by their vows of celibacy. In order to further contextualise these changes my thesis also examines the economic basis and livelihood of these women and their experiences in the legal system, primarily the ways they constructed their own characters and actions in courts of law. I conclude that in accounting for the significant rise in numbers of women who never marry the theory that a large portion of these women devoted their existences to religion and celibacy needs to be considered.