‘She is but a girl’

This exploration of litigation involving marriage and defamation indicates the ways in which early modern witnesses expressed ideas about young women within the institutional venue of England’s ecclesiastical courts. The archival evidence describes relationships interrupted and fractured by charges of sexual and social misbehaviour, demonstrates the ability of young women to mount spirited objections to family matrimonial strategies, and reveals voices of young female servants offering opinions on the actions and words of the surrogate families of masters and mistresses. Witness testimony illuminates the legal, social, and cultural expectations of and for young women as they passed through an identifiable stage between childhood and maturity.