Abstract
Abstract Marriage and courtship were as much communal decisions as they were expressions of individual emotional and material desires. Of the eight Sharp siblings who survived to adulthood, three never married, one did not remarry after being widowed young, and three of the remaining four married after age 30. Eighteenth-century household governance, and the gendered authority of housekeeper or householder that came with it, was usually connected to marriage for women and men. The Sharps’ late marriages, or lack of marriage, reveal other ways gendered domestic power was enacted and enjoyed. Their experience also reveals another layer of family interaction undergirding marital choices. The dynamic processes within their family of origin produced both a set of relationships and a process by which individuals made decisions. Ultimately, this diminished the importance of marriage in crafting Sharp adult identities.
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