A History of the Wife (32 page)

WIVES IN THE SOUTH

The midcentury women’s rights movement associated with Stanton was primarily a Northern concept, though most Northern men and women either ignored or opposed it. And most Southerners resisted it because it threatened one of their charter beliefs: that women were essentially frail and decorous creatures destined to be dependent on men. The fear of independent, educated, “unsexed” women expressed itself over and over again in the antebellum South. George Fitzhugh, a noted spokesman for women’s subordination (as well as for slavery) argued that as long as woman “is nervous, fickle, capricious, delicate, diffident, and dependent, man will worship and adore her. Her weak- ness is her strength, and her true art is to cultivate and improve that weakness.” And he concluded: “We men of the South infinitely prefer to nurse a sickly woman to being led around by a blue stocking.”
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(It is a mark of change that such a statement would seem ridiculous to a man today.)

In general, Southern women accepted their dependence on men. They had learned the lessons imprinted on them by their families, their religions, and the mass media. In 1855, Gertrude Thomas wrote in her journal that she thanked God for her husband’s masterliness, which “suits my woman’s nature, for true to my sex, I delight
in looking up
and love to feel my woman’s weakness protected by man’s superior

strength.” Catherine Edmondston worried that she was stepping out of her sphere by wanting to publish her poems and had to remind herself: “Well obedience is a wife’s first duty.” Marie Howard Schoolcraft pointed to the State of South Carolina with pride because “all the ladies
there
are brought up to be obedient to their husbands”—unlike North- ern women with their concern for women’s rights.
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Southern girls were educated for the roles of wife, mother, and mis- tress of the house. Parents, churches, schools, books, and magazines all pointed young ladies in the direction of the altar. Virginia Randolph Cary, who wrote a book of advice for girls in 1828, supported female education, but only insofar as it prepared women for their didactic mis- sion within the home: “I do most ardently desire to see women highly cultivated in mind and morals, and yet content to remain within the retirement of the family circle.”
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The new seminaries and colleges rarely departed from the kind of education deemed appropriate for a marriageable middle-class girl: grammar, spelling, handwriting, arithmetic, geography, foreign lan- guages (usually French), and such accomplishments as needlework, drawing, and music. In the Southern women’s colleges founded in the 1830s and 1840s, education was fashioned to fulfill male expectations for an ideal wife. Young women were constantly reminded of the dan- gers of “unsexing” themselves by acquiring too much learning and developing aspirations that did not suit their “place.” As expressed in a commencement address at a female college in Georgia in 1857: “You are here the beloved and honored co-equal companion of man. You can remain so long as you fill... the place which God and nature have allotted you.” Another commencement speaker at a different women’s institution reminded the young ladies, “A woman ought not to speak what she pleased, because, if common reputation were true, she some- times spoke too fast, too much, and too strong, and that whatever she said that did not prove true, her husband had to answer for either by fight or by law.”
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Since Southern couples prior to the Civil War (like Northern cou- ples) were still governed by eighteenth-century English common law, as codified by Blackstone, a husband did indeed have to “answer for” his wife’s conduct. If she let her tongue go too far, he might have to defend her against charges of slander—a common legal complaint in seventeenth and eighteenth century America that lingered on in

notions of Victorian propriety. While sharp-tongued “scolds” were no longer punished by having to sit in the “ducking stool,” a contraption that repeatedly plunged its victims in water until they retracted their accusations, women—or rather their husbands—could be stiffly fined. The wife’s person, her property, and her children were all in the custody of her husband and were his responsibility.

A remarkable study of antebellum women in Georgia, written by Eleanor Miot Boatwright in the 1930s and published only recently, provides us with an in-depth picture of courtship, marriage, and many other aspects of Southern womanhood. Marriage was for most Georgia women the only acceptable status. “Old maids” were proverbial objects of mockery and disdain, at best ignored or tolerated in the household of a relative. Few women were bold enough to remain sin- gle by choice, and most felt that any husband was better than none. Girls began to accumulate a hope chest at an early age, and it was not uncommon for them to marry as early as fourteen and fifteen. If she were still single at twenty, a young woman was considered a “stale maid.” Still, the chances of finding a husband were generally good, since between 1790 and 1860 men outnumbered women both in Georgia and in the entire United States.
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(The Civil War slaughter of over 600,000 men in the battlefields would tilt that ratio in the oppo- site direction.)

An antebellum girl was expected to be a coquette, flirtatious and romantic, but without exceeding the limits of decorum. In plantation and urban middle-class homes, young women were carefully chaper- oned by concerned mothers and fathers, many of whom sat up late to make sure that a daughter in the drawing room gave her beau only verbal encouragement. Romance flourished in parlors, at church, and under the moonlight. Although Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian churches still seated the sexes separately, “the ladies all sitting together in the center, and the gentlemen all repairing to the side-pews, where they sat apart,” young people could intermingle when they walked or rode horseback to and from church.
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Barbecues, dances, candy pullings, and singing bees also provided opportunities for romance.

Once a man had gotten sufficient encouragement from the girl he was courting, it was considered proper for him to ask for the father’s con- sent before he made a proposal. This piece of decorum was probably breached more often than not, with sweethearts coming to agree-

ments, or disagreements, before the father had been officially con- sulted. But however the lovers arrived at an understanding between them, the woman was to wait for the man to declare his love before she revealed her true feelings.

Maria Bryan, a twenty-two-year-old Georgia woman from a wealthy family, with holdings of eighteen hundred acres and one hundred slaves, described in a letter to her older sister how she was approached by a love-struck suitor in December 1829.

. . . there stood Major Floyd filling the front door with his august person. . . . I let him into the room and motioned him to a seat. . . . well, instead of taking a chair, he just looked at me as if he could think of nothing but the lovely vision before him, and when he came to him- self sufficiently to sit down, it was not long before he commenced the engrossing subject. . . . He hopes, he intreats, that a mere whim, as he must call it, would not prevent him from devoting his life to the business of making me happy. . . . “Oh, accept the attachment of a living feeling being who offers you genuine love, warm from his heart.”
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Despite Maria’s adamant rejection, Major Floyd did not give up hope. Several months later he repeated his proposal in a letter. Maria complained again to her sister: “Love, heard from most lips, is to me the most disgusting word in the world, and you may imagine it to be nau- seous in the extreme in this instance.”

Maria Bryan was almost twenty-four when she found a suitor from whose lips the word “love” was presumably more appealing. In 1831, she married a twenty-four-year-old army engineer, apparently with- out her father’s blessings. She wrote to her sister that the greatest trial of leaving her father’s home “was the idea of the unhappiness it appeared to occasion him.” Like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Maria Bryan was willing to brave a father’s displeasure in order to marry the man of her choice. It is difficult to know how often marriages were made without parental approval, but it seems that in most cases, especially among people of property, great efforts were made to obtain the father’s consent.

People of the popular classes—country folk, working-class men and women, and what Southerners referred to as “poor white trash”—were less hampered by decorum. Many managed to meet on their own

terms, away from the eyes of watchful parents and meddlesome friends. Whereas chastity was enforced among upper- and middle-class women, those from the lower class were often pregnant at marriage, that is, if they married at all. One Southern doctor expressed the view that among the poor people in his part of the country, children of ille- gitimate birth were as common as those born in wedlock.
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In certain lowly circles, it was even acceptable for men to resort to paid advertisements, such as the following placed by a man from Arkansas: “Any gal what got a bed, calico dress, coffee-pot and skillet, knows how to cut our britches, can make a hunting shirt, and knows how to take care of children, can have my services till death parts both of us.”
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A marriage proposal, once accepted, was more binding on the male than on the female. The laws of the State of Georgia and public opinion did not permit a man to repudiate an engagement, but a woman was allowed to break it off, perhaps because she was thought to lose more in remaining single than the man. Women’s diaries and letters often reflect their excitement and happiness during the engagement period, but also their anxieties and second thoughts. Prospective brides were fully aware that marriage represented the most important decision of their lives. A few days before her Virginia wedding, Sarah Anderson asked herself in her diary: “Will Dr. B. be all that I want in a Husband? In short will he love me as I desire to be loved? I dont look for perfect bliss, but the whole soul of my Husband devoted to love me I

would be foolish to expect perfect happiness, but my heart will demand
perfect
Love.”
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Love was the one indispensable ingredient for Sarah Anderson, as for many Victorian women.

During the engagement period, the making of a quilt by the bride’s friends gave official recognition to the betrothal. Whether they lived in the South, the North, Midwest, or West, quilters participated in a util- itarian activity that had become, by the mid-nineteenth century, a communal ritual and a fine art. First they would make certain design decisions together, such as the size and color scheme. Then each woman would make a square or “block” and sign it with her name in ink or embroidery, before all the finished blocks were sewn together to make the quilt top. A quilt backing was stretched out on a frame, cov- ered with cotton batting, which was then covered with the quilt top. Decorative stitching through the three layers held them in place.

Referred to as “engagement quilts” or “bride’s quilts,” they were intended to last a lifetime and to be handed down to one’s descen- dants.

Weddings took place both in church and at home, with the bride usually wearing white—a color traditionally associated with purity— though later in the century more practical colored dresses were some- times substituted. The bride often wore orange blossoms in her headpiece or bouquet, and a wedding veil, which had become popu- lar after Queen Victoria had been married in one. It was common for the minister to kiss the bride at the end of the ceremony, which was traditionally followed by a celebration with food, drink, music, and dancing. Since family and friends might have to travel great distances to attend the wedding, a large feast was usually forthcoming. But however lavish or modest, the festivities always included wedding cakes, slices of which were meant to be taken home by the guests. Once married, a woman was expected to forgo “wedding white” and the gay colors of youth in favor of more sober tones. As soon as she became a mother, she would begin to wear a lace cap. If widowed, she would don a “widow’s cap” and “weeds” (black mourning clothes) for at least a year.

A married woman’s duties varied greatly according to her class, wealth, and locale. In Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, and North and South Carolina, a plantation matron oversaw an estate that often housed dozens and even hundreds of slaves. In Kentucky and Ten- nessee, the mistress of a farm was more likely to supervise only seven or eight. In rural areas, a small slaveholder might work alongside his slaves in the field, or, if the family was too poor to have slaves, the wife would work on the farm with her husband. She would also prepare all meals, produce cotton cloth on her loom, make all the clothes, and reg- ularly carry water to the house from the well or nearest stream.

On plantations, white and black women lived out their unequal lives in close proximity to one another. The mistress of the plantation (usu- ally married, sometimes widowed, rarely single) oversaw all domestic aspects of the plantation. She was responsible for meals eaten in the Big House, for clothes worn by family members and slaves, for entertaining guests, who often stayed overnight or several days, and for nursing the sick. Like a chief medical officer, she was expected to oversee the health

of both whites and blacks, including the delivery of babies and the supervision of the infirmary, if there was one. Some mistresses taught slave children religion and basic literacy, although it was officially ille- gal to teach slaves to read in all Southern states. In her spare moments, she would pick up her needlework or play the piano, but those moments must have been rare indeed. However frail and decorous the ideal Southern woman was in theory, in practice she had to be hardy and efficient as a plantation wife. The sudden transition from carefree girlhood to dutiful wifehood could be traumatic. Over and over, women recorded the shock of the change in their lives. A confident young bride of seventeen who entered marriage without fearing her new duties as a mistress was thoroughly perplexed “when brought into contact with reality.” The wife of a South Carolina planter told him in tears that she didn’t know what to do with so many slaves. A shy six- teen-year-old bride needed two years before she could take over the direction of her servants.
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