ABSTRACT
Marriage was an important issue in guardianships because it was a crucial building block for noble families. This chapter argues that although their own marriages and the marriages of their wards could be a burden for female guardians, the responsibility of contracting marriage alliances put female guardians at the heart of noble family strategy, giving them the power to make decisions that would shape the future of an entire lineage. Early modern Spanish nobles struggled with the same issues that other nobles across Europe did as “they sought husbands for their daughters (and wives for their sons) who would be both socially, economically, and emotionally satisfactory mates for their children and collaborators for their family.”1 Marriage was an important political and economic alliance for noble families and a key component in family strategies that extended over several generations. The percentage of nobles who married in early modern Spain was high, with 88 percent of men and 86 percent of women marrying in the fifteenth century among the nobility of Extremedura and Córdoba and 85 percent of men and 91 percent of women in the nobility around Seville.2 Late medieval and early modern Europe saw a trend toward increasingly elaborate marriage contracts that “were designed to guarantee the stability of a match in which both families had a heavy investment.”3
