On 26 June 1703, Ferdinando Maria Nicoli from Bologna wrote in a letter to Carriera:

Nicoli's words convey a form of recognition quite in keeping with the tradition of artistic competition. Coming from Bologna, home of the and highly regarded painter Guido Reni (1575–1642), this comparison was doubly flattering to Carriera. Yet Nicoli touches on the artist's celibacy, an aspect of her private life that was often a topic of discussion among her contemporaries and biographers. Not only did Carriera's resolute choice mean swimming against current conventions as well as finding a role and an identity for a social group not officially acknowledged to exist, but it also entailed renouncing the predefined role of the wife who receives financial and social support, and protection from her husband. It was a decision that carried along with it certain threats.

As Adrienne Ward has stated, even with fathers present,

It is worthwhile examining not only the consequences but also the possible reasons behind Carriera's decision not to enter into marriage, and to take a closer look at the social network which she constructed for herself to compensate for the loss of the system that excluded her as a single woman.

As in her career, Carriera chose independence in her private life, remaining alone and never marrying. It was a choice that made her part of a tiny minority of the society she lived in. Fewer than 10 per cent of eighteenth-century women remained spinsters. Nevertheless, among the group of female artists she took on a quite representative role as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries produced a striking number of female painters who also remained unmarried, such as Giovanna Garzoni (1600–1670), Chiara Varotari (1600–1660), Maria van Oosterwijck (1630–1693), Elisabetta Sirani and Giulia Lama, to name just a few.