After a visit in the north of England with her father and sisters,
Elizabeth received proposals of marriage from Mr. Joseph Fry of London.
His family, also Quakers, were wealthy and of good position; but for
some time Elizabeth seemed to hesitate about entering on married life.
Far from looking on marriage as the goal of her ambition, as is the
fashion with many young women, she was divided in her mind as to the
relative advantages of single and married life, as they might affect
philanthropic and religious work. After consultation with her friends,
however, the offer was accepted, and on August 19th, 1800, when she was
little more than twenty years of age, she was married to Mr. Fry, in the
Friends' Meeting House, at Norwich. Very quickly after bidding her
school-children farewell, Mrs. Fry proceeded to St. Mildred's Court,
London, her husband's place of business, where she commenced to take up
the first duties of wedded life, and where several of her children were
born.

The family into which she married was a Quaker family of the strictest
order. So far from being singular by her orthodoxy of manners and
appearance, she was, in the midst of the Frys, "the gay, instead of the
plain and scrupulous one of the family." For a little time she
experienced some difficulty in reconciling her accustomed habits with
the straight tenets of her husband's household and connections, but in
the end succeeded. It seems singular that one so extremely conscientious
as Elizabeth Fry, should have been considered to fall behindhand in that
self-denying plainness of act and speech which characterized others; but
so it was. And so determined was she to serve God according to her
light, that no mortification of the flesh was counted too severe
provided it would further the great end she had in view. Her extreme
conscientiousness became manifest in lesser things; such, for instance,