Endogamy and Mesalliance, the Marriage Patterns of the Nobility of the Election of Bayeux, 1430-1669

Abstract

Since the end of the Second World War there has been an explosion of historical studies of early modern French society. Among the many aspects of society which have been investigated, none has been more interesting or productive than the study of marriage. On one level, the study of marriage involves the history of the most basic and pervasive social unit of the early modern period, the nuclear family. On another level, the reconstruction of the collective marriage behavior of social groups reveals a great deal about the relative rigidity or flexibility of old regime social structure. Knowledge of the extent to which endogamy-the tendency of social groups to raise caste-like boundaries between themselves by restricting their marriages to their own group-was practiced is particularly important in assessing the nature of the relationships between the principal status groups of French society. The marriage patterns of French peasants, townspeople and merchant elites, venal officeholders and magistrates, and the highest nobility have been extensively analyzed.1 But the marriage patterns