Q. Gentlemen, I desire your help, if you have any pity. There's a very old-old-woman, that says, she's mightily in love with me. She has an estate of an hundred pounds a year, but is a confounded toper, and drinks brandy eternall. My father is very earnest I should have her, but I can't endure the sight of her. I'm very young, but for all that am in love with a young woman, much of my own age, who has but little money, but she's a special good housewife, can get her living herself, and is willing to have me but my father is vehemently against it, because this old aqua-vitae-bottle carrier has got so much money. Please give your advice what a poor young fellow ought to do in this miserable case...

-Letter to advice column of Athenian Mercury, 1694¹⁸

The power of your love silences your fears, and you propose to your love. You do not regret your choice. It turns out that your beloved is actually the daughter of a very wealthy merchant, and she kept this fact hidden from you because she feared you might only love her for her money had you known. Now that your love has proved true, she tells you everything, including the sizable portion her father will give you upon your wedding day.

In the eighteenth century, marriage is often as much an economic decision as an emotional one, especially for the wealthier classes. The family of an eligible woman provides a dowry or "portion" of a chosen worth, and this portion becomes the husband's property upon completion of the marriage. These portions can be quite large, and thus the unwed daughters of wealthy noblemen are attractive propositions for aristocratic young men looking to increase their fortunes. For example, the average value of portions among a sample of peers from 1675-1729 was �9,350.¹⁹

A woman receives her social rank from her husband, so she could not marry into a lower rank, whereas a man's social rank is preserved through marriage, so he can marry down if he desires to do so. The result is that the size of portions often increases, as daughters without adequate portions have more difficulty securing socially acceptable men to wed.²⁰

Estates and titles are passed down through the male line, and thus daughters cannot expect to gain independent wealth after the death of their parents. At times, however, a nobleman might not have a direct male heir, and the estate will pass into the hands of a distant relative for whom he did not care much. In these cases the nobleman can demand that his heir provides his daughters with a guaranteed portion. Sometimes these portions will be so much that the heir will actually have to enter debt to provide them, and he might even have to sell off parts or all of the estate to remain solvent.²¹

A widow can inherit her husband's wealth. Widows who inherit a sizable estate are as attractive propositions as daughters with large portions, although these widows do not have to remarry and can therefore keep control of their inherited wealth if they desired. Widows of poorer families are considerably less well off, and they often have to rely on charity or take in lodgers or laundry to survive. Economic changes during the eighteenth century have made this second type of widow more common.²²

The predominant opinion during the eighteenth century of gender roles is that a woman's responsibility is as a wife and a mother. Economic and social changes, however, have begun to break down these ideologies, especially among the lower and middle classes. The first factories have employed women and children, not men. In the 1720s, women owned one-tenth of London businesses.²³

Overall, though, women are relegated to certain spheres of employment and are not treated equally. For example, when job markets becomes tighter in the second half of the eighteenth century, women's wages fall earlier than those of men, and women suffer from higher rates of seasonal unemployment.²⁴ Additionally, women, seen as a threat by male-dominated guilds, are often barred from apprenticeships and better-paying positions.²⁵