From the few letters that do survive it is apparent that her education was slender, though no more so than that of most women of her day even in the upper class.

She had a fondness for phonetic spelling, and her verbs and subjects often indulged in family wrangles.

She seems to have been conscious of her deficiencies in this direction or at least to have disliked writing, for not infrequently the General acted as her amanuensis.

But she was well trained in social and domestic accomplishments, could dance and play on the spinet--in short, was brought up a "gentlewoman." That she must in youth have possessed charm of person and manners is indicated by her subjugation of Daniel Parke Custis, a man of the world and of much greater fortune than herself, and by her later conquest of Washington, for, though it be admitted in the latter case that George may not have objected to her fortune, we can not escape the conclusion that he truly loved her.
In fact, the match seems to have been ideally successful in every respect except one.

The contracting parties remained reasonably devoted to each other until the end and though tradition says that Martha would sometimes read George a curtain lecture after they had retired from company, there remains no record of any serious disagreement.