Constructing Families: Associative Networks in the Seventeenth-century Cases of Mary and Katherine Hampson

Wills and other evidence related to the married Mary Hampson and her sister-in-law the never married Katherine Hampson place each within associative networks and detail their financial and emotional situations throughout their lives. Mary Hampson’s printed autobiography and legal documents detailing years of marital abuse reveal the loss of her small fortune and her financial destitution that contributed to her inability to maintain her familial and class associations. In contrast, her sister-in-law the never married Katherine Hampson died possessed of wealth that increased dramatically under her financial management. Katherine Hampson’s detailed will illustrates a complex associative network that reveals her familial connectedness and emotional well-being throughout her life. The cases of these two women challenge normative conceptions of the relationship between marital status and financial, social, and emotional stability in early modern England.