On January 29, 1894, when Kaʻiulani was nineteen, Liliʻuokalani wrote asking her to consider marrying either Prince David Kawānanakoa, Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, or an unnamed Japanese prince (then studying in London). She reminded her, "To you then depends the hope of the Nation and unfortunately we cannot always do as we like." It took five months for Kaʻiulani to respond to Liliʻuokalani's suggestion. In a June 22, 1894, letter Kaʻiulani asserted that she would prefer to marry for love unless it was necessary stating, "I feel it would be wrong if I married a man I did not love." Based on personal letters and letters by her friends, many suitors courted Kaʻiulani while she resided in England and Europe. Prior to her return to Hawaii in November 1897, Kaʻiulani confided in her friend Toby de Courcy that she would have to end her courtship with one of her "young men" because there was an arranged marriage waiting for her in Hawaii. She further hinted that the union, approved by her father and Theo H. Davies, was being kept secret for political reasons. She lamented, "I must have been born under an unlucky star as I seem to have my life planned out for me in such a way that I cannot alter it." Historian Marilyn Stassen-McLaughlin and biographer Sharon Linnea could not identify the gentleman behind the secret union from the primary sources, but conjectured it was Kawānanakoa because he was the only likely candidate for a political union after Kūhiō had married in 1896.