Preindustrial marriage was not the fairy tale that many people imagine. Some assume that in the villages of yore, life was simpler, love and marriage came easily, and most of our ancestors lived happily ever after in contented, wedded bliss. In reality, limited partner choices, widely tolerated domestic abuse, and frequent early deaths meant marriage was fraught with challenges. In short, marriage wasn't always happily ever after.

People in the past faced few options when it came to marriage. The number of potential partners in one's tiny village was low—the few available choices might all be one's cousins, increasing the risk of birth defects in any resulting children.

Peasants typically married within their own villages, which were so insular that local dialects often proved unintelligible to people living just a few miles away. Travel was rarer, and communities were more secluded than a modern person can easily envision. As William Manchester evocatively put it in his book A World Lit Only by Fire, "Each hamlet was inbred, isolated, unaware of the world beyond the most familiar local landmark: a creek, or mill, or tall tree scarred by lightning." People typically gathered and socialized at a much smaller scale than the modern mind can fathom: The largest crowd recorded in 17th century England, the army that fought at Marston Moor, would easily fit five times over in a modern sports stadium. By the 18th century, little had changed, and the majority of villagers married people living within 10 miles of themselves.

The tiny pool of possible marriage partners often produced matches that might raise eyebrows today, such as blood relatives and couples with large age gaps. As Kirstin Olsen wrote in the book Daily Life in 18th-Century England, "A husband 10 or 15 years older than his bride would arouse little comment," for such relationships were common.

Given the highly limited pool of marriage partner choices, perhaps it is unsurprising that many people seemingly settled for spouses ill-suited to them. Olsen wrote that "much of the satirical literature of the 18th century…lampooned marriage as a hell or prison sentence for one or both partners. The most typical attitude toward marriage evinced in 18th century literature and visual art is a sly, collegial misery." The poem "Wedlock" by the Englishwoman Mehetabel Wesley Wright (1697–1750), herself pressured into a loveless marriage with a plumber, paints a typical picture:

Thou source of discord, pain and care,

Thou sure forerunner of despair,

Thou scorpion with a double face,

Thou lawful plague of human race,

Thou bane of freedom, ease and mirth,

Thou serpent which the angels fly,

Thou monster whom the beasts defy,

Whom wily Jesuits sneer at too;

And Satan (let him have his due)

Was never so confirmed a dunce

To risk damnation more than once.

That wretch, if such a wretch there be,

Who hopes for happiness from thee,

May search successfully as well

For truth in whores and ease in hell.

The Flemish poet and nun Anna Bijns (1493–1575) similarly advised other women to avoid marriage in her poem "Happy the Woman Without a Man." She wrote that a newlywed wife becomes "sorry and sad within a single year" as her husband gets drunk, beats her, cheats on her, and "consider[s] her a slave, that's all."

Men were also often unhappy in marriage. In 1682, an anonymous writer urged men to avoid the institution:

Husband! Thou Dull unpittied Miscreant

Wedded to Noise, to Misery, and Want;

…

Marry'd! O Hell and Furies! Name it not,

…

Begot in Hell to Prosecute Mankind.

'Tis the Destroyer of Our Peace and Health,

Mispender of our precious Time and Wealth;

The Enemy to Wit, Valour, Mirth, all

That we can Virtuous, Good, or Pleasant call.

By Day 'tis nothing but an endless Noise;

By Night the Eccho of Forgotten Joys:

Ye Gods! that Man by his own Slavish Law,

Should on himself such Inconvenience draw

…

And if thou'rt still Unmarry'd, thou art safe.

with whores thou can'st but venture, what is lost

May be Redeem'd again with Care and Cost;

But a Damn'd Wife, Inevitable Fate,

Destroys, Soul, Body, Credit, and Estates.

Disdain for one's wife was common, and many men were dissatisfied with their wives' appearance, lack of faithfulness, drinking habits, and temperaments. Emily Cockayne points out that "a curious little work of 1672 illustrated a misogynistic fantasy. It described a Dutch invention to help all unhappy husbands: a windmill to reform bad wives." The illustration depicts ugly, frowning women entering the mill, led by their husbands, and beautiful, smiling women exiting the contraption. An accompanying description claims that the mill can transform "all sorts of women, as the old, decreped, wrinkled, blear-ey'd, long-nosed, blind, lame, scolds, jealous, angry, poor, drunkerds, whores, sluts; or all others whatsoever. They shall come out of [the] mill, young, active, pleasant, handsome, wise, loving, vertuous and rich."

Widespread antipathy toward one's spouse also found expression in distasteful jokes, such as the following from The Spirit of English Wit:

To "a gentleman in the country, whose wife had the misfortune to hang herself on an apple-tree, a neighbour came in, and begged he would give him a cyon [scion] of that tree, that he might graft it upon one in his own orchard; 'for who knows,' said he, 'but it may bear the same fruit?'"

Not Your Grandparents' 'Traditional' Marriage

Those who imagine that the people of the past unfailingly adhered to stricter standards of sexual restraint and chastity might be alarmed at the frequency of shotgun marriages: A third of all brides were already pregnant at their weddings. Moreover, in England, one historian has suggested that in the 17th century, only about half of those regarded as married were actually married according to canon law (i.e., the ecclesiastical legal system). Many couples forwent a formal wedding and simply moved in together; they were treated as married under common law.

Although shotgun and informal marriages were frequent, marriages often ended in a less-than-ideal manner as well, typically with the untimely death of the husband or wife. Life in 17th century Europe was so fraught with disease, war, and accidents that most marriages ended with a spouse's early death, making remarriage and blended families far more common in the preindustrial past than today, despite what many might assume. Indeed, because life expectancy was low, couples who married in their mid- to late 20s typically had fewer than 20 years together before death ended their union. There often was no lengthy mourning period between a spouse's death and remarriage. In England, up to one-third of widows remarried, and half of them did so within a year of their husbands' passing.

The devastation wrought by the death of a spouse was worsened by sexist inheritance laws. Widows were often dependent on the sons who inherited their husbands' property for support.

Even during wedding celebrations, death was never far from our ancestors' minds. The rate of death in childbirth for medieval women was astronomical. Manchester writes: "On her wedding day, traditionally, [a bride's] mother gave her a piece of fine cloth which could be made into a frock. Six or seven years later it would become her shroud."

Still, people eked out what joy they could get from wedding celebrations. Among ordinary people, weddings were rude and raucous affairs. Olsen explains, "The guests kissed the bride, played practical jokes, sang obscene songs, and ate." When the couple withdrew to their dwelling after the ceremony, they were offered little privacy, as "outside the revelers sang dirty songs and shouted insinuations about what was going on in the bedroom." In Scotland, in a tradition called "the blackening," revelers pelted the bride and groom with rotting food, manure, and mud in preparation for the hardships of marriage.

Weddings were also occasions for alcohol abuse and physical altercations, as historian A. Lynn Martin notes in a research paper:

The anonymous author of In the Christen State of Matrimony (1543) complained that, "when they come to the preaching they are half drunk, some all together….When they come home from the church, then begins excess of eating and drinking and as much is wasted in one day as were sufficient for the two newly married folks half a year to live upon."…The amount of drink consumed was in truth gargantuan…so much wine was consumed by so many people at a wedding at Parma in 1247 that a relatively few banished men were able to seize control of the town.

The situation was no better in France. In the Auvergne region, weddings often ended with evening bouts of violence, after many hours of drunken rowdiness led to fistfights.

Physical fights were far from the only disturbing part of preindustrial weddings. The bride, and the groom for that matter, might both be children. As Manchester writes: "Females could marry…when they reached their twelfth birthday. The age for males was fourteen. Even before she had reached her teens, a girl knew that unless she married before she was twenty-one, society would consider her useless, fit only for the nunnery, or, in England, the spinning wheel (a 'spinster')." Even in the 18th century, in England, legally the groom might be as young as 14 and the bride merely 12 years old, though thankfully that was rare in practice. Early marriages did occur, however. In 1623, a London parish clerk wrote disapprovingly of the wedding of a 17-year-old boy working as a thread maker to the 14-year-old daughter of a porter, calling them a "couple of young Fooles."

People born in ordinary households at least usually had some say in whom they married and when, whereas children in elite families were frequently betrothed from preposterously young ages. Patricians typically arranged betrothals for their children soon after age 7, and in some cases as early as 3.

Following these prepubescent betrothals, marriages could take place soon after the bride reached the age of puberty. Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204) married Louis VII of France when she was 15 and he was 17. Lucrezia Borgia (1480–1519), a prominent Italian noblewoman, was married off to her first husband when she was just 13. The groom was 27. As another example, England's King John (1166–1216), the monarch who issued the Magna Carta, married Isabella of Angoulême when she was 12 years old. He was 33. In 1533, Charles V negotiated a marriage contract for his 11-year-old niece, Christina of Denmark, and a man four times her age, granting the groom the right to consummate the union immediately.

Our ancestors were not always faithful to their spouses, but the lower classes may have had a slightly cleaner record than the nobles in that regard. Among the nobility, adultery was nearly universal. In fact, Manchester claims: "Those wives in the noblesse d'épée who remained faithful to their husbands were mocked by the others. To abstain from…adultery was almost a breach of etiquette, like failing to curtsy before royalty."

Abuse, Divorce, Murder, and Wives for Sale

Formal divorce was beyond the means of most ordinary people, so marriages typically dissolved when one spouse died or through abandonment. In 18th century England, only the wealthy could afford the means to secure private acts of Parliament to obtain a divorce, a process that was both complex and extremely costly, requiring both substantial money and influence. A rather shocking (to modern sensibilities) form of divorce known as wife selling sometimes occurred among those who could not afford a formal dissolution of marriage; the Ipswich Journal records such a sale occurring in 1789:

Oct. 29, Samuel Balls sold his wife to Abraham Rade in the parish of Blythburgh in his county for 1 [shilling]. A halter was put around her neck and she was resigned up to this Abraham Rade.

Charles V was a symbol of numerous problems with preindustrial marriage: His deformed jaw was the result of consanguineous marriages in his family, and he also once negotiated a marriage contract between his 11-year-old niece and a man four times her age, granting the right to consummate the union immediately. Portrait of Emperor Charles V, c. 1514.

Such bizarre episodes offer insight into the somewhat quizzical attitude that ordinary people held toward the official marriage code, with local customs and practices varying wildly. Despite the rarity of formal legal divorce among ordinary people, marriage did not usually last long given the high rate of premature death, and it was common for someone to marry several times after being repeatedly widowed.

Many unhappy marriages turned downright abusive. Olsen says, "Domestic violence was tolerated by the courts so long as it was limited to 'moderate physical correction,' and a man could even commit his wife to an insane asylum against her will." Domestic violence was celebrated in works of popular culture such as the upbeat wife beater's anthem, "The Cooper of Fife," a traditional Scottish folk song that inspired a country dance and similar English and American folk ballads. The contrast between the lyrics, which tell a tale of domestic violence, and the song's cheerful tune is jarring to a modern listener. An abused woman's best hope was often not legal recourse, but the possibility that a male relative, neighbor, or sympathetic passerby might notice her plight and take action on her behalf. Olsen wrote: "Neighbors [sometimes] intervened when men beat their wives, shaming the abusers with public processions and chants, or simply stopping a beating, as a saddler did in 1703, telling the abusive husband, 'you shall not beat your wife.'"

Oddly enough, roving nocturnal gangs of bored, drunken young men were perhaps an abused wife's most likely defenders. Some such "youth groups," A. Roger Ekirch relates, "contributed to social control, disciplining adulterers, abusive husbands, and cuckolds for violating common morality. Often occurring at night, charivaris in France, mattinata in Italy, and 'skimmington rides' in England subjected errant neighbors to 'rough music,' mockery, and on occasion, physical abuse."

Women, for their part, were also known to engage in criminal cruelty toward their husbands, such as by lethally poisoning them. Sometimes, these murders were committed in retaliation for domestic abuse. "Aqua Tofana," which one writer called the "bottled revenge of the 17th century wife," was a poison discovered in 17th century Sicily, notoriously sold through much of Italy by women to other women seeking to discreetly end their husbands' lives. Hundreds of victims (mainly men murdered by their wives) are estimated to have perished from the colorless, odorless poison, the precise ingredients of which are today unknown. Women were also occasionally known to attack their husbands at night while the latter slept, according to Ekirch:

An abused housewife in York warned her loutish spouse that she could kill him in bed at night if she wanted. In Germany, Margaretha Craft of Hallbach slew her second husband in bed with an axe "shortly after their union," later covering with manure his severed remains in the cellar. In 1737, a Connecticut husband—perchance while snoring—received from his wife a shovel of hot embers in his gaping mouth.

Interestingly, in England and Scotland, women who killed their husbands were charged not with murder but with petty treason, for defying the "government" of their husbands.

Not all abuse amounted to murder. A church court record from 1598 in Scotland describes a woman named Margaret Schort confessing to throwing a shovel at her husband, splashing ale in his face, cursing at him, and scratching him, for which her public punishment was recommended.

Although women certainly engaged in abuse of men as well, sexist laws frequently enabled men's abuse of women. Should a woman earn money, her husband could appear at any moment and claim her earnings, which the law recognized as his property. For example, in 18th century Britain, a wife could not enter into a contract, draft a will without her husband's consent, or determine her children's education or apprenticeships. In a separation, she lost custody automatically.

With so many difficulties accompanying marriage in the premodern age, it may seem a wonder that anyone married at all. Many people didn't. Contrary to popular belief, in much of Europe, marriage was less common in the past than in modern times. A large number of people never married. Married people were only about a third of the population, compared with about 50 percent in Western Europe today. In northwestern Europe, being married was not common for most adults until well into the 17th century.

But remaining single in the preindustrial world brought its own challenges, as Olsen notes: "The life of a spinster could be a difficult one, with extended family using unattached female relatives as temporary live-in housekeepers when a wife died." In other words, marriage was often the only way that women could avoid the fate of becoming unpaid live-in housekeepers to relatives. Economic necessity thus motivated many marriages. Marrying for love only began to emerge as an ideal in the 18th century and became more and more accepted during the 19th century.

This article is adapted from The Grim Old Days by permission of the Cato Institute.

The post Wives for Sale, Poisoned Husbands, and 12-Year-Old Brides: The Grim Reality of Preindustrial Marriage appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) was the author of acclaimed works about subjects including the education of children, political philosophy, and human liberty. She is perhaps best remembered for her great pioneering book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), a key text in the rise and development of both feminism and liberal theory.

What is perhaps less remembered today is the fact that her landmark case for women's rights owed an important intellectual debt to the work of the political philosopher John Locke (1632–1704), who argued that the proper role of government was to protect humanity's preexisting natural rights.

Locke is sometimes mislabeled as a conservative by certain modern academics and pundits. But his ideas were deemed to be quite radical in their own day. And for the teenaged Mary Wollstonecraft, that Lockean radicalism was as welcome as the first taste of food after a grueling starvation.

The year was 1775 and Wollstonecraft was 15 years old. She was a brilliant and independent-minded young woman, increasingly outraged by the vile behavior of her drunk, domineering father. He abused Wollstonecraft's mother and maintained a strict, sexist hierarchy at home, favoring her brother while she was made to suffer.

It was at this low point in her life when Wollstonecraft first read Locke. Certain passages from his greatest work, The Second Treatise of Government (1689), caught hold of her mind and never really let go. A properly constituted social order "gives the husband no more power over [his wife's] life than she has over his," Locke wrote. "The power of the husband being so far from that of an absolute monarch that the wife has, in many cases, a liberty to separate from him, where natural right or their contract allows it, whether that contract be made by themselves in the state of nature, or by the customs or laws of the country they live in."

In her superb book, Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley (2015), the historian Charlotte Gordon memorably described the far-reaching effect that Locke's ideas had on the teenaged Wollstonecraft:

She had always felt that her father had no right to tyrannize her family and that the preferential treatment he and her mother bestowed on [brother] Ned was unjust. Now, after reading Locke, she had an ethical foundation for her feelings. Not only was it her right to shape her own future; it was everyone's right. In fact, Locke's social contract made protest seem the only rational response to injustice; it was humanity's obligation to overthrow tyranny.

One of the reasons why Locke is sometimes mislabeled as a conservative today is because of his writings in favor of property rights, an issue that we now associate with conservative and libertarian thinkers. But it is worth remembering that Locke's whole case for property rights began with the idea that "every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself."

Is it any wonder that Locke's radical case for self-ownership would appeal to a young woman like Wollstonecraft, who longed to break free from the sexist laws and cultural strictures that held her back? Nobody was going to convince her that she did not have a right to her own body.

We might say something similar about the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), who also drank deep from the principles of Lockean liberalism. "You are a man and so am I," Douglass wrote in his famous open letter to his former enslaver. "In leaving you, I took nothing but what belonged to me, and in no way lessened your means for obtaining an honest living. Your faculties remained yours, and mine became useful to their rightful owner." That is about as clear and effective a restatement of Lockean self-ownership principles as you are going to find.

Locke's influence on the American Revolution, particularly on Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence, is well-known. That Locke also had a key influence on both the women's rights and abolitionist movements is perhaps worthy of further remark.

The post When Mary Wollstonecraft Read John Locke appeared first on Reason Magazine.

William the Conqueror seized the English crown in 1066 by defeating King Harold at the Battle of Hastings. He then built the Tower of London to secure his power over his new domain. Construction of the central keep, the White Tower, took about 20 years. Masons came from Normandy, and stone was brought from Caen […]

The post 10 True Tales from the Tower of London’s 1,000-Year History appeared first on Listverse.

In its heyday, Route 66 was a road of opportunities and dreams. Today, it’s a highway of ghosts, a symbol of what once was, although it still attracts visitors. For Current Affairs, Jesse Wright reflects on America’s historic highway in a time of artificial intelligence, when so much land across the country is being bought up, repurposed, and turned into data centers. Wright, who traveled the road from Chicago to Santa Monica, asks: What will these massive centers leave behind?

But what is new, perhaps, is the utter absence of even having been at all. The data centers’ legacy will be nothing. Their absence will be complete. Computer hallucinations leave no room for the dreams of humans. In 100 years, there will be nothing. Nobody will want to spend their vacation touring endless rooms full of rusty server racks.

10/29/1942: Published decision in Ex Parte Quirin released. At that point, six of the saboteurs had already been electrocuted.

The post Today in Supreme Court History: October 29, 1942 appeared first on Reason Magazine.

• Oheka Castle, the second-largest private home in the US, has been sold for $72 million.
• The estate is said to have inspired "The Great Gatsby" and has been used in film and TV.
• It's also a favorite wedding venue for celebrities, such as Kevin Jonas, Megyn Kelly, and more.

If you've ever read or seen "The Great Gatsby," you know 1920s New York was home to extravagant mansions with owners who hosted lavish parties — and if you've watched "The Gilded Age," you know those parties began decades earlier in the 1870s.

And if you're a really dedicated fan, you just missed your chance to own a piece of F. Scott Fitzgerald history yourself. Oheka Castle, a sprawling, century-old estate said to have inspired the parties in "The Great Gatsby," went up for auction on October 27, via Concierge Auctions and Adam Modlin of The Modlin Group.

Its original homeowner was financier Otto Hermann Kahn, who built Oheka Castle — named after its owner (Oh-He-Ka) — in 1919 on Long Island.

Kahn's wife used to call the home "Otto's zoo," and it seemed to be an accurate description. A-listers of the time used to party at the 109,000-square-foot home, with Kahn as a Gatsby-like figure entertaining all his guests.

But Oheka's journey didn't end there. After Kahn's death in 1934, the property changed hands numerous times until it was abandoned in the '80s. Fires, vandalism, and theft devastated it.

According to Oheka Castle, land developer Gary Melius then purchased the estate and spent $40 million restoring it to its former glory. He defaulted on a loan over a decade ago, Forbes reported, and declared bankruptcy in July 2025 to forestall what happened this week: Oheka on the auction block.

Per Concierge Auction, seven bidders were competing for Oheka, but the eventual winner, Gold Coast Property & Estate Management LLC, is set to pay $72 million for the property, pending approval. The sale also includes a pre-approved plan to build a four-story condo building.

"This sale marks an exciting next chapter for Oheka and an opportunity for its next owner to preserve that legacy while bringing a new vision to the estate," said Modlin.

Today, Oheka is the second-largest private home in the US, behind only the Biltmore House in North Carolina. It's a popular venue for weddings, a restaurant, and a hotel, and has been featured in movies, TV shows, and music videos. Taylor Swift even filmed the "Blank Space" video there.

You can also tour the grounds for $30. I took the tour in April 2024 and was astonished by the beauty of Oheka Castle. Here's what it was like to visit.

Oheka Castle was built in 1919 by German-American financier Otto Hermann Kahn.

He spent about $11 million, or about $213 million in today's currency, to build Oheka on 443 acres of land in West Hills, New York.

Oheka Castle has seen a lot in its 100-plus years, and for anyone who wants to learn more, tours are offered twice daily.

So, I decided to visit. All I knew about Oheka was that Kevin Jonas got married there and Taylor Swift filmed the "Blank Space" music video there.

But Oheka has a rich history. I learned all about it on a beautiful afternoon in April 2024.

When you drive to the entryway, it's a bit intimidating. There's someone working the gate who must let you in.

Then comes a long driveway. I felt like I was going back in time to the Gilded Age.

My first look at the main house was astounding — and yes, I mean house. Oheka Castle is the second-largest private residence in the US.

It's also on the National Register of Historic Places. It was added in September 2004.

When Kahn built this house, he had three requirements: He wanted to be high up, he wanted a view of the water, and he needed the house to be fireproof.

His previous house in New Jersey had burned down. Oheka, in contrast, is built largely out of stone.

I went inside and waited in front of a grand staircase with the rest of my group for our tour to begin.

When it began, we saw photos of how the house looked before its current owner restored it. We'd learn more about this later.

The first room we entered was this beautiful entryway with a mural of the sky on the ceiling.

The house itself is 112,895 square feet today and has 127 rooms.

Many of the rooms are dedicated to showing off the home's history, like the Chaplin Room.

Charlie Chaplin was just one of the many '20s A-listers who hung out at Oheka. This photo shows Chaplin (right) with Kahn (center) and actor Douglas Fairbanks (left).

In fact, according to my tour guide, Jay Gatsby's wild parties in "The Great Gatsby" were inspired by what was going down at Oheka in the '20s.

This was Kahn's wife Adelaide's favorite room. Adelaide wasn't as big of an entertainer as her husband, but this sunny room was perfect for guests.

This ballroom is the only room that's not original to Kahn's time inside Oheka today.

But as you can see from the ballroom's windows, Oheka met Kahn's requirement for a view of the water. He used to dock his yacht there.

Kahn, who was Jewish, also built a golf course on his property — country clubs at the time wouldn't admit Jewish people or allow them to play.

After Kahn's death in 1934, the property was shuffled between owners. From 1948 to 1979, it was the Eastern Military Academy.

During those days, what is now the breakfast room was used as a gym.

From that room, we made our way to this huge library.

A portrait of Kahn hung above the fireplace.

Our final stop on the first floor was this room, which also houses a bar. Press clippings about Oheka adorned the walls.

Among the displayed articles was Danielle and Kevin Jonas' wedding spread in People. They got married at the estate in 2009.

Then we went upstairs to check out the hotel and bridal suite.

The bridal suite, which is on the fourth floor, opens with this mural-covered entryway.

A beautiful open room with windows allows wedding parties to take in the view of Oheka's well-manicured grounds.

The gardens at Oheka are breathtaking from above.

Here's the main bedroom of the bridal suite.

The primary bathroom has a bathtub and a shower.

Then it was time to check out the gardens — and to learn what happened to Oheka.

When the Eastern Military Academy went bankrupt and vacated its premises in 1979, Oheka was left abandoned.

Residents who lived nearby were concerned about vandalism. One neighbor even took this statue for safekeeping and returned it when Oheka was restored in the '80s.

Land developer Gary Melius purchased Oheka in 1984 and spent $40 million restoring it to its former glory.

The gardens were originally designed by the Olmsted Brothers, best known for helping with Central Park.

Melius used those original sketches to restore Oheka.

These statues were tracked down at an auction and are thought to date back to the Renaissance.

Now, it's a beautiful wedding venue, hotel, restaurant, and home — Melius keeps an apartment on the third floor.

As I left the grounds, I got one more look at the restaurant and its courtyard.

I would highly recommend taking a tour of Oheka. As I viewed its stunning surroundings and learned about its unique history, I felt like I was traveling back in time.

Editor's Note: This story was originally published in September 2026 and most recently updated in October 2026.