Here's a 19th-century take on how an early 18th-century young woman might
make a case for herself as a catch, from Thackeray's The History of
Henry Esmond:
"I cannot toil, neither can I spin, but I can play twenty-three games on
the cards. I can dance the last dance, I can hunt the stag, and I think I
could shoot flying. I can talk as wicked as any woman of my years, and
know enough stories to amuse a sulky husband for at least one thousand and
one nights. I have a pretty taste for dress, diamonds, gambling, and old
china. I love sugar plums, Malines lace (that you brought me, cousin, is
very pretty), the opera, and everything that is useless and costly. I
have got a monkey and a little black boy—Pompey, sir, go and give a
dish
of chocolate to Colonel Graveairs—and a parrot and a spaniel, and I
must
have a husband."