ABSTRACT
So far, we have dealt with the reasons for the growing numbers of Americans coming to London after 1870, the possible motives of Americans in marrying into the British peerage, and the hostility of their reception in Britain, which has been related to the opening up of the British upper class and the pressures within the marriage market on the supply of eligible aristocratic husbands. In this part of the book, which is central to the approach adopted in this study of transatlantic marriages, we will focus on the nature of the response to Americans marrying into the British peerage. The cliché of title for money and the stereotypes of the impoverished peer and the American heiress clearly point to an anxiety about the financial aspects of these marriages. Even in the United States, the most publicized feature of Anglo-American alliances was the dowry and later the money spent on entertainments in British society. But the type of derogatory allegation made about titled Americans was not exclusively connected with money, although the concern about commercialism was often at the root of other criticisms. The alleged sterility of upper-class American women, for example, was tied into the debate about the obsession of Americans with conspicuous consumption. What is perhaps the most fascinating feature of dealing with the reactions to transatlantic marriages is the way in which they feed into the various aspects of life causing anxiety amongst the British social elite, i.e. the lowering of social barriers, the growing commercialism of the Season, the shortage of aristocratic males in the marriage market, the displacement of the landed elite from its position of social prominence by those with superior financial resources, and the effect of allegedly barren women on the future of the peerage. The reactions indicate an elite which 112was highly defensive about the erosion of its social, economic, and political power, and all of these combined into what was at times a fiercely nationalistic sentiment.
