Female Rituals and the Politics of the New York Marriage Market in the Late Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This article reevaluates the role of society women in the late nineteenth century in the formalization of New York's high society and in shaping class identity. In doing so, it takes issue with studies that have regarded this period in New York's social history as aberrational and, instead, evaluates women's involvement in the marriage market as a determined attempt to modulate the merger of rival elites and bring stability to a metropolitan society disrupted by urbanization, industri alization, and demographic growth. It argues that female social leaders complied with, and reinforced, the dominant male class structure while at the same time expanding their participation in a public social life and enhancing their status within the family.