Washington: A Life

by Ron Chernow

The marriage thrived even though Martha and George lacked children. Many theories have been advanced to explain this barren marriage. Martha may have sustained injury during the birth of Patsy, her final child, making additional births impossible. Some scholars have speculated that George’s early bout of smallpox or some other disease left him infertile. We know that George Washington didn’t think he was sterile, because, in writing once to a nephew, he stated that if Martha died and he remarried, he “probably” wouldn’t have children, but only because he would marry a woman suitable to his age—obviously implying that he could have children with a younger woman.28 The historic stress on the childless marriage has obscured the fact that the Washingtons, far from being lonely, were always surrounded by children. In the early years at Mount Vernon, there were Jacky and Patsy Custis and then, in later years, two of Jacky’s children, plus assorted other young relatives, perhaps numbering a dozen orphaned youngsters in all. This childless couple ran a household teeming with high-spirited children, which may have been their way of filling a perceived void.