Eventually Thomas Jefferson did find a woman to marry him, and we are meant to believe that the marriage of nearly eleven years was a happy one because of the many children born (six, though only two lived to adulthood) and Jefferson went into a period of deep grief after Martha died. But ultimately we know very little about their courtship or marriage because, like Martha Washington, Jefferson burned all their correspondence after the death of his spouse.
Knowing Jefferson's comfort with patriarchy and misogyny, it is likely that if the marriage was happy, it is because Martha, a widow, had already grown accustomed to a woman's domesticated place as wife, meant to help maintain the household and manage the calm and self-control of her husband. We know that Martha was skilled at managing the Jefferson's farm but was unlikely to be publicly or politically active. Indeed, record books indicate that she could order linen or the slaughter of pigs with authority, but there exists only a single example of her taking on a public role – assisting, at the request of Martha Washington, in a fund-raising campaign to support the Continental Army. It seems unlikely, had she survived, that Martha Jefferson would have been as talented a hostess as Martha Washington or as opinionated and vocal a First Lady as Abigail Adams.*
*This insight came initially from just a reading of Kukla's chapter on Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. Supplemented by the primary source quotes from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation website, https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/martha-wayles-skelton-jefferson, it seems probable that, while perhaps not overly or overtly political, Mrs. Jefferson was a talented and comfortable entertainer. (She was a Southern lady, afterall.)
