Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor England.(Book Review)

Diana O'Hara. Courtship and Constraint: Rethinking the Making of Marriage in Tudor England. Manchester, U. K.: Manchester University Press; dist. by Palgrave, New York. 2002. Pp. xii, 276. $74.95. ISBN 0-7190-5074-x.

The most personal of decisions, the commitment of one individual to a lifetime with another, was simultaneously one of the most publicly regulated processes in early modern Europe. No-one made the choice freely, if by freely we mean shorn of outside influences. Pressure from family, friends, and the family could be immense and cultural norms exerted a powerful hold. ...

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