Marriage and Family
James Monroe married Elizabeth Kortright Monroe (1768–1830), daughter of Laurence Kortright and Hannah Aspinwall Kortright, on February 16, 1786, in New York City. He had met her while serving with the Continental Congress, which then met in New York, the temporary capital of the new nation. After a brief honeymoon on Long Island, New York, the Monroes returned to New York City to live with her father until Congress adjourned. The Monroes had the following children:
- Eliza Monroe (1786–1835) – married George Hay in 1808 and substituted for her ailing mother as official White House hostess for her father's presidential events.
- James Spence Monroe (1799–1801) – his grave reads "J.S. Monroe", so the proper names are speculative but typical of naming patterns of the time, which passed on family names.
- Maria Hester Monroe (1803–1850) – married her cousin Samuel L. Gouverneur on March 8, 1820, in the first wedding of a president's child in the White House.
Read more about this topic: James Monroe
Famous quotes containing the words marriage and/or family:
“Only one marriage I regret. I remember after I got that marriage license I went across from the license bureau to a bar for a drink. The bartender said, “What will you have, sir?” And I said, “A glass of hemlock.””
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“In the U.S. for instance, the value of a homemaker’s productive work has been imputed mostly when she was maimed or killed and insurance companies and/or the courts had to calculate the amount to pay her family in damages. Even at that, the rates were mostly pink collar and the big number was attributed to the husband’s pain and suffering.”
—Gloria Steinem (20th century)