Courtship, Love, and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century English Canada

Courtship, love, and marriage are seen today as very private affairs, and historians have generally concluded that after the late eighteenth century young people began to enjoy great autonomy in courtship and decisions about marriage. Peter Ward disagrees with this conclusion and argues that freedom in nineteenth-century English Canada was constrained by an intricate social, institutional, and familial framework which greatly influenced the behaviour of young couples both before and after marriage.