nd the women who married peers or younger sons is a problematic one. . . . The heiress stereotype is more important in indicating the concerns and preoccupations of those who held the stereotype than in giving us any accurate representation of the women to whom it refers (243).
Accordingly, Montgomery says that one of her goals is to correct the historical record, to show that these women were not the shallow, rich, insignificant creatures portrayed in both literature and historical accounts of the period. In that regard, the work has a decidedly feminist bent. This does not mean her biases have produced a slanted report. To the contrary, her study is well-reasoned and cannot be seen as a piece of feminist revisionist propaganda in any way. The author seeks merely to provide some balance to the historical view of these women and their roles in both American and British society in the period under study.
Socioeconomic conditions in both countries encouraged such marriages. Both the social class out of which these wealthy women emerged, and the British class into which they entered to marry were classes which saw great benefit in such marriages. All parties in these classes sought to increase not merely their wealth but just as importantly their social status. Montgomery also explores the historical forces at work, particularly in the United States, which was undergoing tremendous changes after the Civil War:
The democratic political system was not accompanied by a democratic social system in the United States, and this became particularly apparent after the Civil War when the accumulation of large fortunes undermined the principle behind divided inheritance. . . . The rise in transatlantic marriages belongs to the period when the amassing of great fortunes was creating a fast-expanding class o
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