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.
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Famous quotes containing the words marriage and/or family:
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“True spoiling is nothing to do with what a child owns or with amount of attention he gets. he can have the major part of your income, living space and attention and not be spoiled, or he can have very little and be spoiled. It is not what he gets that is at issue. It is how and why he gets it. Spoiling is to do with the family balance of power.”
—Penelope Leach (20th century)