Why an English duchess, not a French countess, or some other kind of European nobility?
1895 was the time when the sun never set on the British Empire and English dukes were very much at the center of national power, unlike the French or German aristocracy. English duchesses, by extension, had a well-defined and absorbing role. At least that was Alva’s opinion. It’s often noted that when young women get married and their mothers are excessively involved in the wedding arrangements, what they mothers are really doing is giving themselves the wedding they would like to have had, not the wedding their daughter really wants. Would it be fair to say that was the case with Alva? Why? I’m absolutely certain that this match and this wedding was exactly what Alva would have wanted for herself. It was Alva who felt deeply the exclusion from power and influence of the rich American wife, not Consuelo, who after all, was only 18. It was Alva who was passionately interested in living in palatial houses — she had already built several herself with William K. Vanderbilt’s money. It was
