Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a part of the Agora Podcast Network.

I'm your host, Heather Tesco, and I'm a storyteller who makes history accessible

because I believe it's a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe,

and being more deeply in touch with our own humanity.

This is episode 162, and it's an episode for Jess, who contributed to the Tudor Planner Indiegogo last year.

Her contribution level got her her own personal episode. And given that she's getting married this year,

she wanted an episode on Tudor Weddings. And it's just the perfect time of year to talk about

Tudor Weddings, isn't it? So just as a side admin note, the Tudor

planner did sell out for 2021, but in a few months, I'll be doing the Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign

for the 2022 printing costs. So you can get in on that to make sure you aren't disappointed this time

next year when you're thinking, man, I wish I had a tutor planner to write my

appointments in because hopefully by that point we will all be having more appointments in person.

So Jess, thank you so much for your contribution. Congratulations on your wedding. And hopefully we

we will all meet at TudorCon later this year. So Tudor Weddings, I've done some episodes on courtship and valentines and that stuff, but I don't think I've

ever done an episode specifically looking at weddings.

Let's talk about marriage generally, shall we?

First off, in the 21st century, we have this sort of post-Victorian romantic ideal about marriage, which our

tutor friends would not have shared with us. Marriages were essentially economic contracts,

and because life expectancy was shorter for various reasons, including maternal mortality,

say that 10 times fast, and war and sickness, the idea of a single lifelong marriage was unusual.

Most people would have married several times for shorter periods, especially the upper classes

who married younger. Three or four marriages was not uncommon. When a woman died, leaving a man a widower,

...