Tuesday Tidbits: HAPPY WEDDING DAY!!!

A wedding is one of the happiest days of a person’s life. At least for most people, but arranged marriages are something that has been going on since the beginning of time. The thought of arranged marriages doesn’t sit well with me. Some of these are purely to benefit the parents. While others are the parents genuinely trying to look out for their children’s future. I found the first recorded arranged marriage.

“Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.” Genesis 2:22

Yep, Adam and Eve was the first arranged marriage. If anyone would know the absolute best people to arrange a marriage between, it is God Almighty. Others in the Bible had arranged marriages as well.

Royalty has a long history of arranging marriages. You couldn’t let just anyone into the royal family. Sometimes these arrangements are for political alliances and empire building. Some of them were arranged from birth. Mary Queen of Scots was five when the arrangement was made for her to marry France’s King Henry II’s son.

Another group of arranged marriages were the “Dollar Princesses.” These were generally new-money American heiresses post Civil War and into the early 1900s. The British nobility were struggling financially. To boost the new-money families in American society, they made arrangements with titled men (or their families) to be married. There were even magazines listing the available heiresses and titled men to help make matches.

Some well-known Dollar Princesses are Jennie Jerome, the mother of Winston Churchill who became a British Prime Minister, Frances Ellen Work who was the great-grandmother Princess Diana, and Consuelo Vanderbilt who spent the morning of her wedding alone and in tears. My heart goes out to these women and others who are forced to marry.

Some cultures still ascribe to arranging marriages for their children. I am grateful and blessed to not be in one of them. As a romantic and a romance writer, I prefer the falling in love angle. I have been married for over 38 years! And counting!

Though my hero and heroine, Lamar and Cordelia in book 5 of The Quilting Circle series, aren’t being forced into an arranged marriage in the truest sense of the practice, they are being strongly encouraged. Unlike in book 2, where Isabelle was being forced.

But worry not, they both have happy endings for couples.

THE LADY’S MISSION (Quilting Circle 5)

Will Cordelia abandon her calling for love? Cordelia Armstrong wants nothing more than to escape the social norms for her station in society. Unless she can skillfully maneuver her father into giving up control of her trust fund, she might have to concede defeat—as well as her freedom—and marry. Every time Lamar Kesner finds a fascinating lady, her heart belongs to another. When a vapid socialite is offered up as a prospective bride, he contemplates flying off in his hot air balloon instead. Is Lamar the one to finally break the determination of Cordelia’s parents to marry her off? Or will this charming bachelor fly away with her heart?

 

Available for order on Amazon. (Releases October 5, 2022)

 

MARY DAVIS, bestselling, award-winning novelist, has over thirty titles in both historical and contemporary themes. Her latest release is THE DÉBUTANTE'S SECRET (Quilting Circle 4) THE DAMSEL’S INTENT (Quilting Circle 3) is a Selah Award Winner. Some of her other recent titles include; The Widow’s Plight, The Daughter's Predicament, “Zola’s Cross-Country Adventure” in The MISSAdventure Brides Collection , Prodigal Daughters Amish series, and "Bygones" in Thimbles and Threads. She is a member of ACFW and active in critique groups.

Mary lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband of thirty-seven years and one cat. She has three adult children and three incredibly adorable grandchildren. Find her online at:

 Books2Read  Newsletter  Blog   FB  FB Readers Group   Amazon   GoodReads   BookBub