The knight servant officially and publicly fulfilled the role of escort to a married lady. Study of this kind of triangular marriage, typical of, but not exclusive to, the Italian nobility of the eighteenth century, expands our knowledge of the history of the family and of relations between the sexes. There are indeed close links between this social phenomenon and the strategies families used to consolidate wealth and position, as well as the increase in celibacy and the various modes of gallantry that became very common during the Age of Enlightenment. Questions concerning matrimonial fidelity and legitimacy of offspring helped build a negative image of Italian morals. In the first half of the nineteenth century the patriotic leaders of the Risorgimento reacted against this image, openly condemning a way of life already compromised by the arrival of romantic and revolutionary ideas in Italy.