In the early years of marriage (c. 1586–1611) Hester Temple's time and energy presumably were consumed by, on the one hand, bearing children and caring for them, and, on the other, managing an ever-growing household. One historian has gone so far as to say that ‘Maternity was seen as the essence of the role of wife.’ Certainly for many years Hester was perpetually pregnant and we should be aware of this as we consider her activities during these years. Yet to these early years of her marriage belongs Hester's first will – a signal of her consciousness of herself as an individual with possessions of her own, as well as of herself as daughter, wife and mother. Her will contained a highly personal preamble, a definite wish to be buried next to her ‘good hosband’ Thomas, bequests that prescribe precisely where she wanted her possessions to go on her death (including not insubstantial portions of money to each of her then eleven surviving children), and a declaration that she had ‘wret it all with my oune hande and have sete to my hande: and my selle of Armes’. Moreover, her husband wrote at the bottom of this will his intention to execute her wishes. And other evidence points to a housewife and mother who for a long time also had roles outside the walls of her house. This is an area not often discussed by scholars, who have assumed that a wife's responsibilities lay inside her house.

Hester Temple's management of her jointure estates, c. 1586–1628

One of Hester's major preoccupations, assisting in the arrangement of her children's marriages, is discussed in more detail below. Historians have long known that the women of a family and especially widowed mothers were engaged in making marriages. In 1897 Lady Newdigate-Newdegate drew attention to Anne Fytton Newdegate's attempts to find matches for her son, John. Modern studies of match- and marriage-making have illuminated our knowledge of the subject and of married women's part in it.

No formal prior settlement exists for the Temples’ own marriage. Nevertheless, it is possible to piece together parts of the agreement from the books of entail made after marriage had occurred.