Customarily wives brought their husbands a substantial dowry, which the husband managed as another family resource. In fact, however, husbands were not free to do as they wished. If nothing else, they faced the powerful obligation to return the dowry and other uxorial property at the end of the marriage (generally by death of a spouse). They could even see a wife claim back her dowry during marriage on the grounds of mismanagement by the husband. The shared economy of the household could fracture, although a wife's claim might also have precluded claims and loss of property to outsiders. The legal problems were evident, and jurists were largely intent on protecting spousal rights.

Chapter 7 explores what happened after the marriage was agreed. It looks first at the planning of the wedding festivities: the buying of a dress and the preparation of the wedding meal. The second section of the chapter, explores relationships between husbands and wives and the different ways in which patriarchy was expressed. To what extent did husbands exercise their authority under the laws of church and state to control their wife’s behaviour?What evidence is there that husbands were aware of their status as heads of household and anxious to enforce it? It is impossible to generalise about the implications for marital relations of large numbers of children but large, crowded households are, nonetheless, a constant throughout the period covered by the volume.There can be no generalising either about intimate relationships between married couples.Emotions shaped such relationships as clearly as economics and status did.Emotions might be expressed in words, in letters, but within an intimate life they find expression also in gesture, touch, in looks and in the more practical realms of support and care to be found in intimate relationship.