Single men and manhood in early modern England, 1650-1750

This thesis explores the social experiences and cultural depictions of single men in early modern England. The existing historiography of masculinity has established that multiple concepts of manhood existed in the early modern period, but the socio-cultural importance associated with marriage has served to obfuscate single men and their gendered identities. This thesis de-centres marriage to understand both the practice and representation of bachelors and widowers in the period 1650 to 1750.

Applying quantitative and qualitative methodologies, each chapter uses a different type of source to explore how single men accessed manhood and the form their manhood took. Demographic data from tax returns, probate and testamentary records, life-writing from diaries and autobiographies, and descriptions of male singleness in prescriptive and non-prescriptive printed literature are analysed to provide a more complete picture of male singleness.

While singleness was represented negatively in print, assuming that bachelors and widowers rejected normal social and family life, this thesis will show that in reality, single men were well-integrated into society. The disparity between depiction and practice will be addressed by demonstrating single men’s investment in the processes associated with the attainment of patriarchal manhood, such as heading a household. Crucially, the following work does not examine single men in isolation, instead it reintegrates them into their kin and non-kin networks. It will be argued that these relationships were strongly affective, allowing single men to cultivate positions of domestic, familial, and social authority upheld by the obedience of others. Ultimately, this demonstrates that bachelors and widowers alike could possess patriarchal manhood equivalent to that of married men. A reduced emphasis on marriage therefore highlights the importance of domestic and family life in establishing an individual’s reputation as a man, ultimately enriching the historian’s understanding of the operation of manhood in early modern England.