Singlewomen in the European Past, 1250-1800

When we think about the European past, we tend to imagine villages, towns, and cities populated by conventional families—married couples and their children. Although most people did marry and pass many of their adult years in the company of a spouse, this vision of a preindustrial Europe shaped by heterosexual marriage deceptively hides the well—established fact that, in some times and places, as many as twenty—five percent of women and men remained single throughout their lives.

Despite the...