Little scholarly analysis has been devoted to the hypothesis that antebellum Texas women generally married within their own socioeconomic (slaveholding) class, and thus had only limited choice in the selection of marriage partners. This quantitatively based investigation suggests that the popular image should be carefully qualified. This study reveals that although a majority of Texas women who married during the early 1850s chose men who had the same slaveholding status, a significant minority crossed class lines. By using marriage records of the period in correlation with information gleaned from the census, conclusions were reached. Contemporary women's diaries, letters and reminiscences were investigated, in addition to a historiography of marriage in the South, which created the background for this study.

Map showing "Trammel's Trace," the first road from the north (present-day Arkansas) into Texas, used around 1800. It includes notations for abandoned settlements, modern cities, and Caddo villages documented from 1800 to 1840, as well as other historic roads used at the time of Trammel's Trace.