Fragmented Identities: Marriage and Community in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia

In 1730 Philadelphians lived in a geographically compact, ethnically and denominationally diverse city in which they formed homogenous communities and social networks through intra-marriage.  In order to preserve their cultural heritage, migrants consciously maintained their own churches, schools and language, and insisted that their children only marry others of the same ethnic and religious background.  A couple’s marriage choice became a reflection of their greater communities, whether in affirming or renouncing its desires. Marriage was, in fact, the creation of the most voluntary intimate relationship and network, and therefore designed the culture of the communities.

However, in the forty-five years until the Revolution, Philadelphians increasingly inter-married with other ethnic and denominational groups.  These marriages did not reflect a slow acculturation, or move towards pluralism, or even increasingly rebelliousness of American born children; instead they reflected the political and social upheavals that altered attitudes towards different ethnicities and denominations.  From 1740 to 1745 rates of inter-ethnic marriage increased 15 percent, a reflection of the increased ties between ethnicities that shared spiritual views during the Great Awakening.  From 1745 to 1755 inter-marriage decreased 5 percent in response to the end of the revival and the resurgence of ethnic migrants.  Inter-ethnic marriages in Philadelphia oscillated between 10 percent and 40 percent from 1710 to 1765 in response to migration, the Great Awakening, and the French and Indian War.  My paper emphasizes the relationship between community identity and socio-political events as reflected in the changing pattern of inter-ethnic marriages.  It also challenges notions of marriage as a reflection of personal or solely economic attitudes, and places urban marriages as distinctly different from rural marriages.