Tell Laura I Love Her

In this essay I aim to look at the debate; was love and happiness an important part of marriage and childhood in 16th and 17th century.
I intend to look at both sides of the argument before making a decision on how true the statement is.
As we know there were many marriages that did not work out in the two centuries but there were also a few that did, so let’s take a closer look.

Marriage in the 16th and 17th centuries was full of abuse and children. The real debate is whether people married and had babies for the sake of it or because they truly loved each other.
Some people married strictly out of love and devotion like in source 8, the story of Lucy Hutchinson, as she tells us her husband showed love and devotion towards her and even when she turned old he supported her and loved her.
This marriage was one of the ones that I think was based on love but there are not may more that did not.
An example of not loving marriages was one of Duke of Richmond, he did not arrange a marriage because of love but to sort a gambling dept and they were only 3-6 years old which I think is way too young to have feelings for anyone!
Also King Charles didn’t marry because of devotion and love but to help his business and for political reasons.

If I was a young woman living in the 16th and 17th century I would want to keep the family going but I wouldn’t want to be abused by my husband because no one would be able to do anything or help me as it was legal then.
Men were in charge! Although, people in the two centuries usually had longer marriages then now-a-days, this was because divorce was very, very uncommon then even if men could sell their wives and kick them out if they were trouble some.

Children were extremely common in 16th and 17th centuries and it was not unusual for families to have more than 7 children. Even though not all children were treated properly like sir Simmonds. When born he was given away to a nanny, then once older he was put in the care of his grandparents and his mother and father didn’t visit at all. Maybe this was a reason for adults that had been abused when younger to create homes for abandoned and not loved children, as Thomas Coram did.
Some families really cared, like in the family portrait of source 2 (not know who), they painted in skulls to represent their unfortunately dead children. I think this is nice because it shows that the family respects them and hadn’t forgotten.

Over all I think that marriages were not based on love or happiness because there are many sources that show adults and children being abused and only 2 or 3 that actually married out of true devotion. I wouldn’t want to be living in the 16th or 17th century because the chances of me having a loving husband are quite slim and I wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t love me. I think Lucy Hutchinson was the only story where the marriage worked out, although she might have been telling a fib. There is no evidence to support her story.
I also think that the law should have been different, that husbands could not be allowed to abuse their wives.
(Laura Batic, 12 years)

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