A social history of the American family from colonial times to the present

i(;!i( pi!

ii

ill

A SOCIAL HISTORY

OF

THE AMERICAN FAMILY

Vol. II

A SOCIAL HISTORY

OF

THE AMERICAN FAMILY

FROM COLONIAL TIMES
TO THE PRESENT

BY

ARTHUR W. CALHOUN, Ph.D.

VOL. II

FROM INDEPENDENCE THROUGH
THE CIVIL V^AR

• :.i *.'

TIIK ARTHUR H.CLARK COMPANY

CLEVELAND, U.S.A.

1918

0 .

COPVmCHTt 1918, BY

ARTHUR W. CALHOUN

CONTENTS

Introduction 9

I Marriage AND Fecundity- IN" THi- NEW Nation . ii

The Unsettling of old Foundations ... 27

The Emancipation of Childhood . 51

The Social Subordination OF Woman . . . 79

The Emergence of Woman ■ 103

The Family and the Home ..... 131

Sex Morals in the Opening Continent 14.9

VIII The Struggle for the West . . ibi

IX The new Industrial Order 171

The Reign of Self-indulgence .... 201
Negro Se.x and Family Relations in tiii: .Anti;-

BELLUM South 243

Racial Association in the old South . 281

XIII The White Family in th.e old South . 311

XIV Effects of the Civil War ..... 357
Bibliography 377

II
III
IV
V

VI
VII

X

XI

XII

ERR.AT.\

Page 177, line 8: Insert "favorinR manufactures a» a re-
lief to poor whites" after the word Charleston.

Page 202, footnote 100: Sherrill instead of Sherill.

Page 209, footnote 105: Thorndike instead of Thorndyke.

Page 214, line 23: Insert quotation marks before "sacri-
ficed."

Page 220, lines 10-12: Sidons, pseuilonym of Sealsfield.

INTRODUCTION

The evolution of the American family during; the
period that accomplished the nationalization of the
federal union manifests the operation of several large
groups of formative factors that were present at least in
rudimentary form in the colonial period. The chief
of these was the influence of pioneering and the fron-
tier, the development of urban industrialism, the rise
of city luxury marked by conspicuous consumption,
and the culmination of the chattel slave system. All of
these agencies, it will be observed, are essentially eco-
nomic and their outstanding importance supports the
large lines of the economic interpretation. The first
was a phenomenon of the westward-moving forefront
of settlement- the most distinctively American factor
in our history. The long persistence of a genuine fron-
tier continually brought a considerable part of the pop-
ulation under the direct influence of pioneer life and
has profoundly affected conditions even in the older
sections of the country. Notions and usages brought
from the various European backgrounds were ine.x-
orably modified by contact with the rough, large, free
life of the New World. To a considerable degree the
frontier acted equally on the North and South, but the
fullness of its influence was reserved for the free section
where there was no servile class to constitute a buffer
to its hardships and to modify its liberalizing power.
The rise of industrialism, urbanism. aiul high life were
in the main peculiar to the North, l^he slave system,

lO 1 hf .1 nit t turn iHtittly

on the other hand, had by the end of colonial days sur-
rendered its potency in northern life. In the period
covered by this volume its direct influence is confined
to the South, where its climax and decadence tinned
with gruesome yet romantic color tlie family institu-
tions of a nation within a nation.

It is to be remembered that in the epoch covered by
this volume North ami South were ^rowin^ apart -
losing the liigh degree of similarity that marked the
two sections in the early days of colonization. It is
possible, nevertheless, to generalize largely as to many
elements in the family institution of the whole union -
elements due to the fundamental sameness of origin and
to the relative identity of many environmental influ-
ences peculiar to the Xew World. The South even had
a touch of the Industrial Revolution that captured the
North; and the North developed a new and more effec-
tive slavery of its ou n wjiich manifested many of the
degenerative influences that marred the social system
of the South. It is continuallv apparent in the follow-
ing pages what riiatter is relevant to the nation as a
whole and what is peculiar to East or West, North or
South.

I. MARRIAGE AND FFXUNDITY IN THE
NEW NATION

Conditions in the new American nation favored mar- *•
riage, early marriage and high fecundity, and so long
as pioneer conditions persisted mating and breeding
went on apace. Independence signified no fundamen-
tal revolution in the currents of social life, and colonial
traditions passed on unbroken into the folkways of the
republic; for until the Civil War the population was
distinctlv rural, and urban sophistication had acquired
no dominant influence over the thoughts, standards, and
habits of the major part of the inhabitants of the United
States. The pioneer environment and the pioneer spirit
were still in their prime and tinged the whole people
by reason of the currents of movement between East
and West.

Inasmuch as the pioneer settler's time was divided
mostly between home building and home protection,
the psychology of domesticity was supreme; the family
was the one substantial social institution in a nation
that had discardeti hierarchical religion and that had
reduced government to the minimum, while business
corporations had not yet attained notable development.
On the frontier at least was the case thus. The field
was rather bare for the unmarried man or woman;
neither sex could get along comfortably, and woman
could scarcely get along at all, without a partner. Wil-
derness rigors arid lack of suitable employment in the
settled regicms impelled woman to marrv, irrespective

12 7//f' .1 tnrrti (in liitnilx

of love, as alternative to a rather impersonal and per-
haps menial existence in the liDriic n\ parent or other
relative; while on the other hand, even in the cities,
facilities for comfortahle hachelorhood were not great
in the early days, and in the wiKierness a wife was val-
uahle tor her lahor. her coFiipanionship, and as the pre-
sunipiive niother ot nuriKious sturily workers.

Nor was there anything to discourage early marriage
so long as the abundance ami cheapness of land, to-
gether with the simplicity and easy procurability of
ei]uipment for farming or trade, offered an outlook and
a leverage for labor antl maintained thereby a reason-
ably high standard of well-being even in the older
states. Simplicity of life, abundance of the prime ne-
cessities, certainty of subsistence, and the shortage of
population and labor promoted marriage and procrea-
tion. Such facts appear in numerous writings of the
colonial and nationalizing periods.

Benjamin I'Vanklin before the Revolution drew an
impressive contrast between the old settled countries
where all berths were full and the new world where the
abuntlarue anil cheapness of land aiui the relative ease
of subsistence banished forebodings and led to readi-
ness for early marriage; so that "marriages in America
are more general, and more generally early than in
Europe. And if it is reckoned there, that there is hut
one marriage per annum among one hundred persons,
perhaps we may here reckon two." At the time of In-
dependence marriage was the regular thing; sports and
recreations turned largely on the mimic choice of a
partner; tlie unmatcd plaver was the butt of ridicule.
Thus did merrymaking reflect the status of "the min-
cing spinster or the crusty old bachelor."

As cnrlv as 1776 people were marrying in Kentucky.

Marriage an J Fecundity 1 3

The newcomers had to settle in forts and contact was
sufficiently close for courtship. Many of the rtrst
Westerners married at fifteen or sixteen. In pioneer
Kentucky, "a marriage that sometimes united a boy of
sixteen to a girl of fourteen was an occasion of merri-
ment and brought out the whole fort." Schoepf, who
travelled in the Confederation, notes that people "gen-
erally marry with less forethought and earlier" than in
more artificial civilizations. He was informed, for
instance, by a gentleman of Petersburg "that he would
be sending his son to Edinburgh to make a doctor of
him, since he now doubted whether he would ever
marry and take a plantation, his age being already
twenty-one years."

Colonial conditions persisted far into the national
period so that in writings of the early nineteenth cen-
tury we find frequent reference to the facility and prev-
alence of marriage in the United States as compared
with Europe. Instances are recorded of the marriage
of boys of fifteen and of girls in the early teens or
younger. Bernard, an English comedian who was in
America at the beginning of the century, observed that
Virginia ladies bloomed early. "A lady here was in
the habit of marrying nearly ten years earlier than a
European, so that at twenty, if she had proved a fruit-
ful olive, her husband's table was surrounded with tall
shoots sufficient to supply him with shade for the re-
mainder of his days."

According to report, the girls of North Carolina
married so early that grandmothers of twenty-seven
years of age were frequently found.' Pearly marriages
were usual in all the states. I^ven girls of the "higher"
classes often married at tiiirtecn. Men were iFi excess;

' Hunt, liif in .1 mrrira one /lunJrrJ Yrars tii^o, 77.

14 The American Family

so there were few spinsters; widows remarried if young;
and widowers sought new mates anyway. Hodgson
wrote from Charleston in 1820 that patrician damsels
"are freijucntiv married at sixteen or eighteen
ami generally uruier twenty." In Kentucky early mar-
riage was common; "men at eighteen or twenty; girls
at fourteen or sixteen." One writer of about 1820 says:
•'The American youth of both sexes arc, for the most
part, married ere they are two an(i twenty; and in-
deed it is usual to see a girl of eighteen a wife and
mother. No care is taken to prevent contracting

early engagements." Another a little later writes:
"Perhaps a great majority of the females marry before
the age of twenty, and it is not an uncommon thing to
see them mothers at sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen."

Nothing was more natural than such promptitude
among pioneers where one neeilcd merely to go to the
other side of the spring, put up a cabin and start a clear-
ing. A (jerman- American writing in 1826 said that
in the country as soon as a young fellow had gathered a
few dollars, seldom over one hundred, he thought of
marriage. The wedding gift to a son consisted of a
horse, farm implements, and seed; a girl received a
bed, a cow, kitchen utensils, and maybe a clothes chest,
tables, and chairs. The young man procured a hun-
dred acres of forest; relatives put up a house and stable;
and in r\vo or three years he was tolerably well-fixed,
for the pair were used to work. A visitor of 1831
speaking of the vicinity of Springfield, Ohio, said:
Any man who is able and willing to work for his livelihood,
can always, in rwo or three years, make himself master of a
farm, in this or any other part of the Union. The average
value of uncleared land is a hundred dollars for eighty acres.
A single man can everywhere earn at least twelve dollars a
month. Provisions are exceedingly cheap: a sheep or a deer

Marriage an J Fecundity 1 5

can be purchased for a dollar, wheat may be about two shil-
lings the bushel.

On toward the middle of the century the phenom-
enon of easy marriage continued to attract attention.
There was still an abundance of unoccupied soil, ample
elbow room for the energetic and efficient man, and
fruitful opportunity for judicious investment. In spite
of the clever devices of grasping exploitation it still re-
mained true that for the average spirited and intelli-
gent young man opportunities for maintaining a family
in comfort were far more abundant than in older coun-
tries. A bachelor's life did not hold out the charms
that it did in Europe; a wife was a light burden if not
a source of income and a conserver of values. For
some years following 1850 the federal land law for
Oregon was a great attraction to immigrants, for it en-
abled a man and wife to obtain a section of land. A
single man was entitled to but half a section. The situ-
ation encouraged early marriages. Girls were in great
demand. It was not uncommon to see brides of four-
teen. Some persons tell of having found married
women in the woods of the Columbia playing with
their dolls. ^ Additional citations corroborative of the
tendency to early marriage and indicative of the social
etTects of the situation might be given.

Moreover pioneers found large families desirable:
vast empty spaces kintlled ambitions for dominion; the
labor of growing children was valuable; anti a suf-
ficiency of stalwart sons increased security against the
Indian. The value of children for defense and labor
is mentioned by numerous writers. Amitl the boisterous
cheer of a frontier wedding one might hear the toast:
"Health to the groom, and here's to the bride, thump-
ing luck, and big children." Says Doddridge: " fhis

* Lyman. The Columbia River, 177.

i6 The American Family

was considered as an expression of a very proper and
friendly wish; for bi^ children, especially sons, were of
great impt)riance as we were few in number ami en-
j^aj^ed in perpetual hostility with the Indians."

The birth-rate of pioneers far outstripped the iii^h
death-rate; natural selection drew fecund women from
the Kast and weeded out weaklings. In 1751 Ben-
jamin I-Vanklin said that "if in Kurope they have but
four births to a marriage we may here reckon

eight." About ly^'x^ it was estimated that the common
rate of increase in .Anierica "when unmolested bv en-
emies is: doubling the population every twenty-hvc
years, by births, exclusive of immigration." The long-
sutTering pioneer mothers did not rebel against the
trageily of incessant child-bearing; the continent called
urgently to them, it ofTereii no sterile "careers;" no age
of surplus had yet breil delicacy and worhlly wisdom;
maternity was their portion and they bravely played
their part. Pioneer women were grandmothers at
forty; mother ami daughter often had infants at the
same time. I'or the Scotch- 1 rish, as for the Puritan,
the scripture conspired with environment; families of
txvelve or more are not inf re(]uently encountered in the
earlier rec(jrds. Irving refers to the New England
pioneer who buries himself in the wilderness and is
soon surrounded by "some half a score of flaxen-haired
urchins, who by their size seem to have sprung up all
at once like a crop of toadstools."

Adam Smith's reference to American fecundity is
well-known.

Tho*f who live to old a^f. it is said, frrqucntly scr thrrc from
fifty to a hundred, and M)mctim«s many more drsccndants from
their own body. Labor w there so well rewarded that a nu-
merous family of children, instead of being a burden, is a
•ource of opulence and prosperity to the parents. The labor

Marriage and Fecundity 17

of each child before it can leave their house, is computed to be
worth a hundred pounds clear gain to them. A young widow
with four or five young children, who, among the middling or
inferior ranks of people in Europe would have so little chance
for a second husband, is there frequently counted as a sort of
fortune. The value of children is the greatest of all encour-
agement to marriage. We cannot, therefore, wonder that the
people in North America should generally marry very young.
Notwithstanding the great increase occa^sioned by such early
marriages, there is a continual complaint of the scarcity of
hands in North America.

In 1784 Franklin, writing advice as to migration
from Europe, calls attention to the rapid increase of
inhabitants "by natural generation," which multiplica-
tion he attributed to salubrity of climate, abundance of
good provisions, and the facility of early marriage.
He said that persons of moderate means

Who having a number of children to provide for, are desirous
of bringing them up to industry, and to secure estates for their
posterity, have opportunities of doing it in America, which
Europe does not afford. Small capitals laid out in lands, which
daily become more valuable by the increase of people, afford a
solid prospect of ample fortunes thereafter for those chil-
dren. . . It is easy for poor families to get their children
instructed ; for the artizans are so desirous of apprentices, that
many of them will even give money to the parents, to have
boys from ten to fifteen years of age bound apprentices to them,
till the age of twenty-one ; and many poor parents have, by that
means, on their arrival in the country, raised money enough to
buy land sufficient to establish themselves, and to subsist the
rest of their families by agriculture.

Like considerations appealed of course to native
Americans. Inilay writing from Kentucky spoke of
"the e.xtraordinary fecundity it is observed everywhere
prevails. . . Plenty ... is essential to occa-
sion that fecundity which distinguishes the rapid popu-
lation of most infant countries after they have over-
come the first difficulties of establishing a settlement."

iS The Amtrican Family

Michaux said of Kciiiiuky at the bc^innin^ of tlic new
century that few houses had less than four or five chil-
dren. At that time "everything in the I'liited States
favors the progress of population above all,

the aburuiancc of the means of subsistence."

In the Literary Ma](azitii- and ^Inuruan Rc^tsttr of
1803- 1804, an article on the proj^ress of population in
the Uniteil States exhibited the following facts: i.
States and parts of states containing new land and now
settlinj^ contain the greatest percentage of children; for
migration to new lands is chielly by young and middle-
aged and such hardy people are prolific. 2. The e.\-
cess of children in Kentucky and Tennessee shows mild-
ness and salubrity of climate favorable to the rearing of
children. 3. .Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode
Island, owing to emigration, show the greatest per-
centage of people over forty-five, and the smallest per-
centage of children under ten. 4. More children un-
der ten occur and fewer persons above forty- Hve as we
go southwanl. 1 he difference is chiefly in the flat
country. [At this point one is moved to interrogate the
mosquito.]

In Ramsay's Sktt( h hf South diifjlind there is the
statement tliat

In many instances, from seven to ten. arul in a few, from ten to
fifteen children have been raised to maturity in South Carolina
from a sinjjlc pair. There are now eiyht familii's in Hroad
Street between the statr-housc and the western extremity of that
•trret. in which sixty-nine children have been born and of these
■ixty-five are alive. In that part of Meeting Street . . .
between Tradd . and Ashley River, from six mar-

rtaK^ (which with the exception of one, have taken place
>ince . . . 1782) forty-two children have been born, all
of which, except three are now alive, and the eldest . . .
is little more than fourteen. Within the same limits, seven
,.,u^^ ,,.,,^'0 K..^ ^^^y.j^^.Q children living, the youngest of

Marriage and Fecundity 1 9

whom is twelve years old, and forty-seven are jjrown to ma-
turity. Greater instances of fecundity frequently occur in our
middle and upper country, chiefly amon^j those who inhabit
poor land, at a distance from the rivers. There is a couple in
Orangeburgh district, near the road that leads to Columbia
from Orant^eburgh, who lately had fifteen children alive out
of sixteen, and a fair prospect of more. Another couple live
in Darlington county, fifteen miles from Lynch's creek, who
lately had thirteen children and fifty-one grandchildren all
alive; and of their thirteen children, twelve were married at
the same time.

In the History of South Carolina Ramsay stated that
one woman of Greenville district had had thirty-four
children of whom but one pair was twins.

From sixteen to twenty-two have been brought alive into the
world by individual mothers in the low country; but these in-
stances are rare. . . From six to nine children are often
raised in the western districts. Twelve is the largest number
of children now living from one pair in Charleston, and only
two such can be recollected ; but there are several who have
from eight to eleven alive; and many from four to seven.
Some women have been mothers at fifteen, and a few grand-
mothers at thirty. The number of children born is great; but
the deaths in infancy are also great, tho considerably less than
was usual forty years ago.

Melish, who traveled in the United States between
1806 and 181 1, wrote :

The Georgian ladles appear to be very fond of children, and,
in the country at least, they seem to be sufficiently prolific; for
we hardly ever passed a house without seeing a cluster of young
ones; and often a child at the breast of a mother, whom, judg-
ing from external appearance, I would have reckoned past
child-bearing.

Beaujour in a [F'rench] Ski'tcli of the United States
in the first decade of the century noted that births were
''more multiplied" than in Kuropc, and deaths rela-
tively less frcqucfit.

It is calculated that [the birth rate is one to every twenty of

The American Family

cbe population] and that the proportion of deaths is only one
in fort)'. . . No human consideration . operates as

a hindrancr to reprmluction, and the inhabitants swarm on the
rich land in the same manner as do the insects.

Warden in 1819 gave the same birth-rate as Bcaujour
recorded, and set over against it an estimate for Europe
of one birth to twcntv-scven of the population.

Major Jonathan Hunter, writing on large families
in a certain \'irginia county, said:

In i8io I pavseii by .Mr. Watters and was shown five houses
all in sijiht and farms adjoininj^ with the old people livinj;, and
each with ten children making sixty f>rrsons in five families,
and Major Morris' (living only rwo or three miles from Wat-
ters) wife died leaving nine children. Morris married a
widow Harrison with nine children and they had a son David-
ton ... so there were twenty-one in the family. If you
come across a farm as prolific in Cereals as that neiRhborhood
was in children I would advise you to buy it.

Kingdom in 1820 advised mechanics, etc., with fam-
ilies or wishing families to come to America. In 1822
there was said to be "a greater proportion of children
in the I'nited States, under si.xteen, to the general
amount of the population than in any other country,
on account of early marriages." Madison, writing
after the census of 1820, stated:

It is worth remarking that New England, which has sent out
»uch a continued swarm to other parts of the union for a num-
ber of years, has continued at the same time ... to in-
crcx^e in population, altho it is well known that it has received
but aimparatively few emifn'ants from any quarter.

The fecundity of the Kentucky stock was subjected to a
similar lest. Singleton in his Letters from the South
and ff est (published in 1824) remarked:

The Kentuckyans in c«'nTaI have numerous families, the fruit-
fulness of the climate extending even to the wives . .
brides who were as Rachels in the Adantic states, having mi-

Marriage and Fecundity 21

grated to the west, become as Leahs; and , . . they
esteem it no unusual compliment to receive even the double
blessing of Rebeccas.

It seems that for two or three generations the Kentucki-
ans scarcely intermarried with the people from other
states but into other families in the state, "perhaps even
of different nationality tho always Kentuckyans. The
result was that these happy, brave, strong, healthy peo-
ple founded large families of children." In old Ken-
tucky most families were large. It was not unusual to
have twelve to sixteen children. From 1820 or there-
abouts to i860 and later there was great emigration
from Kentucky to other Mississippi Valley states. It
has been estimated that Kentucky's contribution to the
white population of the other states amounted in i860
to at least one million. If the figure is correct, the
fecundity of the Kentucky population in its first eighty
years must have been unsurpassed. Shaler suggests
several reasons: the original settlers were vigorous;
they came of their own initiative unforced by need of
subsistence; difficulty and danger deterred the weak.
The soil was rich; there was plenty of unoccupied land
for the rising generation; for a long time, children
were profitable to the agriculturist, and there was patri-
archal pride in an abundant progeny. "The syphilitic
poison does not seem to have been common."

Tennessee enacted a law in 1829 authorizing any
man whose wife had three or more children atone birth
to take up two hundred acres of state lands for each of
the children. Buckingham noted in 1842 that in the
log huts of the Georgia mountains "the number of their
children appeared to be excessive, ten or twelve in each
hut at least." One woman not over thirty-five had
thirteen children. In 1839 Stephen Thomas, aged

22 Tht Anifrican Family

cighiy-cighl, "the last of the Huguenots," died in
South Carolina. His descendants consisted of between
sixty and seventy persons, of whom three were his chil-
dren and four his ^reat-^raiulchihlren. A North Caro-
lina man borti liiirin^ the period under study in this
volume had twenty-seven brothers and sisters. Num-
bers of South C\irolinians hail families of from nine to
seventeen children. John R. Commons says, "From
earliest colonial times until the census of 1840 the peo-
ple of the I'nited Slates multiplied more rapitily than
the people of any other modern nation, not excepting
the prolific French-Canadians."

A writer in the Di ni^jcrnlic Rfvii'w of 1844 said:
Hic ptKir man in the new country has one aid not dreamed
of in the older ."iettlements - his children. Thi-se are el.sew here
a subject of dread to those wlm depend on the day's lahor for
the day's food, and not always as welcome as they should he to
wmr people who have plenty to eat. Here "the more the mer-
rier" and the better off, too. For si.x months of the year hats
and *hoe* arc out of fashion, and drapery of an almost chissical
simplicity is quite sufficient for the younger children. (At
seven or ei^ht they bejiin to be useful. They become more and
more u«rful until they reach their teens], when he must be a pom
block indeed who does not pay back into the common treasury
more than he takes from it. . . ( )ur poor man counts each
one of hi» half -do/en or half score a blessing: . stout

band\ and active hrad> are the very thing's we need.

A family was an emumbrance to an immigrant in
that it delayed his getting; settled. Hut, said a traveller
of 1849, "to the emigrant of small means and a large
family. I would say let him not be discouraged. If his
family arc healthy, sober, thrifty, and industrious, they
will be a fortune to him. and they make him indepen-
dent, being a little, well-ordered community within
themselves." Naumann in his NonJnmcrikn noted:
"Tl^'- A "•""-;< riM r-c^ards a numerous familv as a treas-

Marriage and Fecundity 23

ure, but often only for tlie reason that his children by
their work until their majority arc useful to him." A
writer in 1852 tells us that

Each new babe is a new source of dt'iij^ht; and should the num-
ber surpass that of a common family, you cannot but smile in
pleasant emotion with the father, who u ill tell you that he has
the round dozen, or he can produce you "any quantit)" of little
ones.

Burn in his Three years avion<^ the JVorking-classcs in
the United States during the [C'/t;7] Jf'ar said: "Set-
tlers with families of children able to work, as a gen-
eral thing, will find no trouble in obtaining employment
for them."

Conditions facilitated adoption. "One blessed cus-
tom they have in America," wrote an English visitor in
1848, "resulting from the abundance which they enjoy;
a man dies, his widow^ and children are objects of pe-
culiar care to the surviving branches of his family; the
mother dies- her orphans find a home among her
friends and relatives." Another visitor in a work pub-
lished in 1852 said:

Observing how easily and frankly children are adopted in the
United States, how pleasantly the scheme goes on, and how
little of the wormwood of domestic jealousies, or tlio fretting
prickle of neij^hbors' criticisms seem to interfere with it, one is
led to enquire why the benevolent practice is so common
there. . . The facility with which enough, and more than
enough, is found to satisfy every hungry mouth on a farm,
gives wonderful scope to the benevolent sentiment. [There is
plenty of room in America. A fresh hand growing up is valu-
able to the sons of labor] who are quite as ready to adopt a
child as the wealthy. [Absence of primogeniture favors adop-
tion. The novelty of the plan of adoption] led me to enquire
very carefully as to its results, and the statement was, that if
one in a hundred tired or failed to do by the adopted as they
would have done by their own, it was but one in the hundred.

Opinion as to the merits of earlv marriage varied.

24 The American Family

All early writer remarked: "It is curious to see how
soon these laui;liiii^ maidens are metamorphosed into
fond wives and attentive mothers; and these ^iddy
youths into inilustrious citizens and thinking; poli-
ticians." Another considered early marriage in some
cases desirable as a spur to enterprise. Another said:
"The facility of gettini^ on in the world, and marrying
young, is, upon the whole, most favorable to the morals
of the community, alih(j it sometimes leads to uncon-
genial and unhappy unions." Another: "Karly mar-
riages offer to parents the great advantage of bringing
up their children under the parental eye. . . There
are certainly inconsiderate marriages, which ought to
be disapproved, but still in this kind of lottery they
cheat the less." 'J'hese are the views of foreigners. A
writer in the Lady's Book of 1836 expressed the opin-
ion that as a rule early marriages are advisable.

Others noted ill effects. Mackenzie held that: "The
youth of twenty, and the female of fourteen are ill-
fitted for the cares, anxieties, and education of a fam-
ily." Miss Martineau said that in the South and
West, "owing to the disproportion of numbers, every
woman is married before she well knows how serious
a matter human life is." Cooper said: "It is far
more common to find" Afiierican women "mothers of
eight or of ten children, at hfty, than mothers of two
or three. These early marriages . have

an obvious tendency to impair the powers of the female
and to produce a premature decay." A visitor noted
that American womanhood decays early. By thirty
"nothing remains but the traditions of former con-
quests, and anticipation of the period when her reign
of triumph will be vicariously restored in the person
of her daughter." Another considered the early fad-

Marriage and Fecundity 25

ing of woman's beauty attributable "to the great assi-
duity with which American ladies discharge their du-
ties as mothers. No sooner are they married than they
begin to lead a life of comparative seclusion, and once
mothers they are actually buried to the world." Bunn,
a mid-century author, thought women should "not mar-
ry at so tender an age, nor have half-a-dozen ciiildrcn
before they ought to have one." It is only fair to say
that part of the decay was doubtless due to the inactiv-
ity and indulgence of incipient luxury. But degen-
eracy could not have gone very far in the ante-bellum
period. F. A. Walker said: "There is not the shadow
of a statistical reason for attributing to the native
American population prior to the war of secession a
deficiency in reproductive vigor compared with any
people that ever lived."

11. THE UNSETTLING OF OLD FOUNDA-
TIONS

The same economic basis as stimulated marriage ami
procreation in the new nation operated in tiie direction
of general liberalization and even radicalism. The
abundance of natural res(jurces hampered the designs
of such as aspired to establish the prerogatives of aris-
tocracy by means of narrowed holdings of wealth; it
reduced the importance of vested riches, and created a
social optimism tliat measured men by their future
possibilities rather than by the tokens of the past. Thus
conditions eventuated in lessened regard to properly
considerations and social gradations in the making of
matches and opened the held for unhampered cross-
ing of strains, a tendency which was augmented by the
free circulation of population untrammeled by the
meager systems of exhausted countries. The frontier
created also the economic basis for egalitarianism inas-
much as the a.xe and the ritle "made all men equally
tall;" hence there arose an individualistic democracy
akin to anarchy- a state of affairs quite in harmony,
moreover, with the paucity of public enterprises in a
region where the government even left the settlers
largely to their own devices against the Indians. In
so far as grasping Easterners retarded government pa-
ternalism in the West lest population should be drawn
thither and wages raised in the old states, thev were
really furthering; that (ierce demncnuv that was to
mean so much in the wav of genera! iiisurgencv and

28 77/(' . I niirit (in /■<irfiil\

social transtOrniatinti. The whole weight of frontier
freedom conspircil with the modernist individualism
imported from Kurope to work that family disintegra-
tion whose later phenomena are so conspicuous today.
The relative absence of mercenary marriage in
America was noted by various authors. In St. John's
Juifr'uati Lftti-rs it is rcportctl of Nantucket:

Kvcry man takes a wife as soon as he chuses ... no por-
tion is required; none is expected; no marriage articles arc
drawn up amonK us, by skillful lawyers, to puzzle and lead
posterity to the bar, or to satisfy the pride of the parties . .
as the wife's fortune consists principally in her future economy,
modesty, and skillful manajjement ; so the husband's is founded
on his abilities to labor, on his health, and the knowledge of
some trade and business.

Mazzei reported in 1788 that it is not "rare for a girl
to refuse a man whose face and fortune are his only
recommendations." The utter absence of the Euro-
pean custom of parents' providing their daughters with
marriage portions excited many comments among our
French guests.

Lambert in his Trtiri-ls of 1806- 1808 tells that:

Several young ladies in New ^'ork have fortunes of a hundred
or a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and often bestow their
hand upon a favorite youth who has everything to recommend
him but money. . I understand that unhappy marriages

are by no means frequent ; and that parents are not apt to force
the inclinations of fh<-ir children from avaricious motives.

Several writers of the next decade referred to the ab-
sence of monetary considerations in the typical Amer-
ican marriage. One remarked on the non-existence of
family wealth, another on the rarity of dowries. A
German traveller noted: "It is generally hard here
for widows to get another husband, and likewise for
girls of advanced years, for Americans mar-

ry more from natural inclination than do Europeans."

The Unsettling of Old Foundations 29

For the period between 1825 ami iSOo nunicrous
writers might be cited in evidence of the non-commer-
cial character of American marriage. Sidons says
that "parents seek less to secure a rich match than a
steady man for their child." Cooper in 1H2H re-
marked :

A young woman of the middling classes . . . seldom gives
much of her thoughts towards the accumulation of a little
dowry; for the question of what a wife will bring to the com-
mon stock is agitated much less frequently here than in countries
more sophisticated. My companion assures me it is almost un-
precedented for a lover to venture on any inquiries concerning
the fortune of his fair one, even in any class. . , From all
that I can learn, nothing is more common, however, than for
young men of great expectations to connect themselves with fe-
males, commonly of their own condition in life, who are penni-
less; or, on the other hand, for ladies to give their persons with
one or two hundred thousand dollars, to men who have nothing
better to recommend them than education and morals.

Golovin in Stars and Stripes wrote:

It is quite coinmon among parents to give their daughters only
their parental blessing for dowry, and to make them wait till
after death for the inheritance. . . P'ortune-hunters arc de-
spised here, and men take a wife with the same carelessness as
they would take a glass of brandy, especially when "bound
westwards."

Of course indifference to economic attractions in
matrimony was more common in rural and especially
in pioneer regions than among "the richer portion of
the inhabitants of cities." There was certainly a ten-
dency in the direction of sordid unions among the class
that rose with coniiiuTcialization anil the waning of
wilderness influences as well as among the beneficiaries
of the slave svstem. These phenomena will receive
treatment in a later chapter.

With neglect of pecuniary considerations went care-
lessness as to social rank. De T^^icqueville commented

30 TJte American Faviily

on tlic tact lha( democratic ciiualiiy by obliterating so-
cial barriers opened tbe way to marriage between al-
most any man and almost any woman and tbereby tend-
ed to lessen irregular se\ relations such as occurred in
aristocratic countries where passion ilrcw together men
and women whose permanent union would have been
unthinkable. To the pioneer, health ami courage were
sutlicient commenilations of a prospective son-in-law
and staniiards scarcely less simple were of wide preva-
lence, riiere were certain limits, however, to easv tol-
erance, as for instance a case reported bv an Knglish
traveller who found at I^ufTalo a woman of Knglish
birth, well-informed, good-looking, married to a negro,
seemingly owing to his fortune. 1 ho the man was not
an undesirable citi/en, the wife was despised bv the
wives of white citizens and both were shunned. White
eti(]uette would not let him attend her at their theater
box; they never ventured out together. If one diii go
our, it was usually after dark. On one occasion the
man was mobbed ami nearly lost his life." Cariier,
whose work on Marrid^i- in the United States appeared
on the eve of the Civil War, was struck by the elope-
ment of girls of good family with men of low station;
such unions were stigmatized bv public opinion.

In so far as indifference to economic and social rank
prevaileii, marriage and the preliminaries to it were
naturally simplihed. Some of the I-'rench visitors of
the end of the eighteenth century were much impressed
with the .American freedom of courtship. .Mazzei
said: " I he voung girls and men see each other every
hour of the liay, and that too without masks; they (\n
not marry unless both are pleased, and don't postpone
until too late the discovery that they have been de-

* Bcnwcll. Engliihman's Travrls in Amrrica, 56-58.

The Unsettling of Old Foundations 31

ceived. 7 he object of both sexes is \.o learn each oth-
er's character." Bayard reported:

The time which passes between the proposal and the marriaj^
is K'vc" over to mutual observation. The \(\r\s insist upon an
absolute independence which they devote to testing the char-
acter of their future husband. . . They yield to every
fancy . . . and do evcrythinj^ they can to escape the re-
proach later on of having concealed their imperfections. It is
a contest of frankness, inspirni h\ the dt'sirc for comnicm hap-
piness.

Especially numerous were the remarks made on the
fact that young women did not allow themselves to be
hampered before marriai^e by the jealousy of their
men. Additional light will be thrown in a subsequent
chapter on the sovereignty assumed by woman.

James Franklin in his Pliilosopfiiial and Political
History of the Thirteen United States of America, said
of Pennsylvania and Delaware:

The matrimonial state is so much the more happy, and con-
sequently the more reverenced, as the freedom and sanctity of
marriage depends entirely on the will of the parties. They
choose the lawyer and the priest, rather as witnesses than as
means of cementing their engagements. When they meet with
opposition from their relations, the two lovers go off on horse-
back together. The man rides behind his mistress, and in this
situation present themselves before the magistrate, where the
girl declares she has run away with her sweetheart, and that
they are come to be married. Such a solemn avowal cannot be
rejected, nor has any person a right to give them any molesta-
tion. In all other cases the parental authority is very exten-
sive.

Sidons in Die ^ereinigten Staaten von Xordavierika
{1826) related that even before a girl's majority the
parents "sehiom make objections ... to her
choice, provi(ied the suitor has the means to support
their child ; and even about that the chihlren usually arc
more careful than the parents. If the lover is an en-

I

32 The American Family

tire stranger, investigation is more exact." Another
writer of the same period says : "Taste and inclination,
rather guided than controlled by the prudence of older
heads form most of our matches." CJiven such freedom
of choice, couples had onlv themselves to blame tor a
mismating and small excuse to justify infidelity; be-
sides, it tendcil to enhance the chances of congenial
mating. The wider connections of the reign of free-
dom will appear in subsequent chapters.

New world lite tended not only to make marriage
independent of economic considerations, social grada-
tions, and parental constraint but also to loosen social
control. Kven at the dawn of Independence, while
each communitv firmiv upheld matrimony, the Protes-
tant repudiation of Catholic doctrine was already por-
tending freedom in marriage and divorce that threat-
ened to produce further laxity. The ceremony was in
general simple and complaint was made that the pair
were kept too long in the company, exposed to banter.
The doctrine of free love was bound to develop as an
ethical counterpart of laissez-faire economics; both are
anarchism; both were stimulated by the spacious frec-
-^om of the new world. An article in the Literary
Maj^azirw of 1805 may perhaps be taken as corrobora-
tive of this assertion of tendency. It said that probably
the mischief that some moralists attribute to novels is
due to their exaggeration of the omnipotence of love
(with the inference suppliable that licentiousness is
justified thereby). "Those people who are willing to
indulge irregular desires have created [the doctrine
of the omnipotence of love] and the force of love is now
a part of the creed of almf)St every master and miss in
the reading world." Such might naturally be the case
under the influence of such liberalizing factors as pre-
viously detailed. It would seem that what had always

The Unsettling of Old Foundations 33

been a practice (licentiousness) was now investing it-
self in a theory, and thereby assuming a more frightful
mien.

Pioneer marriage relations sometimes became in-
volved in strange vicissitudes. Sometimes a man de-
tained long from home through capture by Indians or
otherwise returned to find his wife remarried. If one
thought dead thus came back, the neighbors and inter-
ested parties seem frequently to have held a sort of
court and to have decreed that the woman should make
choice between the two men. The other was to leave
the settlement. No one seems to have been disturbed
at the thought of possible legal irregularity in such
proceedings. Incidents of the sort are often mentioned.
Usually the woman returned to her first husband.*

Some hazards of pioneer marriages appear in the
following incidents.'' In the history of early Tennessee
is recorded the account of a wife's becoming tired of
her husband and taking up with another man. She
left her husband sick and induced the party with which
they were travelling to leave him, doubtless to his death.
In the same state in early days a man named Hean, a
noted character, went with a cargo to New Orleans and
remained two years. On his return he found his wife
nursing an infant, the reputed child of a merchant.
The outraged husband left the house without a word
but later returned intoxicated, took the baby from the
cradle, and cut off both ears, muttering that he had
marked it so that it would not get mixed up with his
children. He was arrested and sentenceil in addition
to other punishment to be branded; while his wife was
granted a divorce and married again. After tiic licath

* Roosevelt. K'inning of Ihf H'est, vol. i. 129.

"* Hale and Merritt. History of Trnnriirr anJ Tfnntsserani, vol. ii, 345,
365-367, 370.

34 The American Family

of the child and of her second liusbaml, Bean remarried
her. Another frontiersman, on his way home to Ire-
land to brin^ his family to the home prepared, heard
in Virginia that his wife, believinj^ him dead, had mar-
ried again. The report turneil out to be false; so in
1796 he set out for I rchuul after an absence of twenty
years and returned with wife and son. In 1S19 a trav-
eller writing from Jellersonville, huliana, observed
that "runaway wives are fretjuently advertised."

Unconventionality sometimes attended the celebra-
tion of the marriage ceremony. At tlie beginning of
the nineteenth century, upon the Tombigbee and Lake
Tensaw (Alabama) the people still lived without civil
government anil without the rite of matrimonv. I'Or
years the se.xes had been pairing off and cohabiting with
the mutual promise of regular marriage when ministers
or magistrates should appear. In one instance where
the parents of a rich girl objected to a pairing, she and
her poor lover paddled off with a crowd of young
people and begged the commandant at Fort Stoddart
to marry them. He said he had no authority of the
sort. They told him that the government had put him
there as general regulator of affairs. He presently ac-
ceded and said: "I Captain Shanneberg of second
regiment, U.S.A. and commandant of Fort Stoddart,
do hereby pronounce you man and wife. C}o home!
behave yourselves- multiply and replenish the Tensaw
country." Ihe settlement pronounced them the best-
married people it had known in a long time."

The early settler west of the mountains received only
occasional visits from ministers. McConnell in his
JVcsti'rn Characters said:

Protestant ministers . . . urrc few [and the words] were

usually spoken by a Jesuit missionary ... or by some

• Pickett. Hitlory of Alabama, 465. ,

The Unst'ttlui^ of Old F 01171(1(111011$ 35

justice of the peace of doubtful powers and mythical appoint-
ment. If neither of these could Ik* procured, the father of the
bride, himself, sometimes assumed the functions. . . It was
always understood, however, that such left-handed marriaues
were to be confirmed by the first minister who wandered to the
frontier; and, even when the opportunity did not of?er for
many months, no scandal ever arose - the marriage vow was
never broken.

Such free and easy arrangements speak strongly of a
new world with a clean slate.

The development of marriage law in the United
States is completely summed up in Howard's History
of Matrimonial Institutions and need not be detailed
here. Its evolution has been largely a history of ad-
justment to new conditions caused principally by pio-
neer life and industrial evolution. Thus owing to
shortage of ministers legal arrangements had to be made
for civil marriage. A civil marriage that occurred in
1805 among the Spanish colonists of the South was
later declared valid by the United States Supreme
Court, the Council of Trent notwithstanding. It is of
interest to note, on the other hand, what was happening
in New England, that early stronghold of civil mar-
riage. Dwight said in 1822:

Justices of the peace are throuRhout New England authorized
to marry, but are rarely, if ever, employed to perform the ser-
vice, w'hen a clergyman can be obtained. As it is evernvhere
believed to be a Divine institution ; it is considered involved, of
course, within the duties of the sacred office. An absolute de-
cency is observed liuring the celebration.

An illustration of the breezy freedom of the frontier
marriage is given bv an early settler in Wisconsin
whose servant girl, taken aloiii^' from the East, contem-
plated matrimony. As justice of the peace he was
asked to perform the ceremony but at first tlatly refused
owing to unwillingness to lose the domestic until her

^6 riw .Itiurii an h<itnil\

year was out. The offer of five bushels of turnips as
wedding-fee proved a sufrRicni inducement and the
rites were performed. But just as the guests were about
to leave, one of the bride's rejected suitors incjuired
"whether the Squirt- hail seen the license authorizing
the parties to be joined in marriage." This question
produced tremendous constcrnatiDii. "\\'as it a fact
that a license was necessary; ami if such was the fact,
why had not our friend made it known before the cere-
monv was performed?" The scandalous wight replied
that he "thought it would be greater fun to let the cere-
mony go on. ami blow it up afterward. Then, you
know, we could have another wedding!" Vainly did
the new husband remonstrate.

Thry threatened to tear the house down if their will was not

obeyed, and D was forced to submit to their mandate -to

be separated from his bride - which he did with a very bad
grace. The next morning he pnKured the important dcKument
from Milwaukee. ITie ceremony was repeated.^

That the adjustment to changing economic conditions
was destined to prove a more ticklish problem than ad-
justment to wilderness needs becomes apparent at the
time when slavery was becoming e.xtinct in the North.
Judge Piatt of New York in 1S22 delivered an opinion
that marriage was legal where one of the parties was a
slave and that if the mother was free the children were
also free. "The husband is not emancipated, nor is the
wife enslaved by such a marriage." But in 1827 it
was held that a slave could not marrv under common
law. 'I'he children of a slave could not inherit at com-
mon law. But by a special law a slave could take
possession of land granted for military service in the
Revolution; hence all marriages and births involved

^ H't$tfrn frontirr lifr, 520-522.

The Unsettling of QlJ Foundations 37

were legitimate, and the children of such a slave could
inherit/

The advent of male political democracy consequent
on the free life of the frontier went hand in hand with
an intense individualism akin to anarchism. The dom-
inant idea tended to be "that the individual is superior
to the community and that the latter should not exercise
any restraints except in rare cases and from reasons of
most serious moment." A disposition to govern mar-
riage by some such principle became manifest. The
progress of individualistic democracy was quite con-
sistent with the reduction of social control over mar-
riage, as in the abolition of banns and the dropping of
the requirement of publicity as if the union of the in-
dividuals were their own exclusive afTairs concerning no
one else. A writer in 1823 noted that

Marriage ... in the United States, is considered a civil
contract, therefore a justice can marr}- equally as well as a
clerp>'man. In general a clergyman is employed. . . I was
one evening at the house of a Baptist clerg>m:in : he was called
out of the room, and was not ahscnt more than three minutes,
but in that time he had tied H\iiien's indissoluhle knot. This
facility of marriage is fret]uently attended with very injurious
effects. I have known perfect children married, often to the
great grief of their friends. [The government will have to in-
tervene and require license.] "

Another writer said:

If the youth be of age and the girl likewise they marry without
asking leave of any one, and if not, they frecjuently ilo the
same.'"

Le Comtc de St. X'ictor. who visited the \ nited States
(and liked to make out a bad case against America).

* Adams. Nrglrctrd VrrioA of .Inti-slavrry in .Imer'ua, 239.
" Holmes. Accnunt of the Vnitfd Statn, 399.
'"Sealsficld. The V nited Statrs, 133.

;S The American Family

wrote ill 1H32 that the laws seemed to make sport of
marriage, turning it over to the bizarre rei^ulaiions of
the sects. A justice could marry a couple w ithout any
ceremony by a mere acknowledgment. The consent of
parents mii^ht he agreeable, but was not necessary. A
parson frequently married a couple on the spot without
knowini^ who they were. Then they stayed married till
they felt like yetting a divorce. .Marryat reported:

Hiuamy is nor uncommon in the United States from the women
being in too (jreat a hurr>' to marry, and not obtaining sufficient
information, relative to their suitors. When a foreigner

is the party, it is rather difficult to ascertain whether the gentle-
man ha5 or has not left an old wife or two in the Old World."

Wyse said in his America:

Marriage is regarded throughout the union as a purely civil
compact. There is no mystical rite, no set form of words, or
stated observance necessary ... no particular class of
persons appointed to prc-side at its ordinance, and requires the
a&sent merely of the contracting parties, who may have the
ability to contract and nothing further. . Marriages con-

tracted in Kngland . . . are sometimes made subject to
inconvenience, if disavowed by either on their landing; the laws
generally in force . . requiring under such circumstances

a legal attestation of such marriage, uniier the seal of the arch-
difK;r>.e of Canterbury before they will enforce its obligations.
Of this, many heartless and unprincipled individuals take ad-
vantage, and who cannot, without such evidence, be charged
with the crime of bigamy, In the event of fraudulently contract-
ing any other, or second marriage."

One source of inconsiderate marriage was the dearth of
women in new settlements. The demand was adver-
tized and attracted a supply of women ready to take the
chances of haphazard mating. But Gorling in Die neue
IVelt saw a bright side of American freedom: "Every

" Marryat. Diary in /Imrrira, pt. 2, vol. ii, 6.

"WjTie. Amerifa, vol. i, 298, 309. Thi» author nhould be read with cau-
tion; for he >ayt that marriages are let* frequent in proportion to population
than in the old country-.

The Unsettling of Old Foundations 39

one can marry unceremoniously if he takes the notion
and this fact totally removes many of our European
evils." Naumann said: "To be married by a minis-
ter is optional, but is the prevailing custom."

In 1849 Miss Bremer was impressed with the way in
which the marriage ceremony was sometimes hurried,
in travelling costume, after the manner of American
haste.

Carlier, the French historian, in his work of i860
dilates on American la.xity as U) marriage. The Amer-
ican girl, he says, enjoys great freedom and is unguided
in the choice of a husband. She is disposed to receive
with great reluctance any parental opposition, and the
delicate deference of daughter to mother is too rarely
seen. Under such conditions is marriage very often
contracted, l^he law does not recjuire parental con-
sent, but parents usually consent, or acquiesce in their
child's choice. The common law does not compel pub-
lication of banns or require witnesses to the act or even
the signature of the parties themselves and the marriage
may be performed by a justice of the peace or a min-
ister-no matter where they may reside -at any hour
and in any place. No more paternal authority; clan-
destinity is substituted; the salutary office of the min-
ister, who might lend solemnity to the occasion, is re-
placed by some obscure justice of the peace. These
customs are not yet very widely spread but the law is
sadly deficient. There are, it seems, two states where
publicity is required but without penal enforcement.
The fact of cohabitation suffices to render the judges
very lenient in validating an imperfect marriage.

Eccentric forms of marriage occur, as in the case of
the Maine railroail conciuctor who was married while
making his run, the minister being taken on the train;

40 y/if' American Family

or of the couple who, unable to cross a swollen stream,
dill not wait tor it to subside but called to some one to
summon the minister, who came to the opposite bank
and from there performeii the ceremony. Mock mar-
riages also occur and sometimes one party to the sport
found to his dismay that the joke formed a le^al bond
which couKi be sundered only by divorce. Carlier is
leil to remark: In view of the "excessive readiness of
the law in the formation of Fiiarriai^e, should wc not be
authorized in saying that it aimcil only at a promiscu-
ous intercourse, desii^ned to increase the population,
without re^anl to moral considerations or the future
of the family?"

Certain religious bodies found it necessary to impose
restrictions of their own beyond the scope of civil law.
Such an incident occurred in 1796 at the General Con-
ference of the Methodist Episcopal church where an
in()uiry was answered thus:

Wc do not prohibit our proplc from marryinR persons who arc
not of our S(x:icty, providcil such persons have the form and arc
seeking the power of godliness; but if they marry persons who
do not come up to this description, wc shall be obliged to purge
our society of them. And even in a doubtful case, the member
of our society shall be put back upon trial. . . Wc arc well
assured that few things have been more pernicious to the work
of Ciod than the marriage of the children of God with the
children of this world. Wc therefore think ourselves obliged
to bear our testimony, both in dcKtrine and discipline, against
so great an evil.

The matter was again up in 1804 and was similarly
handled.

The question that seemed most recurrent in the early
days of the Presbyterian church was that of forbidden
degrees. The church was in general very cautious in
the handling of this (]uestion. Thus in 1797 a case
came up respecting a man who had married his for-

The Unsettling of Old Foundations 41

mer wife's half-brother's daughter. It was resolved,
"That though the Assembly would wish to liiscountc-
nance imprudent marriages, or such as tend in any way
to give uneasiness to serious persons, yet it is their opin-
ion, that the marriage referred to is not of such a na-
ture as to render it necessary to exclude the parties from
the privileges of the church." In iSoz in a similar
case the decision reHects uniquely the state of mind of
an assembly face-to-face with the problems of a new,
unsettled society. It was resolved

That such marriages as that in question have heen deterniined,
both by the late Synod of New York and Philadelphia, and by
the General Assembly, to be on the one hand not forbidden by
the laws of God, and on the other hand to be contrary to the
general practice of Protestant churches and the feelings and
opinions of many serious Christians among ourselves, and on
that account to be discountenanced ; therefore, resolved, that
when such marriages take place, the session of the church where
they happen are carefully to consider the case, and if they
think it expedient, to administer such discipline as they may
judge to be deserved, for that want of Christian tenderness and
forbearance that are incumbent on all the professors of our holy
religion, or for violating any municipal law, if this has been
done; and then to admit or restore them to good standing in the
church. And if the session judge that the state of society is
such, where these marriages take place, as that neither the duty
of Christian tenderness ami forhearance, nor the laws of the
state have been violated, they may admit the persons concerned
to Christian privileges without censure.

Later this action was reconsidered and it was resolved:
"That the decision given bv the (General Assembly in
the year 1797 . . . niav be adopted on this occa-
sion."

In 1804 such cases were left to the decision of lower
courts of the church on account of apparent diversity
of opinion in ilifTerent p;irts of the couiitrv. Similar
action was taken in iSio touciiinii marriage with a de-

42 Till' ^JniiTtcan Family

ceased wife's sister, and tor the same reason. In iHi i,
"The committee appointed to draui^ht a letter to tlie
joint sessions of Hethel arui Indian Town on the case of
a person marrying the sister of a deceased wife, prayed
to be dismissed from further attention to this duty, and
their recjuest was granted." On another occasion the
Assembly showed itself reluctant to settle a case of mar-
riage with a brother's widow. It returned the case to
the session. "I^ifference of opinion" among the people
was the ground of the dilhcully. The Assembly seemed
to act consciously on the principle that folkways can
make a thing right or wrong, at least within bounds.

In 1821 it was decided that marriage to a deceased
wife's sister was to be discouraged, but treatment was
left to the session. In iS^j there was a proposition to
refer to the presbyteries the cjuestion of erasing from
the Confession "the last clause of the fourth section of
the twenty-fourth chapter" on marriage within pro-
hibited degrees. The motion was laid on the table.
Similar action was taken in 1H59, and again in 1H60.

The Presbyterian church was confronted very early
with the problem of se.\-irrcgularity. The Assembly
of ij^x) gave a careful solution of a case such as was
probably not uncommon in the new world. A man
had come from Ireland some years before, leaving his
family behind. Three times he went back for his fam-
ily but his wife refused to come and finally refused
further cohabitation. He returned to America and
lived single for ten years. Then he married and had
children. Should the man and his wife be admitted
to communion? The case is of value as a further il-
lustration of ecclesiastical circumspection. The As-
sembly thought such a man ought nf)t to be admitted
to privileges because it did not appear that he had pro-

I

The Unsettling of Old Foundations 43

cured a divorce and in the eye of the civil law was liv-
ing in vice.

It does not appear . . . that he has used the proper
means to obtain a le^^al divorce, nor even to authenticate the
facts, . . But . . . if it shall appear that this man
has separated from his wife by her wilful and obstinate deser-
tion, and that he has taken all just means to obtain a divorce to
which he was lawfully entitled, but was prevented and op-
pressed by the power of antagonists or of unjust courts; and if
he shall . . . produce such evidence ... as would
entitle him to a divorce by the law of the land and of the
church, then ... it is the opinion of the General Assem-
bly that such a man, behaving himself otherwise as a good
Christian, may be admitted to church privileges. [But great
caution must be used that the church] may not be inconsistent
with the civil law, and that a door be not opened to laxness.

This incident throws interesting lii?'">t on several
points : ( I ) The church tacitly accepted the patriarchal
theory of the family. Else why was not the man con-
sidered the deserter inasmuch as he had come away
and left his family in Ireland? Evidently the assump-
tion was that to the man belonged the right of deter-
mining the place of abode. (2) A disposition on the
part of the church to review the acts of civil courts;
yet not in conflict with civil law. (3) A spirit of rea-
sonableness, yet of firmness in discouraging marital
irregularity.

It will be observed, in fact, through its national his-
tory that the Presbyterian church has pursued by no
means a fanatical course in the matter of marriage and
divorce. It was a recurrent question. The church
did, indeed, act ecclesiastically, yet not without regard
to a wider social viewpoint. Matters were not settled
offhand. Thus in the Assembly of i SoS arose a ijues-
tion :

If a living child is born in five months and twenty days after

44 The American Family

fhc marria^ of its parents, shall the parents In- licalt with ;is
tjuilty of antp-nuptial fornication?

The answer was that as the question was in tlie abstract
Ami drcisions on questions of this nature must, in most in-
stances, depend on attendant circumstances . the As-
sembly do not jud^r it proper to decide on the abstract ques-
tion.

Deniocratic ituleperulencc in America tended to easy
divorce. The precedents set by colonial New England
were in that direction. At the beginning of Independ-
ence there was little show for divorce in America nor
was legal separation freijuent or easy.'' For the evolu-
tion of divorce, Howard's History of Mtitrintonutl I n-
ititutions should be consulted. It must suffice licrc to
illustrate sparingly the trend.

After Independence, divorce by private statute con-
tinued for more than half a century in most states.
Gradually, however, general statutes began to emerge
and jurisdiction began to pass to the courts. Cjeorgia,
Mississippi, and Alabama were the first to abolish leg-
islative divorces, tho the approval of a two-thirtis ma-
j\)rity was still re(]uired after the court had made its
decree. In the other states, legislative divorces were
used on occasion till about the middle of the century
when in the majority of states tlie method was abolished.

In the early part of the nineteenth century divorce
was not a momentous danger. Rhode Island had a
singular law to the effect that if a riiarried couple gave
to a magistrate a mutual tieclaration of desire to sepa-
rate by reason of incompatibilitv and then lived apart
for twf) years conducting themselves with prtjpriety they
might obtain r)n application annulment of the marriage.
A writer of 1818 told that few sought the benefit of this

* On family troublr* »«e chapter vi.

The Unsettling of QIJ Foundations 45

act and of those that did, some broke the stipulation in-
side of the two years.'*
Miss Martineau about 1834 wrote:

In Massachusetts divorces arc obtainable with pccuh'ar case.
The natural consequences follow: such a thin^ is never heard
of . . . protection offered by law to the injured party
causes marriage to be entered into with fewer risks and the
conju};al relation carried on with more equality.

xMarryat declared

In the United States divorces arc obtained without expense, and
without it being necessary to commit crime as in England. The
party pleads in forma pauperis, to the State Legislation, and a
divorce is granted upon any grounds which may be considered
as just and reasonable.

A few years later another observer remarked upon the
facilities afforded for persons to get rid of innocent
partners, who perhaps did not know of the applica-
tion." Brown in 1849 asserted:

There arc more divorces in one year in the state of Ohio than
there are in ten in the United Kingiioni. In the year 1843
there were 447 bills of divorcement sued out in that state, and
they were principally at the suit of the women, whose husbands
had behaved ill, neglected them or . . . run away.'"

Two Other mid-century writers remarked, however, on
the rarity of divorce in the Unitel States.

The la.xity of individualistic laissez-faire ilcinocracy
borders on Owen's scheme according to which

They unite and part as it pleases them, while the children arc
brought up at the general expense of all. It is true, that far
from encouraging libertine life, he assumes that man, being a
monogamous animal, may be permitted to choose a companion,
to whom, after a slight previous intercourse he might be more
attached, than if bound by lawful uedlock.'^

'*\N'riplit. I'irtL' &f Society and Mannrrs in .Imrrica, 4^5.

''■ Wysc. .tmrrua, vol. i, 300.

""■ Brown. .Imrrica, 48.

*^ Murat. .Imrrica and thr .Imrricans, 107.

46 The American Family

A Southerner who h.ul lived in the North wrote in i860:
'V\\c socialists anil trrr lovers ar^juc ai;;ainst the marriage rela-
tion because married people are always quarrcllinj^ and ruIlni^^^
off to Indiana to he divorced.'*

In 185S the Preshyteriaii (ieneral Assembly sustaineil
the deposition ami exioniinunieation of a minister who
had married a woman divorced on an unpermitted
ground, and in so doing took "occasion to call the atten-
tion of the churches ... to a tendency, manifest
in some portions of our country, to relax the sacredness
of the marriage tie;" and to express abhorrence of *'any
attempt to diminish its sanctity or to extend beyond the
warrant of the Holy Scriptures the grounds of di-
vorce."

C'arlier observed that each state had its own divorce
law, though there was a tendency to adopt uniform rea-
sons for deciding divorce. Besides absolute divorce
there was divorce a lucnsa et loro. The latter was al-
lowed in very few states and met with no favor. It was
considered immoral, was conducive to adultery, and
punished the innocent more than the guilty. He gave
the following variety of causes for divorce sanctioned
in different sections: bigamy; adultery; voluntary de-
sertion for one. two, three, or five years; absence con-
tinued for five vcars; imbecililv or mental alienation;
union with a negro, mulatto, or an Indian; vagrancy;
cruelty or abuse; slighting conjugal (iuties; habitual
drunkenness during a certain time; the excessive use of
opium; imprisonment for certain crimes; impotence;
nf)n-support; immorality; membership in the Shaker
sect. Kentucky had made a law that when a husband
announced in the papers his intention of not paying
the debts of his wife, she had sufficient cause for a
divorce.

"Hundley. Social Relations in our Southern States, 148.

The Unsettliuj^ of Old Foundations 47

Carlier said that much depended on the judge. In
some states the Legislature decided cases in concur-
rence with tlie courts. This participation of the Legis-
lature was a source of abuse. The almost indefinite
power granted to the caprices of married couples in
America tended to nothing less than indirectly pro-
tiucing polygamy. In Ohio a judge remarked

That there was no law more abused in that state than that of
divorce; and that a majority of the inhabitants thouj2;ht, of all
contracts, marriaj^e was the least oblijjatory, and nothing fur-
ther was necessary to dissolve it than to make an appeal to the
competent tribunals.

The courts of Indiana were crowded with cases, whose
m(jvers were very often citizens of other states, an evi-
dence of the superior facilities there afforded. Simple
affirmation proved residence and no one hesitated to lie
in so trivial a matter. An Indiana judge was reported
to have said

That the advocates of "free love" . . . could not ask a
statute more favorable to their views than the law of divorce
in Indiana, and that the polyfjamy of the Mormons was prefer-
able; for it at least obliged husbands to provide for the sub-
sistence and protection of their wives.

Carlier added

Throughout the States, it is thought that ail which tends to sep-
arate the married contributes to the increase of population, and
that facilitating the dissolution of the tie is of social utility; be-
cause it allows the parties to seek another union, better assortni,
destined to fulfil the ends of marriage.

The majority of the divorces were granted at the re-
quest of the wife. The step was often in consequence
of the husband's abandoning her to seek his fortune in
the West, especially in California where the thirst for
gold lured. The one that gained the case had a right
to remarry. The lot of the defendant varied. Some
states allowed an immediate second marriage; others

48 The American Family

withhcM this privilci^c tlurinu; the lite of the other
partner. 1 he l.iw enuhi he e\.itieii, however, hy mov-
ing to another state.

Horace Greeley, who was so radical on tuntlainental
social questions, was ultra-cautious in this matter. A
Trihutic eiiitorial of March i, 1 S6{), opposeii the loosen-
ing of New ^'ork. divorce law and referred to Indiana
as the paradise of free lovers

W'luTc the lax principles of RohiTt I):ilc Owi-n, and the utter
want of principle of John Pcttit (Icadinj; revisers of the laws)
comhined to establish, some years since, a state of law which
enables men or women to f^t unmarried nearly at pleasure. A
le^al friend in that state recently remarked to us, that, at one
county court, he obtained eleven divorces one day before din-
ner; "and it wasn't a fjood morning: for divorces either." In
one case within his knowledtje, a prominent citizen (jf an eastern
manufacturinj; city came to Indiana, went throuj^h the usual
routine, obtained his divorce about dinner-time, and, in the
course of the eveninj; w;is marrieii to his new inamorata, who
had come on for the purpose and was staying at the same hotel.
[They went back and ejected his astonished ci-devant spouse.]

Owen replied correcting misstatement and uphold-
ing the morals of Indianans. He asserted that they
then recjuirecl one year's residence and timely notice to
the absent partner.

It is in New York and New Kn^land. refusing reasonable di-
vorce, that free-love prevails; not in Indiana. I never even
heart! the name there. [Indiana law allows the court to prant
a divorce for any cause it sees fit.] You have elf)pements,
adultery, which your law, by rendering it indispensable to re-
lease, virtually encourages; you have free love, and that most
terrible of all social evils, prostitution. We . have

refjulated, legal separations. [You believe a p<K)r woman
should be kept bound to a brute, subject to his rape.] In no
country have I seen marriage and its vov^-s more strictly re-
spected than in my adopted state, where the relation, when it
engenders immorality, may be terminated by law. For the rest,

The Unsettling of Old Foundations 49

divorces in Indiana arc far less frequent than strani^crs, read-
ing our divorce law, mi^lit be led to imaj^inc. [ Prople are
more disposed to suffer what is suffcrablc than to break, bonds.]

Greeley was able to reply that New York granted
separation to Owen's supposititious poor woman. Puit
what of South Carolina, one of whose judges said that
in that state "to her unfailing honor, a divorce has not
been granted since the Revolution"? Bishop cites a
case in which "a man took his negro slave-woman to
his bed and table and compelled the unofifending wife to
receive the crumbs after her" and the state refused any
remedy to the wife! The legislators of this state
thought "necessary to determine by a special statute
what portion of his property a married man may give
to his concubine, even under pretext of a compact pre-
vious to adulterv." ''■* In the South, general conserva-
tism retarded the introduction of divorce. In the
southern rural community there was small facility ior
separation, even, in case of estrangement. In the old
South a person divorced save for adultery was tabooed.
Separation meant ostracism. Yet "it is precisely in the
South," says Howard, "that legislative divorce was
tried on the widest scale and bore its most evil fruit."
On one occasion the Louisiana legislature liivorced
seven couples in two days.

The South of course had no tolerance for loose views
as to the familv! Radical opinions developed in the
North might echo towartl the Cjulf but were certain to
meet with professed abhorrence. I'he family pride of
the slave power could not contemplate with ei]uanimity
community care of chihiren or the abolition of inheri-
tance. A British visitor who was in the United States

'" Kitchin. History of Divorce, 222; Carlicr. Marriage in thr I'nitf.i
Stairs, 109- 1 10.

50 Th€ siuurican Family

during the War records tlu* tOllowinu; utterance from
the Richmoiul Sfntintl:

Ratiunalism, intrtuliucil by the Puritans, is j^ratlually uiidrr-
minin^j all rclinitjus ami political faith and all conscrvativt*
opinions at the North, The marrage institution, reduced by
them to a mere civil contract. b<*tiat frequency and facility of
divorce, led next to Mormonism, and we suppose has cul-
minated in free love. \Un pure Yankee reiuson is about to
achieve a still hi^'her triumph . . . miscegenation.
Hrjjinnint; with liberalism and free inquiry, the North seems
about to wind up with free love, amaljiamation, infidelity,
a^rarianism, and anarchv, while the South becomes ilaily inore
conservative.

The tuli force of this contrast will be made apparent
later in a chapter on the family of the South.

it is evident from the foregoing considerations that
the stability of marriage institutions in the past has
been a function of economic pressure. Decrease the
importance of family wealth by throwing open a virgin
continent; and a crude anarchistic imiividualism throws
ofT trailitional checks ami puts personal fancy on top.
\N'e might ask whether marriage has since developed
spiritual sanctions that will guarantee stable monogamy
in the absence of economic necessity for permanent
wedlock.

III. THE EMANCIPATION OF CHILDHOOD

The nineteenth century witnessed a very remarkable
revolution in the status of the child in America. As the
vastness of the unfolding continent and its needs im-
pressed themselves more and more on the minds of men,
the valuation placed on childhood rt)se. In a society
whose population is small as compared with available
resources, children always occupy an important posi-
tion. Moreover, as in colonial days, child-rearing
seemed to present special difficulties in the New World.
The climate was different from that of the historic hab-
itat of the race. As late as 1848 an Englishwoman re-
marked that "the difliculty of rearing children until
they have passed the second summer and gone through
the troubles of teething, makes the American mothers
more solicitous than we are in iMiglish nurseries." An-
other writer said: "Children's diseases are hasty and
come with a fell swoop, desolating cities and hearts."

The utter dependence of the frontier childrcFi on the
parents' care in absence of physician's aid increased the
parents' burden of responsibility. Pioneer women
suckled their own children and cared for them them-
selves. Until schools and churches came, child-train-
ing was of necessity exclusively a faiiiily affair; conse-
c]uently of the simplest character. The pioneer was not
sentimental.

His children were never "little chcriihs," "angels sent from
heaven," but generally "tow-heailed" and very earthly responsi-
bilities. . . He looked forward anxiously to the day when

^2 riw .Itiuru (in iatmly

the bo)'S should be able to assist him in the Held or fight the In-
dians, and the ji'tls to help their mother make arul mriui.

In a new world men face the future and worship, not
ancestors, but pt)Sterity. "F«)r tlie children" was the
motto of manv a pioneer, who endured the wilderness
hardships that the next i^eneration miy;ht have a better
chance, mi^ht grow up with the country and enter into
their inheritance. The struggle for existence had not
yet closed the door of hope.

In addition to its direct stimulus, the pioneer en-
vironment crealCil a specific economic situation that
tended to emancipate childhood and vouth. l-'amiiy
wealth or even surplus was small among settlers, but
facilities for making one's way by labor were abundant
ami thus children began early to produce for them-
selves. This economic self-sufficiency, uninvaded by
any lure of artificial pastimes, matured and emanci-
pated children from unciue proiongment <jf parental
control. Where parents stretched their prerogatives
or tricil to retain jurisdiction past the majority of the
boy, estrangement was likely to ensue.

The general preoccupation of the ordinary American
husband and wife with the urgent economic problems
of life contributed to throw youth upon its own re-
sources and to raise it to sovereignty. This was true
even in the cities, or perhaps one should sav, particu-
larly in the cities. The rush of the new country left the
men no time to be fathers; they were away all day and
children came to be left entirely to the care of their
motherv The wives of the !abf)ring class, doing all
their own work, seldom looked after their children
with due care. They sent the little ones to school to be
rid of them or let them run with chance associates, ex-
posed to dangers that they were not fitted to meet.

The Emancipation of Childhood 53

"Baby citizens arc allowed to run as wiKl as the Snake
Indians," said Oldmixon in 1855, "and do whatever
they please."

The well known effect of pioneer environment and
the economic processes engendered by it is to produce
an extremely libertarian democracy bordering on an-
archy. The most familiar instances of this operation
are in the realm of politics but it goes on in every other
phase of life, partly through direct influence and part-
ly through reflection from democratized politics and
other agencies of social control. Such lines of causa-
tion can be traced in the liberalization of the American
family.

Many observers, commenting on the freedom al-
lowed to children in the new nation, attributed it to the
spirit of republicanism. The decay of patriarchism is
a natural corollary of political democracy; for the gov-
ernment recognizes, not families, but individuals. The
father counts no more as a citizen than does his grown
son and the lingering of paternal authority beyond the
majority of the son would be incongruous. The pre-
monition of the youth's coming citizenship casts its
shadow before and anticipates the day of his majority.
At the ends of the first c]uartcr of the nineteenth cen-
tury a visitor to the United States wrote: "The Amer-
ican woman sees in her son the future citizen, and there-
fore she has a certain feeling of respect even for her
child." Moreover in a democracy the idea of "su-
perior" fades before the idea of equal sovereignty. All
men are sovereigns. Personality is e.xalted; and the
political status overflows and democratizes family in-
stitutions.

Dc Tocc]ucville asserted that "in America, the fam-
ily, in the Roman and aristocratic significance of the

54

Tfie American Family

word, docs not exist." During the infancy of chiKlrcii,
the father did, imlecil. exercise unopposed the neces-
sary domestic authority. But as youn^ America ap-
proached manhood the ties of filial obedience were re-
laxed ami the youth hecame master of his own thought
and conduct. This result was not the outcome of a
stru^ijle between parent and child. The parent did not
care for the possession of authority. The father yield-
ed as a matter of course and the son entered naturally
on the enjoyment of his freedom.

American conditions encouraged practical utilitari-
anism. In a new country, reliance is less on tradition
and more on a study of existing fact. 'I'he son's opinion
seems likely to be as valid as the father's (at least that
is the assumption underlying manhood suffrage) and
the hold of ancestral and paternal prestige diminishes.
Thus the austere, the conventional, and the legal ele-
ments in parental authority go with the passing of the
aristocracy and a species of equality grows around the
domestic hearth. Rules and authority recede before
tenderness and confidence, and spiritual values in kin-
ship are free to assert themselves.

Mrs. John Adams related that her little grandson
every day after dirnier set "his grandpa to draw him
about in a chair, which is generally done for half an
hour to the derangement of my carpet and the amuse-
ment of his grandpa." If such was the amusement of
the distinguished vice-president, and a New Englander
at that, we can guess what the later trend must have
been. An educational jf)urnal of 1833 contains an in-
teresting description of the new cult of childhood.
"The attention now bestowed on children forms an in-
teresting feature of the day. An interest seems to be
rekindling, analogous to that which animated the
ancient philosophers."

The Emancipation of Childhood 55

There was something spontaneous and charming
about the new unfolding of juvenile life. The little
ones went and came unquestioned and unconstrained,
unceremonious and frank. Beaujour remarks (]uaintly
on the children that "sparkle in the streets of American
towns like field Mowers in the springtime." To Miss
Martineau "the independence and fearlessness of chil-
dren were a perpetual charm." Duncan found in

The little citizen ... a companion who will do you a
service, \l.cX you information, or ask. it from you as the case
may be. . The first impression produced by their manner

is, that they are brave, bright, pleasant, little "impudent
thinj^." Hut . . . the "impudent thinf^" is gradually
dropt, and . . . you adopt "intelligent" or "independent."

The new freedom evoked an astonishing competence
on the part of childhood. Whether it was the nine-
year-old girl doing the honors at table in the absence of
her mother; or the barefoot Irish newsboy on the streets
of New York rushing to sell you a paper with the re-
mark, "Fait\ it's little mudder or daddy cares what 1
does, it's not the like of them as will mind me" -in any
case, the blessed years had come into their own, for
good or for ill. Duncan was moved to record that

Little creatures feed themselves very neatly, and are trusted
with cups of fjl^^s and china, which they K^asp firmly, carry
about the room carefully, and deposit unbroken, at an age
when, in our country mamma or nurse would be rushing after
them to save the vessels from destruction.

Precocity was a natural correlate of the emancipa-
tion. The child was willing enough to plav his role.
Children came quickly to maturity. The new country
was not ready for the "prolonged infancy" that marks
advanced civilization. "[American children]," said
Duncan in 1852, "receive educaticMi with facility and
smartness, but those who are destined for commerce arc
so generally mounted on a tall desk-seat in their four-

56 The American Family

tcciilli or tiftccnth vc.ir, th.ii they iiukIi rcijuirc exact
and strict moral discipline before that . pe-

riod." In iS;;() (J rattan said: "A 'Boston boy' is a
inelanclioly picture of prematurity. It niij^ht be al-
most said that every man is born middle-aged in that
and every other great city of the union. The principal
business of life seems to be to grow old as fast as pos-
sible."

Owing to the preeminence of the young, American
"Society" came to be marked by a gaiety that some
would call frivolity. "Pert young misses of sixteen"
took things into their hands. The mother, eclipsed by
her daughters or oppressed by household cares, some-
times did noi even appear at parties. This reign of
youth was in part attributable to the fact that children
were enabled to enjoy opportunities that their parents
had lacked and were thus able to act as authorities on
social matters. It is evident, therefore, that the sw^ay
of the young in social affairs corresponded to that bour-
geois construction of societv which offered room to the
man that was "on the make" and enabled his children
to i]ualify for acceptance in approved circles. No
doubt one underlying characteristic of the play life has
always been a function of sex, and social amusement
has been primarily in the interests of mating. But in
a static society such functions are presided over by
tradition, conventionality, and maturity; whereas in
America they followed the normal trend of a dynamic
civilization which transfers power to the young.

One form taken bv the new freedom was correlate
with the overcoming of the age of deficit. "The sim-
plicity, the frugality of the parents, contrasts often dis-
agreeably with the prodigality, the assumption, self-
assertion, and conceit of the children," says Gurowski

The Emancipation of Childhood 57

in 1857. "In European domestic life the children even
of the highest aristocracy, are educated with more com-
parative simplicity than is the case in America."

The wave of youthful freedom colored theology.
Lyman Beecher felt called upon to deny that Calvin ists
teach infant damnation.'*" A Baptist convention at Sa-
vannah in 1802 "agreed that in the tenth chapter of our
excellent confession of faith, the elect infants, men-
tioned as dying in infancy, are not opposed to non-elect
infants, who, we are humbly of opinion, never die in
infancy- but to those elect infants who, in possession of
rational powers, arrive at maturity."*' Doctor Hum-
phrey, president of Amherst, indicated the trend in
1840. He said: "There is a great deal of fine, hot
press poetry to be found 'now a-days,' in booksellers'
windows and ladies' parlors, about the angelic sweet-
ness of infancy. . ."

Beaujour said, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, that some fathers "gave no religion" to their
children in order that these might pick one for them-
selves when they reached the age of reason. Harriet
Robinson, one of the early mill girls of Lowell, went to
the Congregational church and Sabbath School.

Wc were well taught in the Ix'licf of a literal devil, in a lake
of brimstone and fire, and in the "wrath of a just God." The
terrors of an imaginative child's mind, into which these mon-
strous doctrines were poured, can hardly he described, and their
lasting efifect need not be dwelt upon.

No wonder that the mill girls and boys were to a large
degree drawn awav to the liberals.

A liberal revolution in the field of law and penology
was well under wav in the ante-bellum period. Ac-
cording to the Northwest Territory code of 1788, chil-

^'^ Autobiography, etc., vol. ii, chaptrr xvi.
** Georgia .Inalyticnl Rrpnsitory, vol. i, 77.

58 The American Family

drcn that disobcycil ihcir piarcnis niij^ht, on approval of
a justice of the peace, be sent to jail till, as tlie law put
it, they were liumbled. l-"or a chihl that struck a parent
the law prescribed ten stripes." in antithesis to this
lin^erin^ Puritanism observe what Xauniann says of
the rniled Stales in his S 'jfiidtturika (1H48) :

The law has seen fit to take children into its special oversight
even at an a^e when with us they are still under the exclusive
supervision and direction of parents and teachers. If a father
has chastised his boy somewhat severely, and it occurs to the
lad, or he is put up to it by some foolish person, to complain to
the justice of the peace, the father is punished by line or im-
prisonment.

In one most important particular, enfranchisement
of chiKlh«)()d came but slowlv: education was primitive
and at first juvenile literature was lacking. At the
close of the Revolution, says McMastcr,

Rude as was the school system of New Kn^land, it was incom-
parably better than could be found in any other section of the
country. In New ^'ork and Pennsylvania a schoolhousc was
never seen outside of a village or a town. In other places chil-
dren attending sch(K)l walked for miles through regions infested
with ui»lves and bears.

A French visitor of the latter part of the eii^hteenth
century observed that though children are happy while
in the bosom of the family, "the a^e of iron succeeds
rapidly to that of ^old." Bavard said that the Ameri-
can school-teacher was dreary and pedantic, better suit-
ed for training slaves than citizens.

Dr. Henjamin Ru*-}! has in v.iin recommended the humane
mrrho<ls of J. J. Rousseau. [Hcttrr whip scholars than let
them go, and lose your fee!] The unfortunates who toil
under the direction of these pedants soon lose that sweetness of
character which they to^)k to school, and \n\\ see them emerging
from their torture-chamber tormenting and beating each other.

"McMa»ier. Uiilory of the People of the United States, vol. iii (1902),
114.

The Eimancipntifjti of Childhofjd 59

It is relief to find Bayard speaking of one school-master
who "had neither the air of a pedant nor of a mission-
ary, but of a father of a family."

At the end of the eighteenth century there was no
real juvenile literature and in many places schools
could be maintained only with difliculty if at all.
Michaux in his Travels told that

Throughout the western country the children are kept punctu-
ally at school . . . supported at the expense of the inhah-
itants. . . Upon the Ohio, and in the Barrens, where the
settlements are farther apart, the inhabitants have not yet been
able to procure this advantage, which is the object of solicitude
in every family.

In Kentucky and Tennessee in early days the gentry
made every effort to bring about the erection of acad-
emies where their boys and girls could be well taught.
But in the highlands many that bore the names of dis-
tinguished Virginia families raised children that could
scarcely read or write. F^ven in the venerable P^ast the
masses w^re long devoid of adequate educational facil-
ities. Education remained a special privilege. W'il-
lard Hall wrote that when he settled at Dover. Dela-
ware in 1803,

There was then no provision by law in the state for schools.
Neighbors or small circles uniteil and hired a teacher for their
children. . . The teachers frequently were intemperate,
whose qualification seemed to be inability to earn anything in
any other way. . . Even in the best neighlwrhoods teachers
of the young frequently were immoral and incapable.*''

From 1809 to 183^ the laws of Pennsylvania pro-
vided education for the children of those that were
willing to take a pauper's oath. This condition put a
stigma on the public schools. In Delaware and Mary-
land the schools were little better and were fre(]ucntly
taught by redemptioners and indentured servants. A

"Powell. History of Education in Delaxvarr, 14J.

6o The American Family

Delaware act uf 1817 appropriated one thousand dol-
lars to each county for tlie education of the poor. The
measure was never popular because it drew a hard and
fast line between poor and rich. Governor Cochrane
said: "It is not surprising that a provision wiiich in-
vited an independent people to have their ciiildicn
schooled as paupers proved a failure."'* In Connecti-
cut, about iH;^()-iH4o. women teachers of district schools
received four to six dollars a month and board. Parents
were indifTerent.

By 1830 there were in Boston two infant schools sup-
ported by charity for the poor. The first infant school
in New Kn^land seems to have been established about
1828. Neilson wrote (in his Rrrollt'ctions of a six
} t(irs' Rtstilttii (■ in the I nitci! States of .1 nurtcd) :
Education for children may he had on various terms; but even
poor people are at no loss in regard to this, for at least the most
usctul branches. There are several free schools in New York,
supported chiefly by the state, where fx-ople may have their
children educated on very low terms; or if rhey cannot at all
afford it, they are taught jjratis.

The Mini of March 17, 18-^4 cited the Brooklyn Star
as noting "several llDurishiiii; infant schools" there, that
were supporteil, or should be supported, by charity.
From the point of view of labor this was wron^. "Ed-
ucation is the ri^ht of every child, and it is the interest
of the communitv that the ri^ht should be possessed
and e.xerciscd by all."^'' About this time a committee
of Philadelphia workin^men outlined a scheine of ed-
ucation, including kindergartens.*" The Man of Feb-
ruary 18, i8;^4 contained an extract from the Philadel-
phia "Operative" recommending the abolition of West

'♦Oneal. Workers in .imrriran History, 207; Howell. Hislnry of Educa-
tion in Dflaxvare, 140.

^^Man, Nfirch 17. 1834, p. 86.

*• Simon*. Sorial Form in .Imrriran History, 183.

The Emancipation of Childhood 6l

Point, an aristocratic institution good only to enable a
few privileged persons to have their sons educated at
public expense. I'he issue of May 14 contained the in-
formation that a professor had been appointcil to teach
the young Tories at West Point "to draw at the expense
of the people, many of whom are not enabled to teach
their own children how to read!"

In September, 1834, Pennsylvania provided for tax
supported schools. Three months later petitions for re-
peal of the act were received from thirty-eight counties
out of fifty-one and only a hard struggle saved the law."

The National Gazette of Philadelphia in editorials
in 1830 ridiculed the public school as an impractical
dream and as class legislation. The public school
would place a premium on idleness.

A scheme of universal equal education . . . could not be
used with any degree of cqualit}' of profit, unless the disposi-
tions and circumstances of parents and children were nearly the
same; to accomphsh which phenomenon, in a nation of many
milhons, engaged in a great variety of pursuits, wouUi he be-
yond human power.

The first state education convention of Delaware, at
Dover, 1843, said:

The report of the Massachusetts Board of Education declares
that the cardinal principle ... at the foundation of their
education system is that all the chililren of the state shall be ed-
ucated by the state. . . This is not the principle of our
school system , our school system is founded upon the

position that the people must educate their own children. [All
the state can do is to help and encourage.] ^''

Margaret Fuller cited a circular which estimated that

the country needed sixty thousand additional teachers.

Progress in an appreciation of child nature and neetls

-^ Oncal. H'orkfrs in .-imrruan History, zorj.

**OncaI. H'orkfrs in .■imrritan History, 307-308; Powell. History of
Education in Drltmtire, 146-147.

62 The American Family

gradually acLrucil. An cilucational journal in 18^3
rcc«)rdc*l the impression thai

Mothers have derived new ideas on education, and entered
with increased intelli^jence and zeal into the discharjje of their
duties. The infant school has become an assistant, an

observatory to the mother ; and the season of infancy and child-
hixxl a period of progress and enjoyment. [Children have not
hitherto been properly trained. The dominion of passion and
appetite is too obvious. Little has been done to help mothers
in the training of the young. Tli<* b(K)ks are inadequate.
.Mothers are deemed more as nurses of the child, than its men-
tal and moral ijuide.] '•

Certain magazines for women essayed to remedy
the shortcomings of maternal care. They gave some
wise liints as to the nature of children and the ap-
propriate treatment. One contained an interesting
article by V. S. Arthur relating an incident in the
history of a frieml written for the benefit of a moth-
er, in this tale a woman guilty of passionate pun-
ishment of her unruly children was reproved by her
bachelor brother who demonstrated that an explan-
ation of reasons for prohibitions would accomplish
more than violence. He maintained tiiat "no child is
ever improved by scolding; but always injured." Few
chihlren escaped this injury. "No cause is so active
for evil among children as their mother's impatience."
The old gentleman had found that the vandal children
respected his property and that to forbid an offender to
come into his room for a while was a cure. He said:

We expect children who do not reflect, to act with

all the propriety of men and women. . They must regard

our times, seasons, and conveniences, and we will attend to their
ever active wants, when our leisure will best permit us to do
U it .my wonder . that children arc trouble-

'* Amrrican .Innalj of EJuralion tinJ Instruction, vol. iii, 16-19.
"* The Ijidifi' H'reath, vol. iii, 113-124.

The Emancipation of Childhood 63

Doctor Humphrey had some interesting ideas on
"Domestic Education." He thought that infants "arc
generally, except in very poor families, kept too much
from the air, especially in fine weather." Mothers
were inclined to keep the child from creeping: "till the
poor child can walk like other folks, it must not move
at all." Most American fathers had much leisure hut
many intelligent and excellent men "lose by spending
so many of their evenings abroad."

Children of pious families have by far too many religious story
books put into their hands, and are kept too lont^ upon milk,
essences and hit:;h-seasoned condiments. The same objection
lies against almost all the family readinjj of the present day
[thou^jh] ... a certain amount of such easy and familiar
reading;, in childiiood, is very useful. . . The Hible is not
read half so much in religious families, as it was thirty years
apo. . . Within the last thirty years, the [shorter] cate-
chism has been gradually falling into neglect, and has been to a
great extent displaced in pious families, by simpler, and in too
many cases extremely superficial substitutes. The common ob-
jection is . . . that [the doctrines] are above the compre-
hension of children at the tender age, when it used to be com-
mitted and recited.

As to the doctrine of angelic infancy, "All this is

very well ... if we understand it right." But

the learned doctor urges that we always should

Carefully distinguish between the sfKial affections, anil the
state of the heart in the sight of a holy God, so as not to leave
the impression, that there is anything in all this infantile and
juvenile loneliness, to set aside the teachings of Scripture in re-
gard to native depravity. . . I conceive the great laxness of
family government, which characterizes the present age, may be
traced very often to erroneous views on this very point.
The opinion seems to be gaining ground, in some rcsi>ectable
and influential quarters, tli.it punishments are rarely if ever
necessary in family government. It is said, tliat if parents
would begin early, ami cultivate the MX'ial affections of their
children, and enlighten their understandings, and bring the

64 The American Family

whole force of moral influence to bear . there would

be no nerd of rcsortinjj to punishnicnts.

Most parents, he continued, were probably not so well
verseil in these persuasive methods as they ought to be;
perhaps in some families punishment could be avoided
but as a rule it was necessary.

The reader needs only to be reminded of the altera-
tion that had taken place since the days of regnant
Puritanism, and of the moiiern controversy on the same
question of child nature between opposing schools in
the field of religious education.

Naturally the transition to child-freedom was dis-
concerting to such as could not discriminate between
the soundness of the fundamental trend and the inci-
dental evils attendant on the relaxation of constraint.
A "Stranger in America" wrote as early as 1807 that

One of the j^rcatest evils of a Republican form of government
is a loss of . . . subordination in society. . Bo^-s as-

sume the airs of full prown coxcombs. This is not to be won-
dered at, when most parents make it a principle never to check
those unKovernablc passions which are born with us, or to cor-
rect the prowinjj vices of their children. . . Often have I
with horror, seen boys, whose dress indicated wealthy parents,
intoxicated, shouting and swearing in the public streets.'*

In 1 81 8 profligacy had become so common in New
York that a respectable inhabitant said: "There is nf)t
a father in this citv but who is sorry that he has got a
son."" A writer of that year said:

Strictly speaking there is no such thing as social subordination
in the I'nited States. Parents have no command t»ver their
children. . Owing perhaps to the very popular nature of

our institutions, the American children arc seld«)m taught that
profound reverence for, and strict oln-dience to their parents,
which are at once the basis of domestic comfort and of the wcl-

*' Jan*on. Slrani^er in .-Imfrica, 297.
" Fcaron. Skfldirs of .Imfrira, 172.

The Emancipation of Childhood 65

fare of the children themselves. . . Nay the independence
of children on their parents, is carried so far, as to raise doubts
if a father or mother has any rijiht to interfere in the marriajjc
of a son or dauj^hter. A few weeks since, this question uas
publicly discussed at one of our New York Debating Clubs, for
the edification of a numerous audience both male and female;
and it was determined by a stout majority, that in a free and
enlightened republic, children are at liberty to marry whom
they please, without any interference on the part of the
parents . . . and for this most sagacious reason, that the
child, and not the parent, is about to commit matrimony ; it be-
ing quite an exploded prejudice, that parents can have any pos-
sible concern in the welfare and happiness of their offspring.
The doctrine doubtless is palatable to every needy and unprin-
cipled adventurer, who wishes to persuade some silly daughter
of an opulent father, to accompany him to the next trading
justice, who, for a few shillings, will perform the marriage
ceremony, and consign her to a husband, and disgrace and mis-
ery, for life.'^

A German visitor to America about the same time,
wrote of the "indulgence shown by parents toward the
excesses of children in earliest youth (often I saw chil-
dren in quarrel with old people pick up stones, and
threaten to fling them at the head of the old man that
wanted to punish them)." He often saw young girls in
convulsive anger at their parents." An Englishman
who took tea in a family remarked that

The children's faces were dirty, their hair uncombed, their dis-
position evidently untaught, and all the members of the family,
from the boy of six years of age up to the owner ( I was going
to say master) of the house, appeared independent of each other.
I have seen the same characteristics in other families - in some
decidedly the contrary; but these latter would seem to be the
exceptions, and the former the general rule.'"

'•' Bristcd. Rrsourcfs of thf VnitfA Statti, 459-460.
** Mcckc. Retse Jurrh die lereiniglrn Stuatrn, vol. i, 42, 63.
*'• Mackm/ic. Ilistnrudl, topographical, and descriptive I'ie^u of the
United States, 357.

66 77/ f" .Iniifu an I'd mil y

Abdy, a visitor of the early thirties, thought that "the
Americans are too anxious to make money and too apt
to spoil their children. The boys are mucli more

spoiled than the g''"'^- ' ^'^ ''^^" daily Mtiri [labor news-
paper] of March 21, iS^4, occurred a "modern cate-
chism adapted to the times." The followin;.^ questions
are suggestive:

Who is the oldest man? The lail of fourtrrti who struts ami
swanK^rs and smokes his cijjar, and drinks rum ; treads on the
toes of his jjrandfather, swears at his mother and sister, and
vows that he will run away and leave "the old man" if he will
not let him have more cash. In what families is there the
best government? Those in which the children covern the
parents. Who brings up his children in the way they

should Ko? He that teaches them to spend money without
earninj; it; mi.xes sling whenever he thinks it will do him good,
and always saves the bottom of the glass for little Frank.

77/ «• Lddit's' Repository of Cincinnati from 1S41 to
1849 contained numerous comments on the problem of
child control. It is observed that the young lack re-
spect for aged persons. "In travel, especially on
steamboats," said one writer, "I have often remarked
the selfishness of the young, monopolizing sofas, rock-
ing chairs, etc., sometimes even to the disregard of the
invalid." In another number, it was asserted that the
good old breaking-in of children could not but have
happy results. "We have fallen on evil times, 'i'herc
is a fearful decline of familv religion. Karthly

good . has filled the parental eye, and the heirs

of the covenant are sacrificed to this Moloch." Parents
waxed careless and tended "to relax their personal at-
tentions to the great business of educating their off-
spring, and to surrender them up almost entirely to
their academic and Sunday vSchool instructors." "Bro-
ken-hearted mothers are often seen mourning over the
wavwardncss of their children."

II

The Emancipation of CJiilJIiood 67

An English woman in 1848 wrote:

The indulKfficc which parents in the United States permit to
their children is not seen in En^jland ; the child is too early his
own master; as soon as he can sit at table he chooses his own
food, and as soon as he can speak argues with his parents on the
propriety or impropriety of their directions.

In his Old Enj^land and New England, Bunn said:
"Young America calls his father *the governor,' his
mother 'the old 'un,' his sisters 'our gals,' and his
brothers 'pals.'"

Emerson quoted a man who said that it was a misfor-
tune to have been born in an age when children were
nothing and to have spent mature life in an age when
children were everything. Such must have seemed to
many the effect of democracy on family relations. Cer-
tainly children were coming to the fore. People taught
their children to show off before guests. Duncan in
America as I found it said :

The parents, full of frank, simple emotion, brinp; their little
treasures under notice and ask you with pride and joy, "Don't
you think my Charley is a brave little fellow?" ... If
the children are not at home, you will be shown their pictures
and told their histories. . . They come, not w ith a "make
your bow," or "courtesy to the lady," - that is not republican
fashion ; but with a becoming courage, looking straight into
your eyes, and extending the ripht hand for a cordial shake.
My surprise has also been excited by the len^jths they are per-
mitted to po in mischief without punishment, or scarcely ad-
monition. . As each child obtains a seat at the family
table at meals as early as they can be trusted in an elevated
chair, they are used to ask for and to receive all manner of
varieties of food. . . [They arc commonly allowed to sit
up] to see the fjuests at evening parties and share oysters, jellies,
and ices, fruits, and preserves . . with all the heartiness
and excess of "frugivorous children" ... to see sensible
people smile with secret admiration of the "spirited" exhibition
of rebellious will on the part of their offspring, excites in an

68 The ^hucru (Ui idtmly

English mind, a sense of lurking danger - as also to hear pupils
asserting boldly what thr\ "will never K-arn."

Olilmixon said tliat the thiM u;()t cvcrythini^ on iiis
plate and left half of it.

riic plicnonicna ot thiKl cnfranciiiscnicnt recall the
waywardness of ne^ro children after emancipation and
of the chihiren of immigrants culling loose from paren-
tal archaism. Like these two latter types the children
of the new American family were children of migrants
to a new civilization. As in the case of immigrants of
our day not all parents were reconciled to letting go.
There was still a good deal of cruelty to children, ami,
moreover, a sturdy defense of paternal supremacy.

Doctor Humphrey in his work of 1840 sponsored
patriarchism. Me conceived of the domestic relations
as prior to all others in time and paramount in impor-
tance. "Families, are so many divinely instituted and
independent communities, upon the well ordering of
which, the most momentous interests of the church and
the state, of time and eternity arc suspended." No
power on earth has a right to interfere with the patri-
archal head. He is amenahle to God only, save in
the most extreme cases of neglect or ahuse. A ncighhor
may lack everv patriarchal (jualihcation. Perhaps his
children would be better off in another's charge "but
you may not thus interfere with one of (iod's ordi-
nances." Nor can government assume parental duties.
He thought the country was menaced by growing lax-
ity of family government. It was more difllcult than
half, or even a (]uarter of, a centurv earlier for parents
to "command their household after them." 'I'he author
was of the opinion that considerable progress at estab-
lishing parental control could be made "under six
months, if not under four; and that parental authority
ought to be well established witiiiFi the first year and

The Emancipation of CJiildhood 69

a quarter. . . The young man of twenty, in his
father's house, has no more right to say that he will use
his own discretion, in regard to observing the rules and
regulations of the family, than a child of ten." Chil-
dren must submit to parental authority even after their
majority if they choose to remain at home.

Writers in the Presbytfrian Ma^azitw of the fifties
represented similarly the conservative point of view.
One thought

1 hat the deficiencies which disclose themselves in the niarriat^c
relation must be ascribed mainly to an inadequate and improper
training. . . It can e.xcite no wonder, that young persons
who liave grown up without restraint - allowed to treat their
parents with disrespect - indulged in all their whims and ca-
prices-accustomed only to flattery and adulation - should be
found very troublesome inmates in another household.

Another article asserted the entire authority of parent
over child, and denied any one's right to intervene
against the parent's will.

The signs of the want of family discipline appear in the way-
wardness of the children while yet they are young. Given up
to idleness, knowing no restraint but such as they are wont to
defy, having no domestic exercise for entertainment and profit,
and nothing to keep them at home but their bed and board, and
dreading their home for their leisure hours as a place of ct)n-
finement; familiar with drunkenness, profaneness, and all the
captivating forms of youthful dissipation; what have the parents
or the community to hope from such children?

In another number it was affirmed that "i'hc levelling
system of the present age is nowhere more unfavorable
than in the familv. Tyranny is offensive to

(jod. . . But the parent's authority ought to be
early, absolute, and entire."

It must not be supposed that the abdicatioFi of sov-
ereignty by parents in the perioil of this volume was
universal or due to indifTercntism. There are indica-

yo The Aiuiru (in I-dtmlv

tions of serious parental concern for the welfare and
training of children and of the persistence of the ohi
religious zeal. Children ni.iv have seemed to foreign-
ers spoiled and pert hut there was not lacking a large
element of genuine filial ilevotion. An Knglishwoman
writing in 1H4S on the excessive indulgence shown to
children in America conceded that "this early develop-
mentof republicanism does not injure so much as might
he expecteil the future man. does in no way lessen the
domestic afTections."

Gurowski's work of iS;;7 obser\eti that
American parents, allowing an almost unlimited choice to their
children, spare nevertheless no hardships and pains to hrinjj
them up, and to educate them accordin^^ to their conception of
what is the best and the most useful for the mature duties of
lite. Parents love their children as dearly and intensely here
as in Kurope, but exercise less control, less authority.
American parents are far more forbearing, nay meeker with
their children than are tliose in Europe. What here results
from freedom or a yielding disposition, to the European com-
prehension appears as irreverence. A slight or no constraint is
imposed upon children in America; and as childhood
is eminently imitative, their good breeding depends upon the
bad or good examples which in various quarters arc freely set
before them. Children accustomed to the utmost familiarity
and absence of constraint with their parents, behave in the same
manner with other older persons. . Even in the serious de-

cisions of life, children in America enjoy a fulness of indepen-
dence not customary in Europe. They make freely the choice
of their intimacies, then of their church, of their politics, their
husbands and wives.

Kspeciallv noteworthy was the emancipation of girls
in the new world. This was correlated with "the
political order of things in America." There is not
much surface connection between the political democ-
racy of the nineteenth century and the emancipation of
girls from parental control; for political democracy

The Emancipation of Childhood

was a male affair and could not logically serve as a
premise for reasoning about the status of woman in the
family. But when the spirit of democracy is in the air
it does not wait altogether for logical rules of proce-
dure. The emancipation of boys, consonant with the
new egalitarianism, could not but have influenced the
status of girls despite their exclusion from political ac-
tivity. Moreover the conditions of the new world
operated to raise the position of woman as will be seen
later.

The French visitors of the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury were almost shocked at the freedom enjoyed by
girls yet they admit that no harm came of it. Perrin
du Lac said that "because girls may go unattended to
parties, married women seldom go." It was a surprise
to the Frenchmen to find the delicate business of mar-
riage confided to the young people. St. Mery report-
ed: "The chosen sweetheart comes to the house when-
ever he pleases, he takes his beloved out walking when
he likes. . . Young people sit up spooning after
their elders go to bed." Brissotadds: "You will sec a
young girl drive off with her sweetheart in a light car-
riage, and injurious suspicion never interferes with the
pure pleasures of this trip into the country." Rocham-
beau hinted that unmarried girls did not waste time on
married men.

John Quincy Adams wrote in a student diary of
1787- 1788 (Newburyport) :

[On a terrace in HiKh Street we] saw a number of younR la-
dies who seemed to expect to be accosted ; and some of them
finally sat down on the ^rass, perhaps to see if that would not
call our attention to them ; but we were . . inexor-

able. . . Some of these youn^: ladies were so much piqued
at our apparent net^lect of them that they revenged themselves
with proper spirit by laughing loud at us as we past by them ;

72 The American Family

and what punishment could possibly be niDrc severe than the
ridicule of a youn;; lady?

An interesting instance showing the common sense of
the new daui^hter of America coupled with the old sub-
ordination to parental will is found in the letters of
Eliza Southi^ate Howne. At the age of eighteen she
wrote: "1 despise the comiuct of those girls who think
that every man who pays them any attention is seriously
in love with them." Later she writes very sweetly and
beauiifullv to her mother regarding Mr. Bowne's at-
tentions to her. "He knew I was not at liberty to en-
courage his addresses without the approbation of my
parents, and appeared as solicitous that 1 should act
with strict proprietv as one of mv most disinterested
friends." She sizes him up very sanely. "I wish my
Father would write to Mr. Derby and know what he
says of .Mr. B's character." Ihis careful maiden mar-
ried .M r. Bowne.

IVom sundry references in the period between i8oo
and the W^ir, the inference is that the American maid-
ens enjoyed great freedom, cherished their independ-
ence, and used it cleverly. Unhampered acquaint-
ance with voung men put them in a position to choose
their mate, perhaps not always wisely yet doubtless
with results happier on the whole than the fruits of
marriage in more conventional periods. If some
maidens kept a keen eve open for "desirable" hus-
bands even foreigners -their unwisdom was probably
not so much a spontaneous product of their self-will as
a result f)f the artificial culture that was beginning to
cnt^If the wr)men of the more prosperous classes.

Shortlv before the war Grattan in Civilized America
said :

F"eniale children of the most respectable parentajjc live, even

before they are said to have quitted the nursery, in public.

The Emancipation of Childfiood 73

At the a;4c of twelve or thirteen, when female children rejoice
in the appelation of "Misses," they bej^in to enjoy all the priv-
ileges of self-management.

Not all girls were sweetly sane. Fcjiidness for fiction
came to be a common source of parental regret. John
Quincy Adams, about 17H7, records a social function at
which he danced with a girl, of whom he wrote:
"She . . has read too many novels, which render

her manners rather fantastical and affected." The
New England Quarterly Magazine of 1802 reprinted
an article from the Monthly Mirror of 1797 to the
efTect that novel reading led to female depravity. Some
boy too young to marry commits fornication with the
novel-fed girl. A girl lures her chum's husband. The
writer was acquainted with three such instances in as
many years. The peace of several families was de-
stroyed. Novel reading was responsible. (Perhaps it
was also to blame for the desire of girls to be ethereal
and slender, delicate and shrinking, which clima.xed in
the early years of the nineteenth century.) A writer of
1842 lamented the defective education that makes
women more sentimental. Many pore over sickly nov-
els regardless of duty as wife and mother. "Is it not a
melancholy prospect for the country, that mothers so
full of sentiment and romance are to train the future
generations of this republic?"

Martha H. Whitehouse, in the Ladies' Repository of
1852 said that one cause that might be assigned for
woman's inferiority was her morbid taste for light read-
ing. "Our country, at the present day, is flooded to an
unparalleled degree with the vain imaginings oi man,
and presented to the public for a recompense so slight
that 'he who runs mav read'; and our voung ladies de-
vour with eagerness such books." This unreal world,
she believed, unfitted for the real.

74 The American Family

Dc r()cH]ucvillc describee! the emancipation of ^irls
from maternal control. To otiset the risk ot unconven-
tionalily and freedom, he said, democratic education of
^irls developed. They were permitted to learn what
was what ami were not shielded in "innocence" accord-
ing to the method ot older societies. "If democratic
nations leave a woman free to choose her husband, they
take care to give her mind sufficient knowledge, and
her will sutlicient strength to make so important a
choice." I)e 'lOcciueville probably exaggerated the
emancipation of girls from traditional seclusion; the
foregoing quotation is doubtless hyperbolic in its eu-
logy. Apart from any specific efforts to enlighten girls
in the ways of life the usage of coeilucation could not
but accomplish large results. Dc Tocqueville thought
that the matter-of-fact treatment accorded to girls
Tends to invij^oratf the judj^ient at the expense of the imagi-
nation, and to make cold and virtuous women instead of aflFec-
tionatc wives and agreeable companions to man. S(x:iety may
be mure tranquil and better ret^ulated, but domestic life has
often fewer charms. These, however, arc secondary evils,
which may be braved for the sake of hiijher interests.

The Man of 1H34 contained an article to the effect
that at fifteen or sixteen the young girl began to think
of the mysterious subject matrimony. Her youth-
ful imagination was captivated with its delights. It
was a subject of ever recurrent interest among her com-
panions. A little later she thought more intently about
it. She believed herself destined to happy wedlock.
Eighteen to twenty was the "witching time," the time
for marriage. Most women became more thoughtful
after that and "lof)k before they leap." In another
number .Mr Cobbett was quoted thus:

The girls in America are beautiful and imaflPected ; perfectly
frank, and at the same time, perfectly modest; but, when you
make them an oflPer of your hand, be prepared to give it, for

The Etuancipation of Childhood 75

wait they will not. In England we frequently hear of court-
ships of a quarter of a century; in that anti-Malthusian coun-
try, a quarter of a year is deemed to be rather "lenjjthy."

Susan B. Anthony was an American girl of the com-
ing type. Her father always encouraged the children
in their independent ideas. Once when a spooler was
sick in the mill Susan and Hannah clamored to take
her place. The mother objected but their father let
them draw straws for the chance. 'I'he winner was to
divide her wages with the loser. Susan was the for-
tunate one. She worked two weeks and received three
dollars. With her dollar and a half she bought half a
dozen pale blue cups and saucers that she had heard her
mother wish for. She later taught. She said there
were plenty of beaux, "but I never could bring myself
to put anything about them on paper." She often re-
fers to their calling, escorting her to parties, etc., but
there is scarcely any expression of her sentiments
toward them. One, of whom she says: "He is a most
noble-hearted fellow; I have respected him highly
since our first acquaintance," went to see a rival, and

she wrote: "He is at 's this evening. O may he

know that in me he has found a spirit congenial with
his own, and not sutler the glare of beauty to attract
both eye and heart."

Goethe's Correspondence with a Child exercised a
strong fascination upon young minds. It led more
than one young girl to form an ideal attachment to a
man far her senior but full of nobility and intellectual
power. Theodore Parker said of letters to him from a
young New Hampshire girl: "They are as good as
Bcttine's without the lies." It seems that "this ming-
ling of idealism and hero-worship was strongly char-
acteristic of the transcendental period when women,

"6 I h(' .htii t u (in liiniily

havini^ little solid education and less industrial employ-
ment, were full of noble aspirations and lon^in^s for
fuller and freer life, which must fiiul expression in
some way." Louisa Alcott (born iS^2) wrote letters
to Kmerson pourini; forth her i^irlish loni^in^s and rap-
tures, but never sent them. "

On the whole the South was probably more conserva-
tive than the North in its treatment of the young, par-
ticularly of girls. The general emancipation of chihl-
hood prevailed, nevertheless, to a degree in the South.
Ramsav wrote in 1809 of South C^irolina revolutionary
spirit that the sons

Too little accustomed to the discipline of a strict education,
serm equally zealous for the rights of boys, and ur^Je their
claims so practically that many of the merchants import from
Europe clerks trained to habits of obedience, rather than make
vain attempts to subjujjate the hii^h-minded youths of Carolina.
Their repugnance to subjection [is often excessive].
The too early introduction of young lads into company has an
imhappy effect on their habits. [They are led to drink.]

Letters from rir<j^inia (1816) relate that "V^irginia
youths are not naturally overpatient of re-

straint, or submissive to authority, even of the most
parental kind."

Buckingham in The Slavf States of /Irncrira wrote
of Savannah :

The youths of both se.vcs appear to be brought up in less sub-
jection to parental authority than in England. The boys arc
educated chiefly at day schools: between the hours of school
attendance they are under very little restraint, and do pretty
nearly what they like; many carry sticks or canes with them,
and some even affect the bravo, by carrying bowic knives, but
it is more for show than use. The young-ladies being also edu-
cated at day schools, or at home, have much greater liberty al-
lowed them in the disposal of their time, and the arrangement

"Cheney. Louisa May .lUolt. her I. iff, I.fttrrs, and Journals, 57-59.

The Emancipation of Childhood 77

and control of their visits, than girls of the same age in Eng-
land. The consequence is, great precocity of manners in both
sexes, and often very early marriages.

The actor Tasistro in Rdtidom S/iols an J S'^iit/ii-rn
Breezes remarked:

Southern children do not come exactly up to my notion of
what children should be. Educated almost generally under
the French system, which converts children into ladies and
gentlemen before they are ten . . . they exhibit none of
that hearty and most unceremonious gayety and good-humor
which prevail among the younger branches of families in the
North, particularly at . . . holydays, when the inroads
of these little Goths and V^andals is the signal for the overthrow
of any remaining stiffness and formality, and for the commence-
ment of all sorts of trifling games and sports.

The distinctive features of child-life in the South arc
treated in a later chapter.

From all the forcgoini^ items it is evident that the
century of the child was under way. To old-fashioned
people it seemed that the foundations were beino; de-
stroyed; but the emancipation was a forward move
toward family reciprocity, democracy, and sponta-
neous, unforced loyalty.

i

IV. THE SOCIAL SUBORDINATION OF
WOMAN

The line of liberalizing influences surveyed in the
foregoing chapters had a positive effect on the status of
woman that requires to be detailed; but first it is im-
portant to visualize the relics of medievalism lingering
in woman's status throughout the period under consid-
eration. Such "equality" as was enjoyed by woman in
the nineteenth century was a stingy concession even
though it may have looked large to European visitors.
The "fathers" did not plan a democratic America;
hence it is not surprising that sufifrage was limited and
that woman suffrage was eliminated.

When English law crossed the ocean with the seven-
teenth century colonists, the women had the constitu-
tional right to vote and in some cases made use of it.
Not one of the constitutions of the thirteen states ex-
plicity restricted the suffrage to men. New York was
the first state to tamper with its charter by adding the
qualification "male" in the year 1778; state after state
fell in line, concluding with New Jersey in 1844.''
The constitution of this state had been carelessly made;
so that during thirty-one years women had the suffrage.
That they used it is evident from the traditions in many
families of a great-grandmother or great-grandaunt
who voted year after year and also from the law of i Snj
which limited the franchise to free white males and de-

*^ Miinsterbcrfj. Amrricans, 573.

8o 77/ 1' .Itnttiiun Family

Glared as a reason that women, negroes, and aliens had

been allowed to vote."

American democracy is to he traced partly to old-
worhl ideals and partly to the intluence ot pioneer life.
Hut it will he observed in eitlier case that comlitions
did not favor the inclusion of woman in the circle of
privilege. Pauls interjuetation of woman's sphere
was vivid in the minds of those in whom Calvin had
broken ground for democracy. And in the new
worlil a woman without a man was so helpless, having
no protection against frontier perils and small oppor-
tunitv for procuring a satisfactory livelihood, and civic
life was still so obviously a man's world with its crude-
ness ami fighting, that woman still ranked as a dcpeiui-
cnt on man as in the old days of ordeal and could not
logically claim equality.

In the Pennsvlvania Park ft of September 23, 1780,
occurred the following advertisement:

W.mti'd at a scat about half a day's journey from Philadelphia,
a single woman of unsullii'd reputation, an affable, cheerful,
active, and amiable disposition ; cleanly, industrious, perfectly
quah'fied to direct and manape the female concerns of country
business, such as raisin)^ small stock, dairying, marketinfj. comb-
ing, cardinj;, spinning, knitting, weavinp, scwinp, picklinj:, pre-
serving, etc. Such a person will be treated with respect and
esteem, and meet with every encouragement due to such a char-
acter.

Even if this advertisement did point to economic inde-
pendence for some woman (the only sure basis of equal-
ity), opportunities of the sort must have been few. It
is more likely, indeed, that the person in question was
shrewdly advertising for a wife.

The attitude of the public toward women in business
is suggested in the prospectus of a "Lady's Journal"

'" McMaster. History of thr People of the United States (1902), vol. iii,
»47-

I

The Social Subordination of IVornan 8i

(issued by Mrs. Carr of Baltimore in the early part of
the nineteenth century). This prospectus states that
she knew the malignant part of mankind would scoff
at a woman editor but a mother would brave death for
the support of her children and she had five.

Daniel Anthony, father of Susan, at Battcnville,
New York, was much criticized for allowing his
daughters to teach as in those days women did not work
for wages save from urgent necessity; but he was far
enough ahead of his time to believe that every girl
should be trained to self-support. But even at the mid-
dle of the century woman had no recognized individu-
ality in any sphere of life. She toiled in domestic ob-
scurity to educate the boys. The girl was a chattel
with no career in prospect. The boy past twenty-one
was free but the girl continued to work without wages
after twenty-one as before. Marriage transferred her
services to the husband. Food, shelter, and clothing were
considered adequate reward. Almost every woman had
to marry wlicthcr or notor else become an utter depend-
ent, living after her parents' death with some married
relative as family drudge without wage and usually re-
garded with disrespect by the children. 1\) step out as
a wage-earner was to lose caste and be barred from the
neighborhood functions. No man would be brave
enough to marry a woman tliat had unsexed herself by
becoming a literary woman. It was believed to a great
extent that any woman that attempted a vocation out-
side of domestic service was henceforth unfitted to be a
wife and a mother.

Catherine E. Beecher, who was bv no riicans an icon-
oclast, in 1 81; I recognized the real crux of woman's ile-
pression, for she said :

The jjrand source of the heaviest wron;; that oppresses our sex
is found in the fact that they arc so extensively cut oflF from

82 Thr .1 ruitii (in Fatutly

honorahlr and remunerative eniploy in their professional voca-
tion riirrc are now more than two million children in
this (.i>u[itr\ without any schcM)ls! There are probahly as many
more in schcMils tauj^ht by men, who could be far more appro-
priately employed in shops or mills, or other masculine pursuits.

She (]untcs Doctor Coombs as referring to inactivity of
intellect and feelini; as predisposinu; to nervous disease,
of which females of the midcile and upper classes were
the most frequent victims, "especially those of a nervous
constitution and of ^ood natural abilities." Miss
Beecher went on to say:

The results of hi^h cultivation on the character and happiness
of youn;j ladies of the hijjhcr classes [after quittinK school is
painful to me]. That restless longinR for excitement, that
cravin;! for unattainable }iood, that morbid action of the imaj^i-
nation, that dissatisfaction with the world, that factitious in-
terest in trifles, and those alternations of high excitement and
brixidinjj apathy - tlu*sc arc the secret history of many a ^:ifted
and highly-cultivated female mind. . . The ability to secure
an independent livelihood and honorable employ suited to her
education and capacities, are the only true foundation of the
social elevation of women, even in the very hijihest classes of
society. While she continues to be educated only to be some-
body's wife, and is left without any aim in life till that some-
body, either in love, or in pity, or in selfish regard, at last
{H'ants her the opportunity, she can never be truly independent.
And true freedom and equality are the essential requisites of
genuine affection.

Mrs. Stantf)n also said that uoman mu^t be taught to
be economicaliv indepeiuicnt.

The two-fold situation of transmitted bigotry and
economic subjection tended to a mischievous effect on
family relations: it left the way open to patriarchal des-
potism, and tended tf) make the boys overbearing, while
the girls and mother were likelv to be subdued with a
sense of "woman's place" that prevented the full cx-
jiansion of their personalities. Thus the seeds of equal-

The Social Subordination of If'onian 83

ity were slow to reach their normal fruitage and the
status quo was slow to dissolve even under the liberal-
izing influences already portrayed. In sharp contrast
to those signs of promise appear many relics of medie-
valism that encumbered woman's status down at least to
the Civil War. Marriage reduced her to a sub(jrdi-
nate and cramped position. She was expected to em-
brace her husband's religion, to confine her activities to
the home, and to make her husband's pleasure her guid-
ing star. Ignorant of her husband's business, subordi-
nate in the church, barred from politics, and possessing
a scanty or a silly education, it is not strange that she
scarcely aroused in her husband a sense of "conscious-
ness of kind" or a real sympdthy. She did not have to
think; hence it was but natural that light reading or
trifling gossip satisfied her, that she accepted indulgence
instead of justice, or even gloried in her degradation.

A hundred years ago a woman of polite breeding
would have been oflfended if told that she meddled in
public affairs. Her attitude is illustrated bv the re-
mark of an unusually intelligent woman to a Federalist
whom she met shortly after her flight from Washington
on the occasion of the British invasion. He said that
the disaster argued for a standing army and she replied
that she had always associated a standing armv with
despotism, but added: "T am not competent to discuss
such questions, sir." Mrs. Madison enjoved the friend-
ship of many public men but we have no record of her
views on public questions or that she ever influenced
the political views or acts of her devoted husband.

About 1840 Catherine K. Beecher voiced the dom-
inant theory of the relation proper to the nature of tiie
se.xes. She said :

Heaven has appointed to one sex the superior, and to the other
the subordinate station, and this without any reference to the

84 Till' .Iniitnnn Itntitly

character or conduct of cither. It is therefore as much for the
dit^nity as it is for the interest of females, in all respects to con-
form to the duties of this relation. And it is as much a duty
as it is for the child to tultill similar relations to parents, or
subjects to rulers. Hut it is not . . . designed

that her duties or her intiurruc should he any the less impor-
tant or all pervading. Hut it w;is desi^jned that the mode of
jjaininjj influence and of exercising power should be altogether
different and peculiar. Woman is to win everything by peace
and love; by making herself so much respected, esteemed and
loved, that to yield to her opinions and to gratify her wishes
will be the free-will offering; of the heart. But this is all to
be accomplished in the domestic and social circle. All the
sacred protection of religion, all the generous promptings of
chivalry, all the poetry of romantic gallantry, depend upon
woman's retaining her place as dependent and defenceless and
making no claims, and maintaining no right but what are the
gifts of honor, rectitude, and love. [Hetter education will fit
women to be school-teachers.] Hut if females, as they ap-
proach the other sex in intellectual elevation, begin to claim, or
to exercise in any mafiner. the peculiar prerogatives of that sex,
education will provt- a doubtful and dangerous blessing. But
this will never be the result. For the more intelligent a
woman becomes, the more she can appreciate the wisdom of that
ordinance that appointed her subordinate station, and the more
her taste will conform to the graceful and dignified retirement
and submission it involves.

A writer in the Ltidiis' Rfpository in 1842 reduced the
duties of a wife to three heads: affection, reverence,
faithfulness.

The Puhllr Li-Jirrr an J D/iily Transcript of Phila-
delphia about the middle of the century had an article
on "The \\'omcn of Philadelphia." in which occurred
the following cfTusion :

Our ladies . . . s(jar to rule the hearts of their worship-
pers, and secure obedience by the scepter of affection. , . Is
not everything managed by female influence? ... A
woman is nobody. A wife is everything. A pretty girl is
equal to ten thousand men, and a mother is, next to God, all

The Social Subordination of ffoman 85

powerful. '1 he ladies of Philadelphia, therefore, under

the influence of the most serious "sober second thoujijhts," arc
resolved to maintain their rights as wives, belles, virgins, and
mothers, and not as women.

Miss Barber of the Madison (Georgia) f'isiior says,
It is written in the volume of inspiration . . . that
man ... is superior to woman. He has a more stately
form, stronger nerves and muscles, and, in nine cases out of
ten, a more vigorous intellect.

H. P. Grattan, editor of the New York Sunday Age^
loved women, on the proper pedestal. "If they give
evidence of a knowledge of puddings and pies, how
much happier they might be."

Margaret Fuller, writing on the wrongs and duty of
American women said:

It is not generally proposed that [woman] should be suf-
ficiently instructed and developed to understand the pursuits or
aims of her future husband ; she is not to be a help-meet to him
in the way of companionship and counsel, except in the care of
his house and children. [But] a vast proportion of the sex,
if not the better half, do not, cannot have this domestic sphere.
Thousands and scores of thousands in this country, no less than
in Europe, are obliged to maintain themselves alone. Far
greater numbers divide with their husbands the care of earning
a support for the family.

Woman's education before the Civil War was of a
most inferior sort. Nearly all girls' schools before
1800 were limited to terms of a few months and con-
fined themselves largely to needlework, music, dancing,
and the cultivation of morals and manners. Referring
to the literature of the cwd of the eighteenth century,
McMaster has said:

For young women there was a class of bcMjks designed to incul-
cate a morality of the most unhealthy sort. . . They were
popular and the list is long. . . There was a collection of
dramatic pieces designed "to exemplify the mode of conduct

:y{) The Anuruan Family

which will rmtlcr younn ladies bt)th amiahir and happy when
their school education is completed" and containing such dc-
lil^htful rcadinu a*. "The (jtH>d Mother-in-Law," "The Good
D«ughier-in-La\v, ITie Maternal Sistcr-in-La\v."

In the first half of the nineteenth century there were
no adequate facilities for the education of women.
Some liiii imlecii receive a ^ood education, sufficient to
enable them to prepare their sons for college. lUit in-
asmuch as woman was excluded from the walks of life
in which a broail education seemed re(]uisite, slight at-
tention was ^iven to her education and she was denied
the proper means of intellectual development. Some
did get a good domestic education; others were miir-
ricd "without knowing anything of life hut its amuse-
ments."

The New Kngland (Junrtirlx Md^azinc for iHoz
contained the opinion of Doctor Rush that several cir-
cunistanccs in America re(]uired a peculiar mode of fe-
male education: I. Karly marriage made contracted
etlucation necessary. It shouhl he conHneci chiefly to
the more useful branches of literature. 2. Most citi-
zens had to work. Women should he trained to be
stewards and guardians of their husbancfs' property.
3. Professional life often took men away from their
families. Women should be prepareti to train children.
They should know how to instruct their sons in the
principles of liberty and government. 4. Servants
needed looking after.

One hundred years ago the object of female educa-
tion was to enable girls to attract men. gain husbands,
maintain homes, and manage families. It would have
seemed absurd to give a girl the same course as a boy
beyond the first reader Hunt thinks that

Addi«on'* deMrription . . . oi the accompli'^hmrnts of an
Fnglishuoman of high brcedinjj in 1712, would have answered

Till' Socuil Subordination oj Ho man 87

with some modifications for the daughter of a well-to-do family
in America in 1815 :

"She sings, dances, plays on the lute and harpsichord, paints
prettily, is a perfect mistress of the French tongue, and has
made a considerable progress in Italian. She is, besides, ex-
cellently skilled in all domestic sciences, as preserving, pickling,
pastry, making wines of fruits of our own growth, embroider-
ing, and needlework of every kind."

The domestic arts were taught to rich aiui poor. All
women were expected to learn to nurse. But the book
education of women was better and more diffused than
in earlier days. Women whose grandmothers could
not write were able to write well.

Americans generally were in accord, however, with
Rousseau's view that

The education of women should be always relative to the men.
To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem them,
to educate us when young and to take care of us when grown
up, to advise, to console us, to render our lives easy and agree-
able; these are the duties of women at all times.

Women accepted the gospel according to Paul. Books
written for young women's guidance cited Milton :
To whom thus Eve with perfect beauty adorn'd:
"My Author and Disposer, what thou bidst
Unargued I obey; so God ordains;
God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowleiige and her praise."

Books for women indicate what was expected of them.
They were advised to cultivate the power of pleasing
conversation. Married women were to concentrate
upon husband and home. One author bade woman
understand "that there is an inecjuality in the sexes, ami
that for the economy of the world the men, who were
to be the guardians and lawL^ivcrs, had not oidv the
greater share of bodily strength bestowed on them, but
those also of reason and resolution." She was remind-

8 s The Am trie an Family

cd that chastity was less important in man than in
woman; that she should not expostulate with an un-
faithful husband lest she alienate him, but should feign
ignorance of his behavior and charm him back; that
she should not expect the public to sympathize with a
blazoning of her wrongs; and that to separate from her
husband made her responsible for his later vices.

Kor w«)man was prescribed strong doses of reading,
mosilv religious books; but she could read the Rambltr,
the IJltr, and the Spfctator. Shakespeare was too
coarse but selections from him were admissible. Byron
was taboo but V(iung. Thomson, Milton, Cowpcr, and
(joldsmith afforded desirable reading. Moral essays
were regarded as her best pabulum. She was encour-
aged to read American history but was warned against
novels, though T/n- Ficar of Jl'ake field , Don Quixote^
and a few others escaped the ban. The young lady
even put up with Swift's insults."

F(jr at least fifty years longer the education of women
was in general of this degrading type. Too much time
was given to frothy accomplishments, to dress, to ro-
mance and unreality, and too little to a substantial in-
tellectual development that would have enabled her to
interest and hold her husband and to escape from stag-
nation and inefficiency. The saner people of the period
realized the defects of the system and urged amend-
ment both in the interest of woman's function and of
her own happiness. At school, however, none of the
men teachers would teach Susan B. Anthony long di-
vision or understand why a girl should insist upon
learning it.*' It looked as if women were "to be mere
kitchen maids, without a particle of information, ex-

•• Hunt, l.ile in .Imrrica one hundrrd Years ago (a valuable general
refrrefKe on womcn't >iatu*), 74-84.

♦•Harper. IJIe anJ Work of Sujan li. .Inlhony, vol. i, 22.

The Social Subordination of IVoman 89

cept it belong to mere labor of body," or if taught
more, naught but flashy acconriplishmcnts.

Many periodicals and papdrs for women (some oi
them by women) were in existence in the first half of
the nineteenth century. At the middle of the century
the leading magazine was Godey's Lady's Book-^Wtd
with fashion pictures "and stories supposed to be adapt-
ed by virtue of their domestic imbecility to the taste of
the women of the period." The Ladies' National Mag-
azine was of like character. Women of the fifties took
intense delight in novels of a "domestic, semi-pious
character" -books that to men seemed trivial and emp-
ty. More substantial reading was afforded by some
magazines, such as the Ladies' Repository of Cincin-
nati, in which in 1841 a writer advocated literature for
women on account of their large influence on the race.

The arguments that so long deprived women of lib-
eral culture rested almost entirely on the assumption
that education would beget distaste for the pleasures of
domestic life and would unfit women for family and
social duties. When reading was first taught women
in America, it is said that opposition arose on the
ground that a woman would forge her father's or hus-
band's name if she learned to read and write. Geog-
raphy was likewise opposed on the score of its tendency
to make her dissatisfied with home and desirous of
travel. The first public examination of a girl in geom-
etry, given in New York in 1829, raised a cry of disap-
proval all over the land -"the clergy, as usual, prophe-
sying the dissolution of all family bonds."" In 1841
Mrs. Graves wrote:

It is their pencral anti-domestic tendency which is the greatest
defect in our modern systems of female education; and to this

*^ These absurdities are rccordeil in Cja^e, If'oman, Church, and Slnlt,
533, faotnofr, and Hecker, Short History of H'ontfn's Rights, 170.

90 //'' .Imt'riiun Family

wc m«y trace the restless craving for the excitement of public
duties and public pleasures, which so strikingly characterizes
the anjjret:ate of female s(Kiety at the present clay.

Mrs. Graves ni.iv h.ivc been jusiilicd in her criticism
of what passed for higher education of ^irls, curricula
of showv pretention, but it is strange tliat it did not
occur to the thinkers of tlie day to trace more funila-
mental causation of woman's unrest. What could be
accomplished by seclusion and prudishness? Suflicient
commentary on the old system should have been found
in such experiences as that of Paulina NN'rii^ht who in
1K44 ^avc public lectures on physiology. "When she
uncovered her manikin, ladies would drop their veils
or run from the room; sometimes they 'fainted.'"*"

When about 1S48 the first woman presented herself
at the Harvard medical course she was ejected. When
in iH^;; the Regents of the State of New York gave to a
woman's college the right to grant degrees and offer
courses similar to those given to men the presidents of
other institutions were horrifieil. One college presi-
dent wrote: "A few dreamers I understand are trying
to develop a college for women in the village of Klmira.
The idea of giving woman a man's education is too
ridiculous to appear credible." In a public address a
professor in a well known eastern college said: "1 am
informed that a charter has just been issued in New
York State for the forming of a woman's college and
that a foolish effort is being made to place young wo-
men on the platform before an audience. To my mind
this borders on the vulgar." Dr. Jcwctt, who in 1861
was organizing X'^assar, met with similar criticisms.*^

Wc must beware of taking the subject of female cdu-

■ Pirv»n« Old Fa/ftionrJ H'oman, 219.
♦' Pusard. tut Sofi/I/ Amfricainf, 184-18$; Rcit/cl. Trrnd of CoUfgrs for
H'omtn, )t(X

The Social Subordination of Woman 91

cation entirely out of its perspective. It must be re-
membered that the formal education of men was like-
wise very narrow and futile. Mackay, who travelled
in the United States in 1846- 1847, said: "As a general
rule, the men in America fall far short of the women in
intellectual culture and moral refinement. Most of
them enter upon . . business at an early age."

Gurowski reported: "The intellectual education of
an American woman, especially in the Free States, av-
erages a higher degree than in Europe, even in coun-
tries considered as foremost in civilization. . The
culture of the mind is superior and more generally dif-
fused among women than it is on the average among
men. [Men are too busy.]" (In this fact may be an
explanation in part of the strength of the woman
movement.)

Woman's legal status during the first half of the nine-
teenth century was medieval and permeated with in-
justice. The reality of woman's bondage is made vivid
by a case in New York City in which a husband re-
covered ten thousand dollars damages from persons that
had received, harbored, and sheltered his wife after she
left him." Mrs. Robinson, a Lowell mill girl, saw

More than one poor woman shulk bi-liind her loom or her
frame when visitors were approaching;. . . Some
were known under assumed names, to prevent their husbands
from trusteeing their wages. It was a very common thing for
a male person of a certain kind to do this, thus depriving his
wife of all her wages, perhaps, month after month. . . A
woman was not supposed to he capable of spending her own or
of using other people's money. In Massachusetts, before 1840,
a woman could not legally be treasurer of her own sewing-
society, unless some man were responsible for hcr.*'^

** C»ape. IVoman, Church, and Stdtr, 141.
*" Robinson. Loom and SpindU, 66-68.

92 The American Family

M.iri,Mrft I'ullcr rccordcil that

[In innumerable instances] prollinatc and idle men live
upon the earnin^:^ oi industrious wives; or if the wives leave
ihcm, and take with them the children, to perform the double
duty of mother and father, follow from place to place, and
threaten to rob them of the children, if deprived of the rights
of a husband, as they call them, planting themselves in their
poor lodgings, friijhteninn them into payini^ tribute by taking
from them the children, running into debt at the expense of
these otherwise so overt;isked helots. Such instances count up
by scores within my own memory. I have seen the husband
who had stained himself by a long course of low vice, till his
wife was wearied from her heroic forgiveness, by finding that
his treachery made it useless, and that if she would proviilc
bread for herself and her children, she must separate from his
ill f anK - I have known this man come to install himself in the
chamber of a woman who loathed him, and say she should never
take f<x)d without his coinpany. I have known these men steal
their children, whom they knew they had no means to maintain,
take them into dissolute company, expose them to bodily dan-
ger, to frighten the poor woman, to whom, it seems, the fact
that she alone had borne the pangs of their birth, and nourished
their infancy, does not give an equal right to them. This

mode of kidnapping ... is frequent enough in all classes
of society.

I could give instances that would startle the most vulgar and
callous; but I will not. for the public opinion of their own sex
is already against such men, and where cases of extreme tyranny
are made known, there is private action in the wife's favor.
But she ought not to need this, nor, I think, can she long.*'

Emily Collins, speaking of the period previous to
1848 and thereabouts, said :

In tho*e early da>'S a husband's supremacy was often enforced
in rural districts by corporeal chastisement, and it was consid-
ered by most people as quite right and proper - as much so as
the correction of refractory children in like manner. I remem-
ber in my own neighborhood a . . . .Methodist class-

**t>»»oli. Woman in thf Sinrlfenth ('.rnlury, 32-33.

The Social Subordination of fVoman 93

leader and exhorter . . . esteemed a worthy citizen, who,
every few weeks, gave his wife a beating with his horsewhip.
He said it was necessary, in order to keep her in subjection,
and because she scolded so much. Now this wife, surrounded
by six or seven little children . . . was obliged to spin
and weave cloth for all the garments of the family ... to
milk ... to make butter and cheese, and do all the cook-
ing, washing, making, and mending . . . and, with the
pains of maternity forced upon her every eighteen months, was
whipped by her pious husband, "because she scolded." *''

In 1845 Edward D. Mansfield set forth the le^al
status of women. He exhibited the marriage relati(jn
as a legal unity the object of which arrangement was to
secure unity of family support and government. Hus-
band and wife could not make legal contracts with each
other. It was only through trustees that an agree-
ment between husband and wife could be enforced. If
a husband, in order to stimulate his wife's industry,
agreed to allow her a share of the proceeds, the court
of chancery would enforce the agreement. Agree-
ments to live separate and to allow the wife the use t)f
her property could be enforced. In general they could
not be witnesses for or against each other.

The husband was_the,legal heaii. — He-iield the ex-
ternal powers of the family with reference to property.
The wife's being was largely merged in his. The hus-
band had a right to the person of his wife and hence the
sole right to redress for legal wrongs against her per-
son. She could not sue aloae^ nor execute a deed or
other instrument to bind herself and property^. (In
some states a wife might make a will or devise of her
property.) She forfeited all personal control over her
property so long as the marriage lasted. Her person-
al property vested absolutely in the husband. The hus-

*'' Stanton rt al. Iliilory nf If'nmun Siiffrai^r, vol. i, 88-89.

94 I ii^ A nitric an luniily

barul was liable for wrongs and frauds of the wife com-
mitted during marriage and for debts contracted by her
before marriage.

The husbanil had ilic right to claim his wife's so-
ciety; to reclaim her if she went away nr was detained;
to use gentle constraint upon her liberty to prevent im-
proper conduct. If preventive means, within limit,
failed he must hanvi her over to the law or separate.
He might mr- lor injurv to Iut person. He might de-
fend her with force. "In marriage the legal control of
the wife passes to the husband, not that of the husband
to the wife." The public opinion of men required of
woman a stricter observance of certain morals than it
demanded of men; but they had not ventured in that
age to put the idea into the criminal code. "Prob-
ably the greatest amelioration of American jurispru-
dence is the relaxation of the old English rules in re-
gard to the husband's control over the wife. The
free spirit which pervades the whole legal and social
structure of the United States, has entered this branch
of jurisprudence also."

'I*he wife might take some measures to restrain her
husband from wrong but not to the same degree that he
might in her case. She had redress at law against im-
proper treatment. She was entitled to protection and
maintenance. Legal title to propertv might be vested
in trustees for the use of a w ife. Any act of the mother
over a child had the same validity as if it had been per-
formed by the father. I'nder law of assault or seduc-
tion the father could claim damage on the ground that
his daughter was his servant.

Even in mid-century if an employer paid to a neces-
sitous wife her own earnings he could be prosecuted by
a drunken and improvident husband and compelled to

The Social Subordination of Woiiuui 95

make payment again to him. The wife had no right to
custody of her person or of her children. The hus-
band could^ apprentice the children at an early age
against her will aiul at his death could dispose of the
children by will even though they were unborn. The
formula constantly used in Ici^al decisions was: "The
wife is dead in law," or "Husband and wife are one,
and that one the husband." According to English com-
mon law, which then prevailed in every state save Lou-
isiana, a man might beat his wife to the point of en-
dangering her life without being liable to prosecution.*"
At a Woman's Rights Convention of 1852 xMrs. Nichols
said :

If a wife Is compelled to j^et a divorce on account of the in-
fidelity of the husband, she forfeits all right to the property
which they have earned together, while the husband, who is
the oflFender, still retains the sole possession and control of the
estate . . . he . . . retains the home and chil-
dren. . . A drunkard takes his wife's clothing to pay his
rum bills, and the court declares . . . the action
legal because the wife belongs to the husband. ^^

In i860 a veiled lady told this story: She was sister
to a United States Senator and married to a distinguish-
ed member of the Massachusetts Senate. They had
three children. He proved unfaithful. When she
confronted him with proof, he threw her down stairs.
Later he had her shut in an insane asylum (a very easy
thing for husbands in those davs to do). She got out
on habeas corpus. The chiUlrcn were in the father's
custody. Her brother said that if slie made more
trouble they would return her to the asylum. She lied
with one child. Miss Anthony took her to New ^'ork.
They could not get shelter at night as hotels would not

** Anthony. Status of U'mnnn, f)oi-902.

*" Harper. I.ijr nnJ If'nrk of Sujtin li. .Inthony, vnl. i, 74.

i)f\ The Anuriciin Family

lake ladies alone. Even Garrison and Phillips ur^cd
her to return the "abducteil" child. Later the father
kidnappeil the child. Nothing' could be done.""

The subjection of woman was even used as an argu-
ment to bolster up slavery. 'I'he rcvciciui 1'. .\. Ross,
D.D., Presbyterian pastor at Iluntsville, Alabama, in
an attempt in iH;;7 to prove Slanry ordnuutl of CJoJ
said :

I>o you say, the slave is hrlil to involuntary st-rvitudr? So
is the wife. Her relation to her hushaml, in the immense ma-
jority of cases, is made for her, and not by her. And when
she makes it for herself, how often, and how soon, d(H-s it be-
come involuntary! How often, and how soon, would she
throw off the yoke if she could! O ye wives, I know how su-
perior you are to your husbands in many respects - not only
in personal attraction ... in j^race, in refined thought,
in pxsnive fortitude, in enduring love, and in a heart to he fdlcd
with the spirit of heaven. . . Nay, I know you may surpass
him in his own sphere of boasted prudence and worldly wisdom
about dollars and cents. Nevertheless he has authority from
(»<>d to rule over you. . . \'ou are bound to obey him in all
thinjrJ. ^'our service is very, very, very often involuntary from
the first, and, if voluntary at first, becomes hopeless necessity
afterwards. I know (jod has laid upon the husband to love
you as Christ loved the church. Hut the husband may

not so love you. He may rule you with the rod of iron.
What can you do? He divorced? God forbid it, save for
crime. Will you sa\ that you are free, that sou will i^o where
you please, do as y(»u please? Why ye dear wives, your hus-
bands may forbid. And listen, you cannot leave New York,
nor your palaces, an> more than your shanties. No ; you can-
not leave your parlor, nor your bedchamber, nor your couch, if
your husband commands you to stay there. What can you do?
Will you run away with your stick and your bundle? He can
advertise you! What can you do? You can, and I fear some
of you do. wish him, from the bottom of your hearts at the bot-
tom of the Hudson.

»*Harp«r. Lift and H'ork of Susan R. .Irtt/iony, vol. i, 201-205.

The Social Subordination of Ho man 97

In the Presbyterian Magazine for 1852 the follow-
ing keen comment on woman's status appeared :

Our . . . position ... is, that the Hible does not
favor the manhood of woman - that it is opposed to the idea of
a perfect equality of the sexes. . . Maternity, which we
will here confine to the single idea of takinj^ care of children,
brings woman more within the precincts of the home. . .
Authority must be vested somewhere. . . This authority in
the human race is vested in man, as the divinely appointed head
of creation. "Wives submit yourselves unto your husbands as
unto the Lord." . . Woman has a mission to perform, which
dignifies her even among angels. . . To light up the house-
hold with joy and love, to nourish and train the immortal chil-
dren within its precincts, to minister to the good government
of the little family kingdom, to cheer the husband who is the
"head" amidst the sorrows and trials of life, to be an example
of faith and righteousness.

A western legislator tells how he urged the passage of
a bill giving to the widow of an intestate dying without
children one-third of the husband's real estate in fee
absolute and two-thirds of his personal property. He
pled the wife's contribution to success in a new country.
"The legislature, brought face to face with the notori-
ous fact that, throughout the toilsome farming life, the
wife bears her full share of the burden and heat of the
day took a first step in righting the grievous wrong done
to her." (The old law entitled her, in most cases, to
but one-third of his personal property, and the use dur-
ing her life of one-third of his real estate.) The legis-
lature passed his bill; the people approved; but later a
codification commission left it out."

In this matter of the distribution of property, sex
discrimination lingered long. Men of liberal views
whose outlook transcended the system that denied fe-
males equal opportunity to earn a livelihood could, in-

^* tyestern Proplf iinJ Potil'uians, 262.

pS Thf American Family

deed, provide preferentially fi)r their daughters. Some
sue h h)gic may be rcMcctcd in the observations of a writ-
er who said in 1K2S: "Rich men, here, often give more
to their sons than to their daughters, tho it is very com-
mon for men of small fortunes to make the daughters in-
dependent at the expense of the sons." But Gorling in
iS4(i wrote: "Seldom does the American provide his
daughter in proportion to what the sons receive. She
is a girl; girls are in great demand; well, let them go
and marry." At this period a Massachusetts farmer
would usually leave his daughter a home on the farm
as long as she remained single. Fathers frequently
willed all their property to their sons."

Various stirrings of unrest among women were visited
with indignant reprobation. With reference to know-
leiige of sex phenomena a bodv of New England
churchmen wrote in 1837:

Wc c>prcially deplore the intimate acquaintance and promiscu-
ous conversation of femal<-s w ith regard to thinfys which ouu'ht
not to be named; by which that modesty and delicacy which is
the charm of domestic h'fe, and which constitutes the true influ-
ence of woman in society, is consumeil, and the way opened, as
we comprehend, for degeneracy and ruin.

Women's activity in behalf of anti-slavery, circulat-
ing petitions, raising money, attending meetings, and
forming societies, was an object of condemnation. Af-
ter the attack on the Boston Female Anti-Slavery So-
ciety and the mobbing of Garrison in 183^ the editor
of a religious journal declared that such as persisted in
a course that led to such a riot were as much to blame
as the rioters. .Another remarked that when matters of
grave political reform were up it might be wiser "for
the gentler sex to seek information at home." When

*' Cooper. Solionj of the Americans, vol. ii, 254-235; (iorling. Die neut
If^flt, 4J J Robinvin. /.00m an,i SpinJle, 68; Anthony. Status of <woman, 901.

I

The Social Subordination of 11 oman 99

in 1837 the Grimke sisters championed on the platform
immediate emancipation, the religious prcj-slavery
crowd cried out against the indelicacy of women's tak-
ing an active part in affairs of religious reform and as-
sailed "Women's Rights." The General Association
issued a pastoral letter urging that the churches should
be closed to anti-slavery lecturers and that church mem-
bers should not countenance women lecturers, saying
that it was very wrong to encourage women to play an
obtrusive and ostentatious part in matters of reform or
countenance any "of that sex who so far forget them-
selves as to itinerate in the character of public lecturers
and teachers." Thirty-nine students of Andover Sem-
inary sent out an appeal to abolitionists. As abolition-
ists they condemned public lectures by women.
In 1841 Mrs. Graves wrote:

The great principles of liberty and equal rights, which are
about to overthrow the long-existing institutions of despotism,
and are stirring the hearts of men of every station, in every
clime, have penetrated even into the quiet haven of domestic
life. . . "The Rights of Women" are almost as warmly
and wildly contested as the "Rights of Man;" and there is a
revolution going on in the female mind at the present day, out
of which glorious results may arise. [Woman] is yet too often
found either the petted, capricious plaything, or the toiling care-
worn slave; and thus she lives and dies without knowing or ful-
filling her responsibilities as the helpmate of her brother man -
a being intended to be a coworker with him in promoting the
spiritual and intellectual advance of the race.

We lament the erratic course of many of our female re-
formers, believing that they have inflicted deep injury where
they intended good, by drawing woman away from her true
and allotted sphere - domestic life. Nor are our female lec-
turers and female politicians alone at fault; for it is to be feared
that even some Christian ministers, with greater zeal than
knowledge, have, by their impassioned appeals, sent women
abroad into the highways and byways of life, thereby deaden-

lOO The Anurican Family

ing their Mrnsc of home rr*pt)nsibilitlrs and st)cial duties, and
teaching: them to violate that ^;«>>prl injunction which plainly de-
clares that women sliould be "keej^ers at home." . . Not a
few of those who come forward to advocate the mental equality
of the sexes, do so in order to show that \\(jman is entitled to
the wimc political rinhts and privilcRes as man ; a doctrine
which, if brought into practical exercise, would tend to the
total disorganization of the family institution, and even more
effectually than the spirit of the age, dissolve the domestic tics,
and destroy all that makes woman efficient as a moral help-
mate of man, , . The opponents of the claims set up in be-
half of woman, instead of entering into a philosophical and
scientific examination of those claims, resort to jests and witti-
cisms, and unwarranted assumptions. They would seem to
shrink from examining the subject fairly lest they should be
drawn to concede more than they wish to do.

.Many who are strenuous in denying to women all inter-
ference in the aflFairs of the State, arc no less zealous in urging
her to engage in those of the church. Kvcry argument is

brought forward to induce them to labor in adding to the funds
to be appropriated to the building of a church, to the education
of young ministers, etc., but u lun do we hear the sacred doc-
trine of home duties enforced? . . . [If such lessons] are
left almost wholly untaught, and in their place public services
arc constantly pressed upon woman's attention, can wc wonder
at the result? ... It is, indeed, deeply to be regretted,
that among the many praiseworthy efforts of Christians at the
present day there should be so much in the spirit and character
of thc»se eflForts that is anti-ilomcstic. . . Have not many of
our females, by a>isuming public responsibility but little in ac-
cord with their nature, and more properly belonging to the
other sex, neglected thc)se congenial, paramount, and untrans-
ferable duties imposed (in tlicin by the God of nature and rev-
elation! . . .

The supremacy of tlie husband as the head of the family
institution is similar to the supremacy of the governing power
in the state, and there is like obligation to obedience in both.
But there is nothing servile or degrading in this
"merely an official relation held for the mutual good of both
parties and of their children." . , She is required, therefore,

The Social Subordination of Woman lOl

not only to submit to man as her head in the marriage relation
but she must not assume to herself any right of participation
with him in the management or control of civil or political
aflFairs.

The intense animus against the woman's movement
can not be fully understood or elaborated until the back-
ground and nature of that uprising have been studied,
as is done in the next chapter.

V. THE EMERGENCE OF WOMAN

The economic forces back of modern progress and of
the democratic enthusiasm involved in it could scarcely
fail to unsettle the subordination of woman. The in-
fluences of the new world contributed to her elevation.
This result was due in part to the operation of the law
of supply and demand. In the pioneer regions women
were usually scarce and hence were highly esteemed. ^
There came to be almost a commerce in unmarried
females between the old East and the new West. The
deficit of women on the frontier accounts for their
superior standing in some of the newest states.

In 1781 there was a large migration of young unmar-
ried women into the country south of the Ohio, result-
ing in the establishment of many new families. Re-
garding early Memphis,

I would like to give an account [said one writer] of the younp;
ladies that flourished here at that time. It is due to them to say
that they did not generally partake of the rude spirit of the men,
though the few who did were not for that reason excluded from
society. They could not be spared, as all of them made hut a
small-sized party.

In 1824 there was no Society worthy of the name.
There were a few young men, unbridled adventurers.
There was no preaching. There were no ladies to visit.
Indian women and black girls were in abundance; but
not a respectable white woman was to be seen once a
month. Two or three respectable men married Indian
women, with the excuse that there were no white women
about. In the Chattanooga region some Scotch settlers

!<>.^ 7 Vic* ^J merit an I-'utnily

CDuried and married Indian ^irls. In California in
Spanish ilays the i*'ranciscan lathers tried to keep wliite
men and red women apart but failed. The practice of
scllinj^ young Indian girls to white nicn became so com-
mon that in some regions a red man could not get a
Mjuaw. "liv taking Indian mates and rearing offspring
ruuiul the camps, these Spanish soldiers struck their
roots into the soil" so that they couM not be removed tho
the Spanish policy had been to leave California as mis-
sionary territory free from whites. Thus California
developetl the Latin miscegenation with its usual ille-
gitimacy.

In a newspaper of iS^z it was recorded that: "Some
humane person, not long since, in reference to Mat
Carey's benevolent exertions to raise the wages of
females proposed a scheme for transporting the ex-
cess of spinsters in our large cities to the new settle-
ments where there is a great scarcity of the female
sex." An eiiitorial of 1836 commenting on the excess of
women in the older states recommended that they go
West, where few would remain single for many months.
A paper of the next year noted that "a wagon load of
girls for the western market lately past through North-
hampton, Mass."

The value f)f wonun in the voung settlements is well
illustrated in the narrative of a pioneer who in 1H36
made preparation to migrate to Wisconsin. His wife's
health was not verv good and ihev had two small chil-
dren: so it was necessary to secure a hired girl. All
that applied were tof) young and good-looking; his wife
said thcv would marry within a month and leave the
houschohl without help and bereft of the passage
money. Finally they attained their aim, as they sup-
posed, by securing the services of a coarse and ugly

I

The Emergence of Woman 105

spinster who surely could not attract a man to matri-
mony. In order to clinch tiic certainty, however, it was
agreed that in case of marriage within a year she should
forfeit her wages. But their arrival in the new h(jme
created notable excitement. Betsy was the first single
\voman. Various remarks were overheard, such as,
"She is not handsome, certainly;" "Better than none,
tho;" "Too old to add much to the future population,"
etc. In a few weeks it became apparent that her days
of service were numbered. Betsy soon had an offer of
marriage; indeed, she had several oflfers. Tho she
probably had never before had a beau, she now had a
dozen, could put on airs, could pick and choose. So
the marriage came to pass as related in a previous chap-
ter. Of like significance was the request sent back by
an emigrant to Texas who among other things asked:
"also one wife for me, handsome, etc. Mother knows
what will suit me."

Another factor contributing to the standing of wo-
man was pioneer isolation. As European life moved
westward, first came the hunter's cabin.

The next cabin [said a writer on the West] was more preten-
tious. It was lar^e cnou{j:h for two. The man who built it
had induced a woman to share his lot. The woman who had
courage to so adventure had also muscle enough to lift one end
of a log sufficiently long to build a cabin for herself and her
husband. . . This pair came to found a home, to rear a
family, and ultimately to own broad acres to enrich their pos-
terity. In one of these built by a man and a woman the writer
hereof was born.

Such a pioneer family, living in isolation remote from
civilized neighbors and far removed from the conven-
tionalities of old societv was apt to experience some
relaxation of traditionally rigorous family relations.
The feudal loni, living remote from kiiuired spirits,

ic/) The American Family

was Icil. \vc arc tnKl, to cultivate the society of liis fam-
ily, a condition favorable to gentler and more kindly
family relations. Similarly the frontier helped to lib-
eralize the American family. "What woman was in
the days of chivalry," says one writer, ". . . she was
in pioneerdays. The pioneer wife was

the ideal of courage, industry, and virtue in the settler's
home. Here she reigns as mistress."

To isolation was adiied heroism and fortitude. Much
depended, of course, on the character of the pioneer
couple. There uouhl be men whom isolation wouKl
render morose and despotic and women whom loneli-
ness would drive to insanity. In the sparse West, in-
sanity among farm women was not infrequent.

The silence, the monotony, the absence of all society, the never-
ending vista of the snow-covered plains, deathlike in their si-
lence, with no moving creature or thing to afford even a mo-
mentary diversion, unbalanced these women, their physical
vitality lowered by the enervating climate and unremitting
toil."

It has been noted that women, having fewer oppor-
tunities for contact with other people, were more sus-
ceptible to excitement at camp-meetings.

The selection exercised by the frontier was rigorous
but it was on the whole salutary. The outcome attest-
ed the sterling (jualitics of the men and women that
opened the West. The elevation that came in the status
of woman was earned by devotion, labor, courage, self-
control. herr)ism. Never was the adaptility of female
character more strikingly displayed than in the open-
ing of the West. Women stood by their husbands' side
and fought for life and little ones against human and
other foes. Ladies whose husbands had lost everything

**'I"hi» factor in the production of insanity ha< pprhaps been over-cm-
pha»iird, hc»>«rver. Compare Romanzo Adama'i Public Range Lands, 338,

The Emergence of IVoman 107

threw aside ease and luxury and fared boldly into the
far West where they endured without complaint toils,
danger, sickness, and loneliness. Reciprocity in the ^
marriage relation was the logical consequence where
woman bore a man's share in the struggle for existence. /

Women's toils were great. It required not only
heroism but muscle to make and maintain a cabin
home. It required incessant labor to provide for the
numerous household; for "she was lonesome until she
had a half-dozen children about her. She did not be-
gin to feel crowded in the single room until the second
dozen began coming." She had to spin, and usually
to weave all the cloth for her family, and it required
all a woman's efforts to keep her brood comfortable.
Privation and toil were her portion and upon her de-
volved the entire education of her children. In 1800,
"the farmers' wives and daughters labored on the farm,
in parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and in all the set-
tlements where German or Irish people dwell in con-
siderable numbers. The arrival of the New Eng-
landers among them banished the females from the
fields. . ."

Even in the South, pioneer conditions bore hcaviiv
upon women and were efficiently borne. On occasion
woman was capable of assuming headship of the fam-
ily and discharging its duties with success. In early
Tennessee "calico was very scarce, and [women vied]
with each other in making the prettiest cotton frock,
and eyed each other very closely at church to sec who
excelled." They "had no predilection for the cult of
lilies and languors." The pioneer women, in daily
peril and weighted with racking cares, resorted to to-
bacco, perhaps as a sedative. Mrs. Andrew Jackson
was only one of thousands of women that smoked. The
habit of chewing "obtained among numerous excellent

loS Tilt .Inwrican Family

women nt the rural districts of middle Tennessee until
lon^ subscquciil to the close of" the Civil \\'ar.''*

Amon^ the Scotch- Irish pioneers women held to the
traditional sacrifice of self for the sake of the education
of son or brother and his advanccnicnt into the sacred
ministry. Some refused "the ^ift of loving compan-
ionship with stroni; and loyal spirits who wooeii them
to wifehood, and so lived and died voluntary celibates
for the glorv of God and the honor of their family."

Some conception of the toils of ante-bellum women
even in the I^ast may be gleaned from the case of Susan
H. Anthonv's mother, who married in 1817. Mr. An-
thony was a generous man. loved his wife, and was well
able to hire help; but such a thing was unthought of.
A housewife would probably have been piqued by an
offer of assistance. When Green Mountain girls came
to work in Anthony's cotton-mill they boarded in the
proprietor's family as custom was. Mrs. Anthony, the
summer her third baby was born, boarded eleven fac-
torv hands who roonieil in her house and she did all
the cooking, washing, and ironing with no help save a
thirteen-year-ohl girl who went to school and did chores
ni'^ht and morning. When brick was being burned fo6
a new house, Mrs. Anthony boarded ten or twelve
brick-makers and some of the factory hands with no
help but that of her daughters (nielma, Susan, and
Hannah, ageci fourteen, twelve, and ten. W^hcn the
new baby came these three little girls did all the work,
cooking the food and carrying it to their mother's room
to let her see whether it was nicely prepared and wheth-
er pails were properly packed."

'Hic American women [said Marryat in 1839]. have a vir-
tue which the men have not, which is moral courage, and one

••Hile ind Merritt. History of Trnnrsiff and Tennesseeans, vol. ii, 404.
** Harp«r. I.iff artA H'ork of Susan B. Anthony, vol. i, 12, 19.

The Emergence of JVovian 109

also which is not common with the sex, physical courage. The
independence and spirit of an American woman, if left a widow
without resources, is immediately shown; she does not sit and
lament, but applies herself to some employment, so that she
may maintain herself and her children, and seldom fails in so
doing.

But not only on account of the scarcity of women in
the newer regions, not only on account of the softening
inHuence of pioneer isolation, nor of the devotion, hero-
ism, and fortitude of pioneer women did woman's status
begin to improve. All these influences had their effect
on the frontier- an effect that reflected eastward. But
indirectly, by the way of the democratic spirit which its
economic conditions promoted, the new world furthered
the equality of woman. The social changes that worked
to the equalization of father and son, employer and
employee and levelled class barriers generally could not
but elevate woman and undermine arbitrary sex dis-
tinctions. Amid such conditions and influences sex
barriers began to weaken; a belief in the equality of
woman to man began to emerge; and the western habit
of co-education came to register the new outlook. (The
modern sweep of the suffrage movement toward the
^ast is a correlate phenomenon.)

Quotations might be multiplied to show how observ-
ers were impressed with the regard shown to woman in
the new nation. One remarked that woman's treatment
was "too good" as man's was in Kngland. ^^'e must
allow for idealization. The reality was certainly not
ideal any more than was the realitv of chivalrv with
which comparison has been made. But neither was it
a matter of mere sentimentality. A substantial open-
ing was made for a better future.

A survey of the period covered bv this volume shows

lio Till Afuiiuan iatmly

us that woman had already attained a status markedly
supcriDr ti) the usa^e i)f Kuropc. Not only was the
wife's managerial capacity recognized and rewarded
with full sway over tlie domestic hearth but woman
exerted an exceptional inlluence in the larger world as
the adviser of her husband and the arbiter of social
stamiards, of morals, of propriety. NN'omen were not
sheltered and futile as in some older civilizations but
were free to travel in safety Awd to know the world.
The relationship between husband and wife was freed
from sefitimentality yet husbands treated their wives
with notable tenderness and the outraged woman could
ordinarilv count on law and sentiment to protect iier
against abuse. Kasy divorce ofTered a release for dis-
illusioned wives. The extreme courtesy shown to
ladies was based on a genuine and growing respect and
deference which found its retlection in a remarkable
air of self-respect on the part of all women. Woman
was largely freed ivniw field work and other heavy la-
bor; men even assumed responsibility for the market-
ing. If woman still "kept her place," if she was still
hampered by a lack of business knowledge, if she still
used the sex appeal and played upon her weakness, if
she still sanctioned duels and other social atavisms -all
these shortcomings were of the past anci could not hide
the better future.

I)e I«)C(]uevillc commented pointedlv on the evolu-
tion of woman's status in America. He said that her
prf)spective et]uality ditl not mean identity of functi(jn;
American women did not manage the outward concerns
of the family, or embark in business, or participate in
politics. Tho often possessed of "a masculine strength
of understanding and a manly energy" the women of
America generally "preserve great delicacy of personal

The Emergence of IVoman i i i

appearance, and always retain the manners of women."
The Americans still hold "that the natural head of the
conjugal association is man . . . and .
that . . . the object of democracy is to regulate
and legalize the powers which arc necessary, and not
to subvert all power." Women seem to be proud of
the yoke; "such at least is the feeling exprcst by the
most virtuous of their sex; the others arc silent; and
in the United States, it is not the practice for a guilty
wife to clamor for the rights of women, whilst she is
trampling on her own holiest duties.'' The Americans
believe in keeping the spheres of the sexes distinct but
consider them of equal value.

If they hold that man and his partner ought not always to ex-
ercise their intellect and understanding in the same manner,
they at least believe the understanding of the one to be as sound
as that of the other, and her intellect to be as clear. Thus,
then, whilst they have allowed the social inferiority of woman
to subsist, they have done all they could to raise her morally
and intellectually to the level of man; and in this respect they
appear to me to have excellently understood the true principle
of democratic improvement. . . Altho the women of the
United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic
life, and their situation is, in some respects, one of extreme de-
pendence, I have nowhere seen women occupying a loftier posi-
tion.

The distinguished Frenchman thought that Ameri-
cans did not recognize the "double standard."
"Amongst them the seducer is as much dishonored as
his victim. A young unmarried woman may,

alone and without fear, undertake a long journey."
Rape is still a capital offence. "As the Americans can
conceive nothing more precious than a woman's honor,
and nothing which ought so much to be respected as her
independence, they hold that no punishment is too se-
vere for the man who deprives her of them against her

112 The Ami 111 an iaimly

will." Somehow, in spite of his unfriendliness to de-
mocracy, Dc 'rocqucvillc tends to exaggerate the vir-
tues ot America.

Miss Martincau speaks of

Thr prevalent prrMixMon that thcrr are virtues u hicli are imtu-
liarly masculine, and others which are peculiarly feminine. . . •
[Marriage is safer than in England owinR to] the Krcater free-
dom of divorce, and consequent discourat^ement of swindling and
other vicious marriaj;es; it is more tranquil and fortunate from
the marria)^ vows bcinj; made absolutely reciprocal; from the
arranjiements about property beinj^ j^enerally far more favorable
to the wife than in Knj^land ; and from her not being made, as
in England, to all intents and purposes the property of her
husband.

Mrs. Hodichon in 1857 expressed the belief that

America is full of hopeful signs for women; the men arc not so
dead set against the rights of women as in the old country.
Men of position and reliable sources of information have as-
sured me that when in any State in America a majority of
women shall claim the suffrage, it will be granted them.
'ITiere is always hope of change in America; evils do not go
on for ever dragging their slow length as in England. . .
The ideas of human liberty and justice arc too widely spread
in America for any state of things in direct opposition to these
principles, to endure forever.^"

Burn, who spent three years among the working
classes in the I'nited States during the war, said that
in America female notions of e(]ualitv and personal in-
dependence had to a great degree reversed the old state
of affairs in the relations of the sexes to each other. It
was common for the husband "to do a considerable
part of the slip-slop work." in the morning he made
a fire in the stove, emptied the slops, got his breakfast,
and, if his work was at a distance, packed his lunch,
and departed for work while his wife was still abed.
"Kvcn among the trading classes who have private

i. li'hon. K'omrn and H'ork, 20.

\

Tlw Emergence of jy avian 113

dwellings, it is quite common to see the men bringing
parcels from the market, the grocer's, fishmonger's, (jr
butcher's, for the morning meal." It might be sup-
posed from man's bending to "dishclout service," he
went on to say, that the husbands were examples of
kindness and affection and that the ladies "are S(j many
connubial doves!" But the conclusion would be has-
ty. . . 'Wives would not black their husbands' sh(jes.
For some time a real interest in the education of
women had been developing. Many seminaries had
been established. As early as 1830 literary and scien-
tific men were devoting attention to the preparation
of lectures on science for female audiences." Better
education was broadening woman's opportunity for
usefulness. In ladies' periodicals of the forties or
thereabout appear many assertions of woman's intel-
lectual equality and the champions are frequently men.
This idea was coupled with a demand for ample edu-
cation as an oflfset to woman's seclusion from the world
or in order to enhance her personality. To such objec-
tions as that education made women pedantic, disa-
greeable, and undomestic one writer remarked:

For the consolation ... of men, who fear that our sys-
tem of female education will soon become so perfect that they
cannot find ignorant women enough for wives and companions
for them, we can assure them that do all we can to educate
them, yet there will always be ignorant women enough for all
such men. [Men of liberal minds and true politeness enthusi-
astically prefer a learned woman as wife.]

Oberlin College opened in 1833 and was from the
start co-educational tho disposed to frown upon grad-
uates that agitated for "women's political rights." It
was in 1841 that it granted the first three arts degrees
ever received by women in the United States. For

^''Ladles' Magazine (Boston), vol. iii, 41.

114 Ifii' Amirimn Family

almost twenty years Oberliii was the only institution to
receive women on substantially the same terms as men.
Mt. Holvoke Seminary was incorporated in 1H36.
Antioch College (coeilucational ) opened in iSt;^.

riie life ot the women at ()berlin in its first genera-
tion was "plain, earnest, iiulustrioul, pervaded and
guided by highest ideals." Lucy Stone said: "Near-
ly every one of us worked. We were poor. We
earned our w.iv. \N e diti our own cooking (most

of the time) anil our washing and ironing all the time.
Some of the girls paid their wav bv washing for the
male students."

Klizabeth Cady Stanton wrote in i8:;i :

The jnrl must be allourtl to ronip and play, climb, skate, and
swim; hrr clothirn; must br more like that of the lx)y
that she may be out at all times, and enter freely into all kinds
of sport. Teach her to go alone, by ni^ht and day, if need be,
on the lonely hichway, or through the busy streets of the
crowded metropolis. The manner in which all courage and
self reliance is educated out of the girl, her path portrayed with
dangers and difficulties that never exist, is melancholy indeed.

The fundamental life factors of the new world could
not but result in new aspirations on woman's part for
iTccdr)m, opportunity, enlightenment, and sovereignty,
and leatl to a pervasive insurgency. Away back in
Revolutionary times (not to speak of the colonial days
ami Ann Hutchinson, with her deman(i "that the same
rights of individual jutlgment upon religious (]uestions
should be accorded to woman which the Reformation
had already secured to man"), the spirit of female re-
volt was awake. In the following humoro-scrious let-
ter to John Adams from his wife we see how closely it
was correlated with the male revolutionary activity.
I long to hear you have declared an independency, and by tlic
way, in the new code of laws, which I suppose it will be neces-

The Emergence of JVoman i 15

sary for you to make, I desire you wtjuld remember the ladies
and be more generous and favorable to them than your ances-
tors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of hus-
bands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.
If particular care and attention are not paid to the ladies, wc
are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold our-
selves bound to ODey any laws in which we have no voice nor
representation.

The "we" connoted Mercy Otis Warren, Hannah Lee
Corbin, etc. Dame Adams is sternly logical in her
deductions from revolutionary principles. Male "de-
mocracy" is pseudo-democracy. John replied on April
14, 1776, in substance as follows: Our authority is
nominal ; I hope all would fight rather than give up this
shadow of power. But he wrote to Warren that wives
must "teach their sons the divine science of politics!"
In 1778 Mrs. Corbin, sister of Richard Henry Lee,
presented a protest against taxation without suffrage.
Her brother replied that women were entitled to vote.^"
The Due de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who trav-
elled in the United States in 1795-1797, noticed at the
house of General Warren that

His wife, of the same age as he, is much more interesting in
conversation. Contrary to the custom of American women,
she has been busy all her life with all sorts of reading. She
has even printed one or two successful volumes of poetry, and
has written a history of the Revolution which she had the mod-
esty and good taste not to wish published until after her
death. . . They assured me that the literary occupations
of this estimable dame have not diverted her attention from the
duties of housekeeping.

The fact that as early as 1794, Mary XA'oUstonecraft's

''''' S(juirc. It'oman MovfmrnI in .Irncrim, 47; .Ailams. Familiar Ulttrs
of John .IJams and his U'iff, 15s; Bjorkm.in aiul Porritt. H'oman Suffrat^f,
6; Stanton rt al. History of Woman Siiffraj^r, vol. i, 32-33; BarncM. Unman in
modern society, 64.

k

1 1 6 Th f yl m t' rica n Fa m ily

y indication of the Rif^/its of Women was republished
in Philailelphia shows that her ideas must have had
some vogue in America. A few American writers of
the early nineteenth century wrote on the rights and
wrongs of women hut thcv did not ^ain a great follow-
ing. There was present nevertheless the nucleus of the
moilern point of view. Some people saw that a worse
thing than spinsterhood might befall a woman. Kliza
Southgate Howne, who was born in 1783, wrote in her
girlhood :

The inequality of privilcKC between the sexes is very sensibly
felt by us females, and in no instance is it j^cater than in the
liberty of choosinK a partner in marriage. After a long

calculation, in which the heart never was consulted, we deter-
mine whether it is most prudent to love or not. , . I con-
gratulate myself that I am at liberty to refuse those I don't like,
and that I have firmness enough to brave the sirens of the
world and live an old maid, if I never find one I can love.

At eighteen she professes admiration for many of xMary
Wollstonccraft's sentiments on freedom of woman. A
year later she wrote: "I thank heaven I was born a
woman. As a woman 1 ai7i e(]ual to the general-

ity of my sex, and I do not feel that great desire of
fame I think 1 should if I was a man." The murmurs
of female derelicts scarcely constituted as yet a momen-
tous social force.

Robert Owen preached absolute equality of all men
ami women. A writer in the Ladies' Magazine (Bos-
ton) in 1H30 says it is fo<dish to make marriage your one
end. Sale of yourself is degrading. Let women learn
housekeeping, keep up \n ith their children, learn to think
for themselves. In 1H34 during a turbulent strike of fe-
male operatives at Lowell against a reduction of wages,
one was said to have made a radical speech on the rights
of women. Susan H. .\nthonv. at school at the age of

The Emtrgftice of llornan WJ

eighteen, learning that a yuung friend had married a
widower with six children, comments in her diary:
"I should think any female would rather live and die
an old maid." Her father believed in giving sons and
daughters the same advantages. The daughters were
taught business principles. He enc(3uraged and backed
her in her desire to go into reform work. Her mother
also supported her, not wishing her to take any time
from her public affairs for home work. Her father,
years before his death, wrote her brother: "Take your
family into your confidence and give your wife the
purse."

In iht Ladies' Magazine (Boston) in 1833 appeared
"A New Method of Improving the Comple.xion of La-
dies." Persian ladies were quoted to the effect that a
husband should always be kind and give his wife limit-
less money. "If the man be but a day-laborer, and do
not give his wages to his wife, she will claim them on
the day of judgment." On this text was made the com-
ment:

The early decay of female beauty in our country, has been
often remarked by Europeans. Now we leave it for gentle-
men to decide, whether the effect arises from climate, and the
delicate constitution of our women, or whether it is caused by
their beinj2; allowed too little cash.

In 1835 Ernestine L. Rose and Pauline Wright Davis
circulated the first petition for property rights for wo-
men. The woman question was becoming a large one.
By 1840 it had split the American Anti-Slavery Socie-
ty. A faction seceded because of the appointment of a
woman on the business committee. The executive com-
mittee disclaimed disposition \^^ take sides on the wo-
man question.

The periodicals of the day give us some hint of lines
on which thought was running. Thus Graham's Mag-

Il8 Tht^ American Family

azirif for 1842 contained a story (written by a woman)
in which a ^irl was not spoiled for matrimony by licr
scentitic stuilies. The volume f(jr 1845 portrayed a
woman that had had three liusbands, a spendthrift, a
philosopher, ami a gourmand, ur^in^ her niece to mar-
rv a fool -"a man that would let his wife have her own
way in cvervthin^." It this be fiction, it may never-
theless be signihcant. in the Ladies' Ifreatli (New
^'ork. 1 848- 1 849), Mrs. S. V Martvn discussed three
ways of managing a wife. First came a picture of an
outlandish husband, tyrannizing^ over wife and child.
The wife became an adroit dissimulator; the child was
spoiled. The second exhibit was a husband who "yield-
ed to his wife's choice" but always managed to bring her
to doing what he wanted. The third case was that of a
young man that married a girl ignorant of housekeep-
ing. "Servants often leave in our C(3untry." He en-
couraged her to learn and she took hold and came out
beautifully

Louisa M. Alcott had an offer of marriage, about
which she consulted her mother, telling her that she
did not very much care for the lover. Her mother
wisciv saved her from the impulse to self-sacrifice,
which might have Icvi her to accept a position that
would have brought help to the family. This was not
her only chance but Louisa had no inclination toward
matrimony. She could hardly look upon her own in-
terests as separate from those of the family. She loved
activity, freedom, independence. She ''could nf)t cher-
ish illusions tenderly," and she always said that she
tired ni everyone and felt sure she should of her hus-
band if she married. She never wanted to make her
heroines marry but she gave in to public taste. Doubt-
less many a wife in those days was of essentially the
same temperament as Miss Alcott.

The Emergence of Ifonian 119

The first organized body to formulate a declaration
of the rights of women was at Seneca h alls, New Y(jrk,
in 1848, This first Woman's Rights Convention pire-
pared a Declaration of Sentiments following closely
the Declaration of Independence. I'\)r the present
study it will sufiice to quote a few of the charges made
against man :

He has made her, if marrii'tl, in the eye of the law, civilly
dead.

He has taken from her all ri^ht in property, even to the
wages she earns.

He has made her, morally an irresponsible beinp, as she can
commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in
the presence of her husband." In the covenant of marriage, she
is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming
to all intents and purposes her master - the law giving him
power to deprive her of her liberty and to administer chastise-
ment.

He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be
the proper causes, and, in case of separation, to whom the
guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly re-
gardless of the happiness of woman - the law in all cases going
upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving
all power into his hands.

The declaration from which the above indictments
are taken illustrates very clearly the then prevailing
status of woman. The convention resolved that woman
being man's equal ought to be enlightened as to the
laws so that she would no longer be satisfied ; "that wo-
man had too long rested content in the narrow limits
worked out for her by corrupt customs and a perverted
application of the scriptures;' that women should now
secure their rights. Two weeks later at Rochester the
same convention resolved that women not being repre-
sented ought not to be taxed ; that the assumption of the
law to settle the estates of intestates that left widows
was an insult to women; that the husband had no right

I20 1 hf Anurican Family

to hire out the wife and appropriate her waives to his
own use; that the promise of obctliciice in the marriage
contract was a hideous barbarity that ought to be abol-
ished.

The proceedings of the convention were ridiculed
by the press ami ilenounceii by the pulpit from one tind
of the country to the other. (Since then most of the
Seneca I'alls demamis have been granted.) The Mc'-
chatiu'i .IJrordtr (All)any) seemed to see in the move-
ment a mere bourgeois insurgency; for it said: *'It
wouM alter the relations of females without bettering
their condition. It presents no remedy for the

real evils that the millions of the industrious, haril-
working, and much suffering women of our country
groan under and seek to redress." The Rochester
Democrat reported that "the only practical good pro-
posed-the adoption of measures for the relief and
amelioration of the condition of indigent, industrious,
laboring females -was almost scouted by the leading
ones composing the meeting." At Rochester Sarah
Owen reported the complaint of seamstresses of the city
"that they get but thirty cents for making a satin vest,
and from twelve to thirty for making pants, and coats
in the same proportion." She thought that husky men
ought to (]uit selling ribbons. Mrs. Roberts

Made virnc appropriate rrmarks relative to the intolerable ser-
vitude and small remuneration paid to the \vorkinp-cla<>s of
\vf)men. She reported the average price of labor for seam-
stresses to be from thirty-one to thirty-eijjht cents a day, and
hoard from one dollar twcnty-fivc cents to one dollar fifty cents
per week to In* drdurted therefrom, and they were K<*n'*'"ally
obliged to take half or more in due bills, which were payable in
Roods at certain stores, thereby oblij^ing them many times to pay
extortionate prices. . It did not require much arpument,

to reconcile all who took part in the debates, to woman's right

Tlw Emergence of JVoman I2I

to equal wages for equal work, but the gentlemen seemed more
disturbed as to the effect of equality in the family. [Who was
to be the head?]

Certainly Wendell Phillips was not guilty of over-
looking the proletarian connections of great move-
ments. At the Worcester convention in 1851 he re-
ferred to the pulpit's declaring

It "indecorous in woman to labor, except in certain (Kxupa-
tions." . . The whole mass of women must find employ-
ment in two or three occupations. . . They kill each other
by competition. . . From what sources are the ranks of fe-
male profligacy recruited? [In some cases the cause is giddy
idleness.] But, undoubtedly, the great temptation to this vice
is the love of dress, of wealth, and the luxuries it secures. . .
There are many women, earning two or three dollars a week,
who feel that they are as capable as their brothers of earning
hundreds, if they could be permitted to exert themselves freely.
Fretting to see the coveted rewards of life forever forbidden
them, they are tempted to shut their eyes on the character of
the means by which a taste, however short, may be gained of
the wealth and luxury they sigh for.

" In 1855 Lucy Stone called attention to the fact that
society was keeping woman at home a dependent.''
Women working in tailor shops, moreover, were paid
one-third as much as men.

Some one in Philadelphia has stated that women make fine
shirts for twelve and a half cents apiece; that no woman can
make more than nine a week, and the sum thus earned, after
deducting rent, fuel, etc., leaves her just three wnd a half cents
a day for bread. Is it a wonder that women are driven to
prostitution? Female teachers in New York are paid fifty
dollars a year, and for every such situation there are fifty ap-
plicants. . . The present condition of woman causes a hor-
rible perversion of the marriage relation. It is asked of a lady,
"Has she married well?" "(^h, yes, her husband is rich."
Woman must marry for a home, and you men are the sufferers
by this.

In the course of the niid-ccnturv niovcmciit, protest

122 The Am trie an I'umily

was iiuulc against the legal nonage of the wife, against
the husband's control of property, against the wrongs
of slave women. Women were urged not to let a
drunkard beget children. It was recognized that the old
"dainiv imiions" had ni.ulc women hot-house plants-
half of them invalids; that humanity was only just
emerging from the age when might made right; and
that superstitious fears and dread of losing man's re-
gard smothercil frank expression of woman's views;
women did not dare support their champions. It was
denied that any portion of the species had a right to
determine the sphere of the rest; and suffrage was de-
manded as a means of self-defense and education. It
was urged that rights and burdens, taxation anti repre-
sentation should be coextensive, that all civil and pro-
fessional employments shf^uld be opened to women,
that there should be a single standard of propriety for
both sexesVthat women should assume the right to woo;
that they should he given title to their own wages
and equal guardianship over children; that drunkards
should have no claim on wife or child; and that neither
law nor opinion should presume to hold together souls
not bound by love.

The bloomer costume and war against corsets sprang
up during the woman campaign. Amelia Bloomer's
followers thought that if woman was to take her place
as man's et]ual, competing with him in the professions,
in business, in ihe trades, she must adopt a rational
costume fitted to her new sphere. Jeering mobs fol-
lowed the new-costumed women. In Easthampton,
Massachusetts, some young women that appeared in
bloomers were warned by their pastor that if they con-
tinued to wear such clothes they would be put out of
the church. Ridiculed by the press, hooted by the
crowd, discountenanced by other wf)mcn, the mass of

The Emergence of IFoman 123

devotees of short skirt and trousers speedily returned
to the old garb."

Fierce opposition developed against existing mar-
riage laws. In 1832 Robert Dale Owen and Marv
Robinson had married by signing a document written
by the groom, with a justice of the peace and the imme-
diate family as witnesses:

New York, Tuesday, Afrh. 12, 1832.
This afternoon I enter into a matrimonial engagement with
Mary Jane Robinson, a younp; person, whose opinions on all
important subjects, whose mode of thinking and feeling, coin-
cide more intimately with my own than do those of any other
individual with whom I am acquainted. . . We have select-
ed the simplest ceremony which the laws of this state recog-
nize. . . This ceremony involves not the necessity of mak-
ing promises regarding that over which we have no control, the
state of human affections in the distant future, nor of repeating
forms which we deem offensive, insomuch as they outrage the
principles of human liberty and equality. . . Of the unjust
rights which in virtue of this ceremony an iniquitous law tacitly
gives me over the person and property of another, I can not le-
gally, but I can morally divest myself.

RoBKRT Dali: Owen.
I concur in this sentiment, M arn' Jane Robinson.""

Another couple protested similarly in 181;:;. 'I'hev
declared that they did not sanction or promise

V^oluntary obedience to such of the present laws of marriage as
refuse to recognize the wife as an independent rational being,
while they confer on the husband an injurious and unnatural
superiority, investing him with legal powers which no honor-
able man would exercise. . . We believe . . . that
marriage should be an equal and permanent partnership, and
so recognized by law. . . We believe, that, when domestic
difficulties arise, no appeal should be made to existing tribu-
nals; but all difficulties should be submitted to the equitable

''^ McMastcr. History of the Proplr of t/ir I'nilrJ States {1913), vol. viii.

123.

""Stanton et til. History of H'oman Suffrage, vol. i, 394-395.

124 ^ ''"' -Jffif'ii^^tifi I'ciniily

adjustment of arbitrators, mutually chosen. Thus, reverencing
law, we enter our earneit protest a^^ainst rules and customs
which arc unworthy of the name, since they violate justice, -
the essence of all law.

The officiating minister, the reverend 1. W. lli^-
ginson, wrote a letter to a newspaper, as follows:

I never perform the marriage ceremony, without a renewed
sense of the iniquity of our present system of laws in respect to
marriage, a system hy which man and wife arc one, and that
one the husband. It was with my hearty concurrence, there-
fore, that the protest was read and signed, as a part
of tl>e nuptial ceremony ; and I send it to you that others may
be induced to do likewise."

It niav he woiuiereil what was the character of the
women that espoused the cause of revolution. Cath-
erine Bcechcr, who certainly was not an ultra-radical,
passed the following verdict:

In my long-protracted and extensive journeyings I have dis-
covered, that the Woman's Rights party, in this country, em-
braces many women whom even the most conservative can not
but concede to be persons of superior talent and acquisition, of
great benevolence, of great purity of motive and elevation of
aims, and whom, saving where conventional points arc antag-
onistic to their principlts, all would allow to be women of mod-
esty, delicacy, and refinement."^

The unthinking conservatives of the day had distinct-
ly uncomplimentary views of the whole movement.
An iH:;^ convention was marred by the riotous pr(j-
cccdings of "antis." The women of the revolt were
"Amazons," "unscxed," "disappointed of getting hus-
bands or perhaps of ruling over them," "a hybrid
species belonging to neither sex;" or else,

perhaps, "dull and uninteresting, and, aside from their
nf)velty. hardly worth notice." It was supposed that
separation of interests would cause domestic strife and

•' New York Tribunr ami Boston Travflirr, May 4, 1855.
•* Bccchf r. Truf Rrmrdy fnr thr H'rongj of Women, 9-10.

The Emergence of iroman 125

that suffrage would engender endless household quar-
rels. The idea that married women should possess
their own wages and have c(iual guardianship of the
children was a start toward "a species of legalized adul-
tery." Jests were made about the possibility of women
(whose names were appended) giving birth to children
in the law-court or in the pulpit, and these pleasantries
were not directed solely at married ladies. The Utica
Evening Telegraph said that Miss Anthony in a public
address urged women not to allow intemperate hus-
bands to add another child. Shocking! a maiden lady!
The "Editor's Table" of Harper's New Monthly Mag-
azine for November, 1853, contained an illuminating
discussion of the subject:

The most serious importance of this modern "woman's
rights" doctrine is derived from its direct bearing upon the
marriage institution. The blindest must see that such a change
as is proposed in the relation and life of the sexes cannot leave
either marriage or the family in their present state. It must
vitally, and in time wholly sever that oneness which has ever
been at the foundation of the marriage idea, from the primitive
declaration of Gtntsis to the latest decision of the common law.
This idea gone - and it is totally at war with the modern the-
ory of "Woman's Rights" — marriage is reduced to the nature
of a contract simply. . . That which has no higher sanction
than the will of the contracting parties, must, of course, be at
any time revocable by the same authority that first created it.
That which makes no change in the personal relations, the
F>ersonal rights, the personal duties, is not the holy marriage
union, but the unholy alliance of concubinage.

As late as the Woman's Rights Convention in Phil-
adelphia, in iS:;4, an objector in the audience called
out: "Let women first prove that they have souls;
both the Church and the State deny it.'" In Massa-
chusetts in 1 8^7 an attempt was made to grant greater
rights to a surviving wife. One of the opposing sena-

"* Gage. Woman, Church, anJ Slntr, 57.

126 Thf Anwrican Family

tors maintained that wives were already too much dis-
posed to rid themselves ol their husbands. The senator
alluded to certain crimes of a short tiiiie before, which
were imputed to a desire for succession. The judiciary
committee of the New York Assembly to whom in 1856
women's rii^his petitions were referred reported that
when both husband and wife had signed the petitions
"thev would recommend the parties to apply for a law
authorizing thcni to change dresses . and tluis

indicate the true relation.

'I'he generation before the War witnessed positive
improvement in the legislation governing woman's
status and rights. By the early thirties nine states had
abolisheti imprisonment of women for debt, viz. Mas-
sachusetts. Connecticut, New \'ork, New Jersey, Penn-
sylvania. Ohio, North Carolina, Alabama, and Missis-
sippi. In some states a woman was allowed to retain
some or all of her propcrtv in her own hands after mar-
riage. Miss Martineau heard decideil criticism of
existing laws. "I heard a fre(]uent expression of in-
dignation that the wife, the friend and helper of many
years, should be portioned off with a legacy like a sal-
aried domestic."

As early as 1809 Connecticut granted to married
women the right to will propcrtv. In Alabama, about
18^0, the "Ladies' Bill" to give women the right to hold
after marriage propcrtv that belonged to them before
was warmly debated in the legislature. In 1839 Mis-
sissippi placed the control of her own property in a
married woman's hands. During the forties and fif-
ties several states granted property rights to wives. The
California constitution of 1849 provided that the real
and personal propcrtv belonging to a woman before
marriage was to remain her separate property after

The Emergence of Woman 127

marriage. In the new Texas instrument it was provid-
ed that all real and personal property owned by the wife
before marriage or acquired by gift or device after mar-
riage was to be her separate property. The legislature
was required to enact laws clearly defining the rights
of the wife and providing for the registration of her
property.

A spirited debate attended the progress of the radi-
cal innovation. Use was made of the case of the Mas-
sachusetts heiress, worth fifty thousand dollars, who
married and in a year was widowed and endowed by
her generous husband with the fifty thousand dollars
for so long as she should remain his widow. When
the Tennessee Senate passed a bill to secure to married
women enjoyment of their own property, the Nashville
Union said :

Under the old law, which has been miscalled the "perfection of
wisdom," how many worthy women have been reduced from
competency to beggary? how many have been victims of worth-
less fortune hunters? how many have suffered cruel privations
from miserly husbands? how many have been left penniless
widows, their property being taken to pay their husbands'
debts . . . The measure injures no one . . . and
last, though not least important in its consequences, it will
diminish the number of old maids, who now refuse to marry
lest their effects should be squandfrcd.

In the New York convention it was pointed out that law
as it had been, protccteii wives from crucltv to about
the same extent as animals. I'inal passage of the New
York law was due in large measure to two facts:

Some aggravated cases of cruelty in families of wealth anil
position had just at that time arousetl the attention of influen-
tial men to the whole question; [and, second], among the
Dutch aristocracy of the state there was a vast amount of dis-
sipation ; and as married women could hold neither property
nor chililren under the common law, solid, thriftv Ihitch

128 1 hf Atturican laniily

fatliri> writ- daily confronted with the fact that the inheritance
of their daui;htcrs, carefully accumulated, would at marriage
pass into the hands of dissipated, imi^ecunious husbands, re-
ducing them and their children to p(jverty and dependence.

The bill was originated by a conservative member who
had all his life tried to keep his wife's property dis-
tinct, so as not to risk its loss, but felt himself hampered
by the old laws. Another member had been at great
pains to draw up a trust in order to safeguard a beijuest
to his daughter but was not sure that it would hold.
"When the law of 1S48 was passed, all I had to do,"
he sail], "was to burn this will." What the New York
reformers intended was "to strike a hard blow, and if
possible shake the old system of laws to their founda-
tions, and leave it to other times and wiser councils to
perfect a new system.""*

The enemies of the reform pointed out that the ques-
tion had often been before the New York legislature and
asserted that the people had not demanded a change.
I'hey urged that such a separation of interests would
cause domestic strife. The cry of injustice to women
was representeil as a figment of delusion, an attack on
foreign adventurers in the interests of the daughters of
millionaires, not for the benefit of the daughters of the
plain people. Some conservatives alleged that if women
were given the new right thev would be brought into
contact with the roughest scenes of life, their sensi-
bilities destroyed, their dependence on man weakened,
and thereby one (jf their hn'eliest charms removed.

The New York law allowed the wife to engage in all
civil contracts or business on her own responsibility,
rendered her joint guardian of her children, and grant-
ed both husband and wife a one-third share of each
other's property in case of the death of either. Step by

••Stanton et at. History of Woman Suffrage, vol. i, 63-65.

The Emergence of Woman 129

step the Middle and New England States modified
their laws. In Massaciiusetts constitutional conven-
tion, however, a resolution to secure married women's
rights was reported adversely. In 1857 the Ohio leg-
islature passed a bill that no married man shcjuld dis-
pose of any personal property without consent of wife.
The wife was empowered in case of violation to com-
mence civil suit in her own name for recovery. Any
married woman whose husband deserted or neglected
to provide for the family was to be entitled to his wages
and those of her minor children. Not until i860 did
the New York legislature grant to married women
possession of their own wages and equal guardianship
of their children, and in the midst of the War, finding
women off guard, the solons took away the right of
equal guardianship and control by widows of property
for minor children."^

In the background of this transition period men anti
women lived and worked in normal wise. Wives were
reminded of their husbands' business stress and of the
need of gentleness and love. Complaisance was sug-
gested as the way to control the man. Very likely
such advice was sound. We can not suppose that the
typical American wife was as cramped and oppressed
as the law would allow. Legal changes came more
slowly than the modification of social ethics; legal ad-
vance was slow down to the Civil War. It remained
for the more decided economic revolution of the post-
bellum period to complete the emancipation set on
foot by the push of new world libertv. e(]ualitv. and
mutuality.

•* Harper. Life and li'ork of Susan B. Anthony, vol. i, 219.

VI. THE FAMILY AND THE HOME

American family life seemed to the observer from
Europe to be strangely lacking in closeness and warmth.
Count Carlo Vidua wrote in 1827 on American man-
ners as follows:

Paternal and filial affection is not [very] lively among them.
In a large family the sons gather together at meal time, each
coming from his business; each enters the room, says not a
word to father or brother; opens not his mouth, in fact, except
to put something therein ; devours in a few instants the few
ill-cooked dishes, and whoever is first satisfied, without waiting
till the others have finished, rises, takes his hat and is off.
A son who goes off ... to establish himself in Kentucky
or Missouri has no more to say in the way of adieu than if he
were going to see a fcsta in a neighboring village. The father
on his side, welcoming some other son returning from China,
will say to him, cool as a cucumber, "Good day, John" and at
the very utmost do no more than throw in a shake of the
hand."

Another visitor wrote: "Domestic life in America
has the appearance of being cold and formal. . .
The American conducts himself towards his wife and
children with very little more familiarity than towards
his neighbors.""^ There is seeming want of feeling on
parting from chikiren. St. Victor in 1832 wrote that
the child in the lower classes quit his parents readily,
"almost like the animal does." Parents saw with in-
difference the departure of their children. There were
numerous cases of children abandoned by parents on

^^ Decay of the family affections, 291.
■^Sealsficld. The United States, 118-119. 125.

/

132 The American Family

Icavini; for ilistant stales.'" Xauinann remarks in 1848
that the rchuioii between parents anil ehiUlren often
does not impress the observer as joyous.

Cj<rncrally they treat unv another coUlly and soberly; imitual
love and cordiality often seenis foreign to them. [At ma-

jority, children feel that they have discharged their duties to
parents. Usually the son leaves the father's house to establish
his own hearth.] Farmers, who g^'ncrally can not well con-
duct their affairs without the aid of their children, often, in
their later years arrive in a very unple.isant situation, owin^j to
their children's leaving them.

The father of the frontier bride usually gave her "a
bed. a lean horse, and some good advice: and having
thus dischari^cd his duty . . . returned to his
work." Letters of 1840. even to children, began thus:
"Respected Daughter." They were likely to be taken
up mainly with the weather and sickness in the family,
of which there was an appalling amount.

The seeming coolness in American family relations,
which so impressed Europeans, may be attributed in
part to native tcnipcranicnt, but was evidentlv due also
to the economic largeness of the new world which
made family wealth and backing less significant and to
the e.vaggerated individualism and independence that
came with the spread of anarchistic democracy. The
situation illustrates the general principle that the fam-
ily is not an <:m\ in itself but varies in strength irf pro-
portion as it is neede(] for race conservation and proves
capable of serving that end. The abundant opportu-
nities of the new country, the relative ease of getting
along, the certainty that the children would be able to
find good openings, tended to loosen family attach-
ments; for children past their earliest years were not
essentially dependent on the father and necessity did

•• St- Victor. Lettres lur des Ltatt I' nit, 222.

The Family and the Home 133

not enter so strongly as in old countries to bind the
family closely together. The family ceased to be an
economic unit: each member could follow a calling to
taste. The ease with which the son could start for
himself upon attainment of legal majcjrity tended to
make previous relations with the father a period of
quasi-servitude which tended to beget estrangement
and make separation easy for both.

Moreover a people alert to grasp fresh material op-
portunity crowding upon them in profusion will tend
to be matter-of-fact and unsentimental. The stren-
uous life of a society whose prime business was pro-
duction rather than consumption lessened family en-
dearment. Paternal preoccupation left wife and chil-
dren a larger scope. Men were too busy to know
their little ones, to enjoy much of their wives' society,
or to lavish affection. One writer accounted for the
intensity of the maternal affection of New England
women by the fact that it was almost their whole ro-
mance, inasmuch as the men were too busy to be very
affectionate. ''I have hardly ever seen that tender
affection -that union of souls, in which two persons
require nothing but each other's consent for the com-
pletion of their happiness." . . Suppose a man to
marry a woman with tastes, disposition, and character
essentially different from his. The points of contact
are so few that he might become the father of a large
family and die without discovering his mistake. He
has no time to be unhappy. Women are left all day to
themselves: the life is monotonous. Hence they love
their offspring passionately, "while for their husbands
they feel a sort of half distant respect."

A considerable factor in this attitude of women to-
ward men, however, must have lu-en the fact that wo-

^

134 Ihi' .1 nic-fii (tn I'dnuly

man was under necessity nf marrying for the sake of a
home even tho she hail not experienced love. At the
end of the eighteenth century, Eliza Southgate wrote
to Moses Porter:

I may be censured for declarinR it as my opinion that not one
woman in a humlrt-d marries for love. [1 mean] she would
have preferred another if he had professed to love her as well as
the one she married. . Gratitude is undoubtedly the foun-

dation of the esteem we commonly feel for a husband.
[One is surprised] at the happiness which is so generally
enjoyed in families, and that marriages which have not love for
a foundation on more than one side at most, should produce so
much apparent harmony.""
An article in the Litrrary Mngazirw (uid .Imcrudn
Rt-gisttr of 1 803- 1 804 Stated that nothing was more
common than marriages where the parties were un-
equal in capacity and dissimilar in feelings. Misery
was a result.

Other factors in the obscuring of family sentiment
were the binding out of the children of the poor, a
usage that killed Hlial affection; the stress put by nas-
cent capitalism on contract and free competition as op-
posed to status and fi.xed restraints; the fact that parents
were under no legal obligation to adult children and
could disinherit them freely; the cult of democracy
which made the son a citizen in every respect independ-
ent and attachetl him positively to social responsibili-
ties, so that a mother's apparent indifference at seeing
her son go to the ends of the earth was not lack of love
but a recognition of civic and social needs. Moreover
respect for the independence and rights of women and
children tended to replace sentimentalitv with a certain
deference. Sometimes, of course, man's rut of busi-
ness kept him so narrow that he was not much of a

•• Bownc. Gtrt't I. iff eighty Yrars af;o, 37-40.

The Family and the Home 135

companion for his more cultivated wife. Lack of
suitable reading and other home attractions must be
taken into account as a factor in the lessening of family
fondness; males sought recreation abroad. One writer,
attributing superior domesticity to the Bostonians, gave
their taste for reading as a contributory cause.

Woodruff (in his work of 1862 on Legalized Prosti-
tution) saw a great lack of proper knowledge. He
pointed out that in marriage the question whether "na-
ture has made them for each other" was "left for the af-
ter-clap." The form of law was followed with dignity,
but "the spirit of the act they commit they are ignorant
of." The majority of those whose connubial relations
were normal contracted them ignorantly. School edu-
cation avoided the problems of life.

Life in its reality constitutes no part of the modern scholar's
study. . . Young ladies are falsely and artificially educated
and grow up to know comparatively nothing of the relations of
life or the duties they are to fulfill. . . They are taught ta
show the outside rather than the inside; to cultivate taste in
dressing their bodies rather than their minds; while young
men are but little better instructed save as they spend more time
in the busy world. . . With so much of wrong educational
bias given to the young, with so much falsity in society, we can-
not have marriage as it should be.

Certain factors of American life worked against
familism. Political democracy is congenial with
equality among brothers. 1 he superior position of the
eldest brother that prevailed in old societies does not
appear or yields to the general spirit of democracy.
The laissez-faire spirit of nascent capitalism could not
tolerate, in the new world, governmental interference
in the form of entail, which made competition unequal
among the members of the upper caste. Sentimental
democracy, also, entered the lists against the survivals

136 The Auuruun Family

of feudalism. The abundance of land minimized the
prestige of priniou^cniture. JclTcrson attacked entail
on the grounil that it defrauded creditors; was unjust
to unprivileged members of the family; and supported
an aristocracy. It was arj^ued that to permit land to
remain in the same family prevented "that equal dis-
tribution of property which was the legitimate reward
of industry," and discouraged the poor from the hope
of "ever gaining any part of the property" guarded
by entail. In \'irginia entail was abolished in 1776.
After iHcK) the traditional influence of the old families
had in large degree disappeared with their great land-
ed possessions. Many early settlers, such as the Liv-
ingstons in New ^'ork and Calvert and Carroll in
Marvland, attempted to introduce entail and to found
manors as the basis of a titled aristocracy. But all
these air castles mouldered with the bodies of their
founders and primogeniture was not allowed perma-
nenilv to obstruct the agricultural development and the
industrial settlement of the country.

Thus in the nineteenth century, equality among chil-
dren came to pass. Carlier found public opinion op-
posed to disproportionate bequest. Equal division of
propertv among numerous children prevents the
formation <»f family wealth. In the absence of the
custom of primogeniture, said one writer in 1H33 or
carlier: "It will rarelv happen that a father can be-
queath to each of his children enough to render tiicm
independent." Property ties being thus weakened,
family integration would be less distinct. Daughters
and vounger sons would not be dependent on their old-
er brother and familv cohesion would he less essential.
Rapid movement and dispersion of population tended
to obscure lineage, arid to destroy the influence of the

The Family and the Home 137

wider kinship group and the sentimental power of an-
cestral seats. The revolt of individualism against fam-
ilism attacked the principle of inheritance. Even in
1829, Ebenezer Ford was elected to the New York
legislature on a Labor Ticket, on a platform declaring
hereditary transmission of wealth and p(n'erty at the
root "of all our calamities.""

Dyring the first half of the nineteenth century the
development of the public school and the spread of the
Sunday school drew attention from the home as an
agency of education. The great revival work and the
tendency of the general work of the churches had a like
effect. Moreover the spirit of democratic individualism
was early manifest in religious differences, which often
crossed family lines. 'I'he split-off'of the Hicksite Quak-
ers, for instance, divided many families. Sectarianism
is a normal correlate of the capitalist regime of free com-
petition and class rivalry. The alinement of the vari-
ous sects runs back in part to fundamental economic
cleavage (e.g. landlordism and the Episcopal church
on the one hand, commercialism and the non-conform-
ist churches on the other) but individual tastes might
outweigh the economic undercurrent in determining
the affiliations of individuals. There has all along
been a tendency for wives to adopt the religion of their
husbands and for children to grow into the church of
their parents. It must have been hard tor luiropean
visitors in the period of this volume to comprehend,
however, the freedom and tranc]uility with which hus-
bands and wives, parents and children, brothers and
sisters exercised individual choice of church connecti«)n.
Time and again this phenomenon is noted, sometimes in
specific detail. Doubtless such facility for idiosyn-

^^ Simons. Sodul Forrrs in .Imrriian history, 184.

13H 1 Iw ,hui ru (in I-dnii/y

cracy. toj^ether "with the multiplication of reliy^ious
services furthered hy sectarian competition, did nuich
to weaken the spiritual bond ot family coherence and
to "draw attention away from the religious duties of the
family." In 1855 SchafT said that table prayer was al-
most universal; and daily family worship the rule at
least in religious circles. Hut if so, not for long. 'J1ie
forces of the new social order were turning the tiile
away from the home center to which Puritanism had
originally directed it.

The family problems that beset the people of the
new nation were often the old-fashioned difficulties
such as inhere in the ordinary course of human rela-
tions and bear little formal relation to time or place.
In newspapers of the revolutionary period occurred
various instances of marital incompatibility, such as
advertisements for deserting wives: "She has left my
beil and board;" "She has been verv unfriendly to me;"
"She has behaved badly with other men;" "Her impru-
dence has reduced me to great poverty and distress."
One man cited /. (lorinthidtis, vii, 10- 1 i. One offered
a reward for the arrest of the seducer. I'he wife some-
times responded in type. One said her husband had
become insolvent and used up the whole income of
her inheritance. Another said her husband's cruelty
drove her out. "I never ran him in debt one farthing,"
asserted a third, "neither has he ever purchased me or
his infant child one article of clothing, except two or
three pairs of shoes for almost two years." Another
said that her husband deprived her of the barest neces-
sities and forceci her to do servile work, such as caring
for cattle in winter and she exhibited an affidavit he
made shortly bef(Ke, acknowledging her wifely good-
ness and obedience and his fault. Thus public opinion

The Family and tlw Home 139

was a favorite tribunal; but reconciliation, forbear-
ance, or regard for appearances (a strong feminine
trait) impeded many a breach."

America had a due share of family troubles. In a
magazine of 1821, for instance, was reviewed a iS eiv
England Tale which the reviewer considered a perfect
illustration of American society and manners. In the
story Jane Elton was left an orphan, thrown on the
bounty of a cruel relative. In the family that adopted
her she was assailed by bad example and injustice; con-
solation came from her mother's domestic. Her foster
mother had a son, whose moral cultivation was neg-
lected and his nature spoiled by tiresome religious ser-
vices and harsh doctrine. He drew on his mother,
while at college, beyond her resources; and also se-
duced and deserted a girl. Jane found him robbing
his mother's desk. The heroine finally married a
Quaker.

Family troubles that in some countries would have
been settled by main force or in family council, Ameri-
can democracy and independence took to court. St.
Victor, the muck-raker, notes family quarrels -fathers
accusing sons of insubordination; sons, their fathers of
injustice; and he says that "among the persons tried
[at one session of court] was a husband for assaulting
his wife, an aunt for assaulting her nephew, a son for
assaulting his father, a daughter for assaulting her
mother."

A southern clergyman in defense of slavcrv declared
in 1857:

I say deliberately, what one of your (irst men told um\ that he
who will make the horrid examination will discover in New
York City, in any number of years past, more cruelty from
^' Schouler. .tmrruans of 17^6, 37-41.

1^.0 The .1 niinmii iinml\

husband to wife, parent to child, than in all the South from
master to slave in the same time.

There were iloubtlcss too many cases of callousness and
heartlessness. riuis Olmsted said in 1861:

Kvery year somr nusrrablf wretch is ft)uiul in our dark places
to have a cra/.y father or brother whom he keeps in a ca^e in
the garret, and whose estate he takes care of, ami w ho is of the
opinion that it will be oi no use, but ... a manifest de-
fiance of . . . Providence, and most dangerous to life and
property to let this unfortunate out of his cage, to surround
him with comforts, and contrive for him cheerful occupation, as
our State requires.

It has seemed best to marshal at the beginning of this
chapter such material as might be taken to intiicate a
weakening of family bonds and then to array on the
other side the more vital facts of family integrity and
strength. Certainly the Americans had not fallen into
indifference to fundamental values. They were emi-
nently a ilomestic people; home was still home -the
center of affection and the school of sociability. Lack
of surface sentiment did not betoken absence of happi-
ness. Generalizing from the testimony of a host of
observers we may assert that in the United States be-
fore the War. marriage was on the whole a happy con-
summation marked by mutual esteem and respect.
.Morality was high. Though women received what
seemed to Europeans great adulation, they were not
spoiled. Mirts settled down into staid and efficient
domesticity. After marriage, if not before, women
became thoughtful, responsible, and painstaking. Do-
mestic order and comfort were marked. Affection,
fidelity, and good management on the part of wives
conserved the best interests of husband, children, and
home. The very reserve and mutual respect that ex-
isted tended to obviate collisions and to render Amcri-

The Family anJ the Home 141

can families largely free from "that brutality which
too often disgraces the lower classes of other nations."
Gurowski in his America ami Europe stated:
Americans stand out best in the simple domesticity of family
life. It is the only nornial condition f^rowin)^ out of their
earh'est traditions and liabits; it is their uninterrupted inher-
itance. The domestic hearth, the family joys and hardships
must have formed almost the exclusive stimulus of existence for
the first settlers; therein they concentrated all their affections
and cares. . . Relipious convictions, local impossibility, the
limited means of the colonies, prevented them at the outset and
for a long time afterwards from recurring to public joyful
gatherings. . . The day spent in hard labor or in profes-
sional duties, was cheerfully ended in the family circle. Even
now, notwithstanding the rapidly increasing wealth and expan-
sion in large cities, out-door pleasures seem rather exotic to the
American life. At any rate far more so in America than in
Europe, the family hearth is about the only preventive against
gross and often degrading recreations; it alone assuages the
tediousness and burdensomeness of existence even for the
rich.

American homes are warmed by parental love. 1 he rela-
tions between parents and children, harmonizing in their out-
ward manifestations with certain conditions and modes special
to the development of Amcrcan society, being misunderstood or
not thoroughly examined by several European writers and vis-
itors, have created the erroneous opinion of the want of parental
feeling. At the outside, however, the reverse is apparent ; less
filial affection, or at least a less licmonstrative one from chil-
dren towards parents, seems noticeable; less so than is cus-
tomary in Europe. Family ties seem to be looser, because gen-
erally Americans bear small affection to the spot of their birth;
young members leave it or change with indifference, and parents
do not make undue sacrifices to keep their children around
them. Events providentially enforced upon Americans this un-
concern, otherwise the task of extending culture and civiliza-
tion would not have been fulfilled.

The outbreeding promoted by American freedom
from inertia and caste lines afforded that enjoyment of

142 The A mill I an I'd mil \

novelty which bulks so larj^e in the quota of happi-
ness. The crossing of strains was also favorable bio-
logically-a fact iluit was not without recognition. A
writer in the Ladits' Magazine (Boston) of 1833 spoke
of several married couples that essentially rcscmbletl
each other in looks ami disposition and said that they
had proved unhappy ifi their offspring. "Hither they
have no chiKlrcn, or their chihlren ilie in intancv, or
they are not such as their parents would desire." This
writer thought that marriage of cousins should be pro-
hibited.

Some specific illustrations may serve to make clear
the spirit that prevailed in the better type of American
families during the period we are covering.

Lyman Beechersaid:

I had sworn inwardly nevrr to marry a weak woman. 1 had
madr up my mind that a woman, to be my wife, must have
sense, must possess stren;:th to lean upon. [When I became
enRaped,] we agreed, quite bravely, that if either of us re-
pented we would let it be known.

In ijgS he wrote to the lady:

^'ou doubt the permanence of my attachment. Believe me, it is
not the result of fancy or a sudden flush of passion. . . I
discover in you those qualities which I esteemed indispensable
to my happiness lon^ before I knew you.

He worries for fear she is not converted in heart.

George Bancroft's mother, born in 1765, was "al-
most a child of nature." She cared nothing for solid
education; read novels and blank "verse." She was the
eleventh child. She was born in the lap of plenty-
"constantly more carcst than fathers generally do
their children." She says that when she was in her ninth
year she was even then the family plaything, indulged
by her father. She married Aaron Bancroft. "How
happy I was when I had a half douzen children. . .

The Family and the Home 143

I learned many cheap dishes and made them satisfac-
tory to my family. I was grateful f(jr the bright pros-
pect of the children as they advanced for their readi-
ness to learn and the very great love they show their
mother" -thus she wrote in a letter in 1828. She had
thirteen children.

Susan B. Anthony was born into a staid and quiet
but very comfortable home where there was great re-
spect and affection between father and mother. She
was welcome. She had an insatiable ambition, espe-
cially for learning the things considered beyond a girl's
capacity. The children liked to go and feast at both
grandmothers. When Mr. Anthony failed in business
Susan and Hannah taught for next to nothing and gave
their father all they could spare to help pay interest on
the mortgage on factory, mills, and home. Years after,
he paid them back. At school at eighteen Susan con-
tinually expressed pain at separation from the dear
home.

A suggestion (jf the spirit that was possible in fam-
ily relations with the advent of democracy appeared in
the Memoir of Hon. JVm. Appleton whose second son
died in 1843. He and his father had been chums.
"We were more nearly brought together than most
fathers and sons. We had entire confidence in each
other." The son would tell his father the latter's
faults. "I heard them from him with a better spirit
than I should from any other." Louisa Alcott's father
romped with the children. He was their chum, 'i'he
family was never conquered by poverty and penury.
It was a romping, boisterous family. They gave half
their scant stock of wood to a familv whose head was
on a spree with all his wages.

With the abolition of imprisonment for debt the

144 Tht' .1 nil r I id It l\iniil\

home became more secure. Additional laws were
passed for its prtitection. In 1S20 a speaker at the
Massachusetts Constitutional Convention argued tliat
the household furniture exempt by law from attach-
ment was nearly enough to i^ive the riu;ht to vote. The
constitution of the new state of Texas authorized the
legislature to exeiTipt from taxation two hundred fifty
dollars' worth of household furniture or other property
beloni^ing to each family in the state. The homestead
of a family, not exceedinu; two hundred! acres, or town
or city lots not over two thousand dollars in value were
not to be subject to forced sale for debt. The legisla-
ture niiL,dit bv law exempt from forced sale a portion of
the property of all heads of families. According to
the California Constitution of 1849 laws were to be
enacted exempting from forced sale a certain pcjrtion
of the homestead and other property of all heads of
families.

Familism was a marked element in early American
affairs. According to De Tocqueville it was hard to
find an American that did not plume himself on be-
longing to one of the original families. In the first
half of the nineteenth century occur numerous hints of
kinship solidarity. One hundred years ago the family
"was still the microcosm of the state" and accepted re-
sponsibility toward poor and incapacitated members.
Well-to-do families had many dependent members,
chiefly women, but also old and worthless men; the law
could be invoked in order to compel families to look
after their own. "The diflerent members of the fam-
ily," wrote an observer of 1833-18-^4, "are firmly united
together." "When a brother or sister dies leaving
orphan children." wrote another person, "they are
readily adopted \nU) the families of their uncles and
other kindred, who treat them entirely as their own."

The Family and the Home 145

Democracy divides the children's "inheritance but al-
lows their hearts and minds to unite," said De Tocque-
ville. On the frontier, there was even some develop-
ment of clan spirit. In many of the colonists this was
a fixed quality to begin with; but isolation, breeding
aloofness and independence, would tend to hold the ex-
panding family of the frontiersman together, thus
forming the nucleus of a new-world clan life. Such a
development of kin-consciousness was possible even
along with the disposition of children to leave as soon
as possible the paternal roof.

Family ties constituted an important factor in pol-
itics and business. A study of political manoeuvres
and economic frauds perpetrated in the early days and
entailing a lasting legacy of corruption and exploita-
tion upon the country will show how largely the family
motive was operative and the family tie accessory. A
few conspicuous instances may be given. Beard in his
Economic Interpretation of the Constitution has shown
the significance of family connection and family wealth
in the formative days of the nation. Thus according to
Maclay, Hamilton imparted important official secrets
to a financier who was engaged in dealing in securities
for Hamilton's brother-in-law, Church, under Hamil-
ton's orders. Myers in his History of the Supreme
Court continues the tale of family cohesion and incen-
tive in big deals. In spite of America's technical free-
dom from hereditary nobility and a privileged caste,
the substance of this anachronism has been ever
present. John Jay was allied by birth, marriage,
and interest with some of the greatest manorial lords
in the United States. He was "descended from an in-
termingled line of landed families," and "marricil into
another mighty landed family, which . had its

alliance of familv and interests with powerful British

146 I he Anil ru (in Family

nobles." This was the Livinj^ston family, members of
which held high federal, state, and city otVices.

The political motto of the Livinj^ston family was direct and
concise: the family should always derive benefit, and notliing
of any degree of value was to escape it. . . For a century,
the Livin}:ston family, bej^innin^; with nothing, and becoming
one of the richest in the colonies, had assiduously pushed them-
selves, their ties and connections into every office and scheme
promising profit and assuring power. . 'Hie Livingstons

again proved their political skill and great power hy having
Jay installed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the
I'nited States.

After the Revolution the courts "were hlled with
judges wlio had been attorneys for, or were relatives of,
families whose estates had been confiscated." Ham-
mond related that he was informed that the Livingston
family "one evening had a meeting and that

the result of their deliberation was such, that the next
morning every member of it took a position in the
ranks of the Republican party," except some Living-
stons in Columbia County.

They did not neglect to have their alile representatives and con-
nections on both sides, so that whichever party won. the family
would be in a position to draw benefit. . From the tiinc

of the organization of the Supreme Court of tiie United States,
[till the twenties of the nineteenth century] the Livingston
family had four direct or related representatives on that bench,
in the persons of John Jay. William Paterson, Hrockholst Liv-
ingston and Smith Thompson. It was virtually a succession of
the Livingston dynasty.

This is but one instance of familism in public affairs.
Justice Curtis wrote from Washington in iS^z : "Wayne
anii Daniel dissent, on account of an interest, in some
way, which Sf)me of their relatives have." In one case
Taney did not sit, as a near familv relative was in-
volved.

The Family and the Home 147

Democracy introduced a new complication into
American family life-the servant problem. While
white servitude lasted, a supply of menials was obtain-
able. But as this atrocity dwindled in the first part of
the nineteenth century the servant problem became
acute. Mistresses were troubled by the disobedience,
carelessness, faithlessness, inefficiency, and independ-
ence of their hirelings. Mrs. Graves in 1841 said:
Domestics are very exacting; they repeatedly threaten to leave,
and on the slightest pretext execute their threats; so that the
mistress is afraid to reprove her menials. Servants no longer
consider their time at their mistress' disposal but after doing
the specified work claim the rest of the time for themselves.
They are beginning to demand the right to receive visitors.

The influx of immigrants relieved, in a measure, the
dearth of servants; but the newcomers were not always
above learning American independence. Mistresses
were largely to blame for the unsatisfactory state of
affairs. "Christian" women were almost wholly inat-
tentive to the spiritual needs of their help. \n many
families no duty was recognized toward the domestics
save the payment of wages. Such negligence some-
times led to seduction by some sympathetic man and
then the girl had almost no recourse save prostitution.
Even such a girl as Louisa Alcott, having gone im-
pulsively as companion for two old folks in a family,
was treated with great indignity "by a family in which
no one would have feared to place her." What must
have been the lot of the obscure, unfriended girl?

A girl of seventeen in 1840 did the entire housework
of a family including cooking and care of a new babv
for one dollar per week. This was average pay of her
neighborhood in Massachusetts. This case suggests
that the inertia of domestic wages handed down from
the days of unpaid drudgery by spinster relatives was

148 The American Family

a cause of the difficulty' over servants. The unsavory
status of the prohlem niav have worked toward an in-
crease oi wa^es for liousehold service. Nauniann in
1848 said that a sixteen year old German girl receiveil,
it only moderately usable, niorc than the stoutest fel-
low did for the hardest work.

Besides the general indepenilence of girls in Amer-
ica ami the feeling that menial service was unworthy
of a native American there were the attractions of fac-
ti)rv industrv with its better pay and freer life. If
American matrons had been willing to meet this com-
petition they could have had servants. As it was, one
Knglishwoman of the mid-century said: '*So far as the
observations and cniiuiries of sixteen months could
elicit such facts, I have not discovered that the servants
in the I'nited States arc of a worse description than the
same class of persons in England." The relatives of
the help were not usually in such abject poverty as to
tempt the servants to steal for them -a happy contrast,
it would seem, to England.

The fact that women of some means had to attend to
housekeeping was regarded by some as a blessed con-
straint and indeed as a possible boon to health; but dis-
satisfaction with the trials of housekeeping promoted
resort to hotel life -an untoward phenomenon that re-
ceives due attention in a later chapter.

It will, of course, be necessary to treat separately the
unique phenomenon of the Slave States family. It was
more conservative and intense, more careful of the old
values and less open to the new, than was the family in
North and West, where diffusion of economic oppor-
tunity and the resultant democratic dignity held prom-
ise of an exalted tvpc of democratic family life based
not on economic necessity but on spiritual values.

VII. SEX MORALS IN THE OPENING
CONTINENT

New world conditions save as marred by slavery
were relatively favorable to chastity. So long as eco-
nomic conditions facilitated early marriage and large
fecundity; so long as mercenary marriage remained
largely in abeyance; life, while crude or even coarse,
remained measurably pure. Democratic freedom of
choice contributed to raise the moral tone and the im-
proving status of woman worked in the same direction.
Moreover conditions in the early days of the nation
were such as to give public opinion great force; for life
conditions were not complex, the ordinary community
was small, and relations were personal. A man was
very greatly dependent on his neighbors and his life
was under their observation more than in older, more
densely settled regions. Public opinion was on the
side of purity, though it seems to have weighed more
heavily on women than on men. Schoepf is probably
putting it over strongly when he says: ''Conjugal dis-
loyalties, on either side, are punished by ineffaceable
infamy." Doddridge in his western Notes says of the
early days that seduction "could not then take place
without great personal danger troni the brothers or
other relations of the victims of seduction, family honor
being then estimated at a high rate." In settled com-
munities legal process could also be invoked.

The relative absence of fixed class distinctions in the
free states served as a certain protection to the chastity

150 1 Iw . I tut rii tin iintiily

of women. In Europe liic victims of lordly lust were
chosen from classes tliat could not secure redress, while
ill America justice was perhaps less hiased. The fact,
too, of the general American preoccupation with in-
dustry or business helped to avert evils that attemi on
the goings of a leisure class. There may have been
something in the climate, also, to curb excess. Gurow-
ski in 18^7 advanced an interesting theory as to the
superior chastity of the American woman.

The American woman has the appearance of cohlness, foundril
in notions, principles, as well as in the temperament; she seems
not to be exposed to the ebullitions of blood, to those violent
emotions common to the women of the Old World.
The climate affects the senses differently, it is supposed, in the
New and in the ( )ld Worlii. . The American woman is

not often thus exalted passionately to that extent as to overstep
the limits traced by the social comprehension of morality. In
fjencral she is, therefore, a surer puardian of the domestic
hearth and of its purity, than is, in many cases, the European,
surrounded by inner and outer ur^ings and temptations.

It was only with the development of feverish luxury
and conspicuous consumption that depravity began to
threaten seriously the integrity of women of the "bet-
ter" class.

Chastellux. who visited the country toward the close
of the Revolution, said: "There is no licentiousness in
America." Social scandals at the end of the colonial
period related mostly to the "mishaps of love-making."
Crcvccocur said: "A general decency everywhere pre-
vails; the reason, I believe, is that almost everybody
here is married, for they get wives very young and the
pleasure of returning to their families f)vcrrules every
other desire." .Mazzei wrote: "In America . . .
girls have a good time with the young men, but mar-
ried women are reserved, and their husbands arc not so
familiar with young girls as before they were married."

Sex Morals in the Opining Continent 151

Bundling lingered long in Pennsylvania among the
Dutch and German settlers and their descendants. It
was a matter of court record as late as 1H4C;. In New
England it prevailed longest in the Connecticut Valley
where there was Dutch influence. Holmes in his Ac-
count of the United States says that among the Dutch
in the Middle States bundling is a custom. Parties of
men and girls spend the night together at inns, both
se.xes sleeping together.

Such threat commatul have the females acquired, that several
who have bundled for years, it is said, have never permitted
any improper liberties. Indeed, it is considered as not in the
least indelicate . . , the females say, that the Dutch boys
would never think of actinj:; improperly. ^-

In general as regards pioneer life it is probably safe
to say as Cooley does of Michigan: "Domestic scan-
dals were exceedingly rare, and divorces almost un-
known. Society was very primitive and there was
little courtesy and less polish, but there was no social
corruption and parents had faith in each other and
little fear for the morals of their children." Of course
Arcadian simplicity did not imply delicacy. In gen-
eral we may assume for the frontier what has been said
of early Tennessee, that "a broad humor that enjoyed
obscene jests was dominant among the males."

Nor were the vices of a sophisticated society slow to
arise with town life.

One hundred years ago there were many unfaithful
husbands but very few unfaithful wives. Colonial
penalties had weakened. For the first half of the nine-
teenth century we can affirm that in spite of (or per-
haps by reason of) the great freedom of contact be-
tween the sexes, offenses against the seventh command-

^' Eirle. Customs and Fashions in old \nv England, 63-64; lli)lmf».
Account of the United States, 347.

152 I III' .1 tiuru (in l'(nml\

meat were remarkably rare. Infidelity on the part of
the witc was ahiiost unknown and a liaison was well
nij^^h out ot the i|ucstii)ii ; successful intrii^uc meant
odium. For a married lady U) receive attentions from
a man not her husbaiul would have made her the scan-
dal of the community, and ailultery spelled for her
ostracism, ihe seducer risked death or heavy atone-
ment. Country lile particularly was pure. On the
whole, the free section of America contrasted favor-
ably with the OKI World in point of purity. Marryat
was indeed of the opinion that conjugal disloyalty was
invariably husheil up and he implies that the number
of illegitimate births may not have been an adequate
measure of illicit intercourse. Miss .Martincau was
rather of the opinion

That married life is immca,surably purer in America than in
England: but that there is not otherwise much superiority to
boast of. I can only say, that I unavoidably knew of more
cases of lapse in highly respectable families in one state than
ever came to my knowledge at home; and that they were got
over with a tlis^jrnce far more temporary and superficial than
they could have been visited with in Knjrland.

She recognizes, however, the facilities afforded in b>u-
rope for concealment owing to social stratification.

I'here was a specific connection between religious
e.xcitiment and sex morals. James D. Davis, a pioneer
lawyer of Memphis, writing as late as 187^ of a camp-
meeting held between Raleigh and Memphis jirior to
i8'^o. when the cnuntrv for miles was depopulated,
said :

There may Im* some who think that a camp-meeting is nf) place
for love-making ; if so they arc very much mistaken. When
the mind becomes bewildered and confused, the moral restraints
give way, and the passions arc quickened and less controllable.
For a mile or more around a camp-meeting the woods seem
alive with people; every tree or bush has its group or couple,

Sex Morals in the Opening Continent 153

while hundreds of others in pairs are seen prowh'ng around in
search of some cosy spot."

Ihe reverend John Brooks wrote:

All denominations of Christians except the Cumberland Pres-
byterian, opposed them with all their power, . . There
was a great many who thought it would have disgraced their
wife or daughter forever if they stayed on the camp ground all
night. Sometimes their wives or daughters would be so con-
victed that they would go up to be prayed for -they would
come into the altar in great haste to get them out. Those who
were praying for them would reason with them and entreat
them to let them get religion, but to no purpose; out they
would have them, right or wrong. Then in great rage cursing
the straw pen, as they called the altar; and off home they would
take them. . . If the children of other denominations would
get religion among us, they would rather that they would be
anywhere else than in the Methodist church. They would do
all in their power to keep tlu-m out, and, if they had joined, to
get them out again. . It was dangerous for a Methodist

preacher to walk out of the encampment unless he had a re-
spectable company with him, for there were some, it would
seem, always watching for some opportunity to tell a slanderous
tale upon them ; and as there were more or less women of ill
fame lurking about, they only wanted suitable circumstances to
give coloring to their hellish designs.'^

It is scarcely necessary to take up the various sects
that specialized in peculiar doctrines as to marriage;
in most cases they have had little permanent influence.
The Mormons constitute the most conspicuous excep-
tion. Just what interpretation is to be put upon the
rise of their communion the viewpoint of this hook
does not make it easy to say. To attribute so great an
achievement to mere animalism is the cheap recourse
of the idler or the fanatic.

Clearlv one of the main factors to be counted was the

^' Hale and Ntcrritt. History of Trnnfjjrr nttii Trnnrssreans, vol. i, 225.
T* — IJrm, 225-226.

1 :;4 The Ami riniti luituily

call of the empty continent for prolific propagation,
and this need set a sanction upon "the most sacred duty
man can owe to (jod aibl the huiiiaii race." "in the
world, it takes two sets of parents to produce five chil-
dren while in Mormondom this numher is produced
hv one set." That polvi^aniv and rapid increase were
fruits of pioneer possihilities is suggested positively hy
the fact that of late it has heconie iiuurnheiil on Mor-
mons to frown upon untrue "saints" and to fight Mal-
thusian temlencies in the midst of the church. l*resi-
dent Smith with his forty-two children and Lorin Vaxt
with his fortv are not likely to he duplicated in the
present era of capitalist control of natural resources,
universal ailoption of "prolonged infancy," emancipa-
tion of woman, and inflated standards of living.

Another element in determining the rise and success
of iMormonism was the excess of women in the h>ast.
"Mormon plural marriage was never a menace to
monogamv. . It took up the old maids .

now accumulating ... ; it arrestetl that contin-
gent which now directly, or through marital failures,
finds its way to gilded palaces of sin." If hosts of men
eschewed matrimonv and buried themselves in remote
pioneer activities or in urban irresponsibility how
couhl everv fit woman be a mother and fulfil her nor-
mal desire save bv polygamy? The institution, how-
ever, could never be very widespread; for it is impos-
sible to marry more women than there are.

Polygamy was interlocked, also, with the need for
economic e.xertion in a difficult region. The priests
permitted plural marriages only to such as had means
to support several, families, "and so used the satisfac-
tion of polvglhiious instincts as a reward for unusual
econf)mic" prowess.

Sex Morals in the Opi'ning Continent i

33

It can not be seriously argued that M(jrmonism
meant degeneracy in any fundamental sense; it was
merely a reversion produced by the recurrence of an
earlier phase of racial experience. "The real growth
of the Mormon ideal in family life began with their
exodus" and pioneer struggles close to nature. 'Mie
new system "permitted such a choice of sires as pre-
vented the thriftless and vicious from perpetuating
their undesirable progeny" or at least from swamping
the more competent strains of heredity. Economic
prosperity attested the practicability of the Mormon
cult. "But the primitive moral virility of the pioneers
did not survive in the polygamy of the second genera-
tion. The younger generation was in danger of being
utterly debauched by it;" and naturally so, inasmuch
"as it was normal only so long as the peculiar conditions
that evoked it persisted. Disappearance of free land;
pressure of organized exploitation; the opening of
careers for detached women; the development of
wealth and ease -all conspire to alter the merits of the
whole situation.

Opposition to Mormonism had the advantage of
cloaking itself in the pretext of outraged decency. But
base factors were in play. In the Mormon War in
Missouri a mob outraged fifteen or twentv Mormon
girls and drove the Saints out. It would seem that the
Mormons had fertile land that they would not sell to
the "mobocrats" at their own price."

Certain elements in the Mormon theory ot the fam-
ily tend to corroborate the preceding interpretation of
the movement. When it is asserted that the natural
use of copulation is procreation, and that ,\n\ other use,
at least in so far as it interferes, is against nature, we

^* Amcriran ,'\nti-»Iavcry Society. Amrruan Slnvrry as it is, 191-192.

1^6 Tht' .1 itii t u (III iinnil\

envisage forthwith an environment that puts a pre-
niiuni on fecundity aiul cllnrt rather than on leisure
ami conspicuous consumption. W hen it is alleged that
to refuse to procreate is to block the path of a soul we
call up to a view a situation in which the coming of a
new child meant a larger total of life, rather than a
reduced total bv reason of economic stringency. (The
argument for propagation had not the same back-
ground as the identical commantl of the Catholic
hierarchy who urge fecundity for the laity while prac-
ticing sterility themselves.) When we are told that
hereafter the Mormon family idea requires to be sus-
taineil bv hope of salvation and exaltation in the life
to come and that fitness for authority in heaven must be
developed bv experience here, we are reminded that
supernatural sanctions once developed as a justifica-
tion for forms of conduct tend to persist as unnatural
sanctions after the conditions that evoked them have
passed away. The Mormon leaders need not e.xpect
to maintain the patriarchal ethic in the new regime of
capitalism. The claim that "the Bible Family" as
upheld bv .Mormons will be the dominant type of the
future is made in forgetfulness of the fact that the re-
cedence of the Mormon forbears to the tribal type of
the Hebrew patriarchs could last only so long as eco-
nomic isolation and group solidarity consequent on the
desert struggle lasted.'"

In view of the furor that has raged over Mormon-
ism it is of interest to remember a contemporaneous
pronouncement from reputable S(jurces. In 1846 the
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis-
sions voted unanimously against instructing mission-
aries to exclude polygamists. The reverend Doctor

^•()n the Mormon*, nee the "Bibliograpliy," iicm Tlir Mormon /'amily;
Mun>terbcrg. Americans, 516.

Sex Morals in the Opening Continint 157

Allen, missionary in India for twenty-five years said:

If polygamy was unlawful, then Leah was the only wife of
Jacob and none but her children were legitimate. And

yet there is no intimation of any such views and feelings in
Laban's family, or in Jacob's family, or in Jewish history. . .
God honored the sons of Rachel, Bilhah, and Zilpah equally
with the sons of Leah."

7"he early Mormon could make out a plausible case
for the superior morality of his system as compared
with the pernicious promiscuity that tended to spring
up in the growing centers of population. DeBou's
Review of March, 1857, contained this indictment:
In eighty years, the social system of the North has developed
to a point in morals only reached by that of Rome in six cen-
turies from the building of the city. . . Already married
women, moving in the fashionable circles of the North, forego
the duties of domestic life, bestow their minds upon dress and
equipage, and refuse to no inconsiderable extent to undergo the
pains of child-bearing. . . Already the priceless gem of
chastity in woman has been despoiled of its talismanic charm
with men. [The moral rule is], so long as exposure is avoided,
no wrong is done.

DeBow idealized the society of the South though
he very well knew that it was rotten to the core with
illicit miscegenation. Moreover ordinary sexual
pathology was early important there as is witnessed by
such an advertisement as the following from the Times
of Alexandria, Virginia, January i, 1801 : ''The Cor-
dial Balm of Gilcad, an immediate restorative and
corroborant, a most powerful rcmcilv in female ob-
structions and suppression, and in cases of retention at
maturity." There is advertised also a restorative
counteractant of masturbation. Also "A (juide to
Health" with essay on the "Venerial Disease and Sem-
inal Weakness" recommended to men and boys.

^T Gage, ll'oman. Church, anj Stiitr, 406.

158 Tilt' .Inurii (in Finml\

Sex sin in its ordinary forms was early prevalent.
Congressman Rutledgc of South Carolina shot a man
in intrigue with his wife. 'iWo theatrical men at
Charleston fought over the woman kept by one. The
lover was beaten in the eluel. The victor ejected the
woman, who went and lived with the wounded lover.
The other man married. Hodgson who in 1824 pub-
lished Letters from Xort/i .hiurira thought that Mo-
bile seemed io be characterized by profaneness, licen-
tiousness, and ferocity. Arfwedson in 1834 recorded
that opposite Columbus, Georgia, "on the Alabama
shore, a number of dissolute people had founded a
village, for which their lawless pursuits and notorious
misdeeds had procured the name of Sodom." They
were in Indian territory. Virtue and beauty they
regarded as proper prey. Abdy, who was in the
United States in 1833- 1834, found influences ruinous
to unprotected youth. "Two boys, about twelve or
fourteen . . . stationed themselves in front of us,
and one . . . exhibited a drawing . . . the
most indecent . . . possible to imagine. . . I
remonstrated . he burst out into a laugh."

Abdy's companion, a North Carolina slave buyer,
seemed to think very little of the incident. "Inhere is
a greater regard for dccencv even in Paris."

The reverend K. i. Mallard in P/antntion Life hc-
forr Kni(iri( ip/itiori sa\s: " I ii our county . . the

most fre(]uent cause of suspension from church fellow-
ship ami even excommunication was offences against"
the seventh commamlment. The pastor of a colored
church in the South said in a letter tliat "the violation
of chastity among my congregation is the be-

setting sin. Of the three hundred seventeen persons
excluded during a certain period . . . two hun-

Sex Morals in the Opening Continent 159

dred were for adultery." The congregation contained
an unusual proportion of free blacks.

North and South were fond of bandying back and
forth charges of immorality. Slavery, the exploitation
of the poor whites, and the feverish city life of New
Orleans marred the South with impurity. Capitalism,
urban industrialism, and the rise of luxury in the North
bred comparable evil. The influence of these factors
upon the standards of sex morals observed in the rural
simplicity of the new world will be touched in other
chapters. The North had at least one moral advan-
tage-a more normal and wholesome rural life which
held back the tide of demoralization.

At a ''Free Convention" in Rutland, Vermont, in
1858, the platform was used for a vigorous advocacy of
free love. An attractive woman recommended it to
her audience. The speech was so well received that
the meeting "went forth to the world as a free-love con-
vention. But the almost unanimous northern
sentiment in regard to this convention, and the haste
with which some participators in it rushed into print
to clear themselves from any accusation of sympathy
with free-love, are an indication of the severity of opin-
ion touching sexual relations."" Such evidence is,
however, far from conclusive. I'he public is noto-
riously antagonistic to a public theoretical justification
of evils whose practice is patiently tolerated.

Prudery was an interesting phenomenon of the social
life of nineteenth century America. The mother of
Susan B. Anthony was very timid. Before the birth
of every child she was ovcrwhclnicd with embarrass-
ment and lived in seclusion and would not speak of the
expected event even to her mother. Harper relates:

^'* Rhodes. Ilijtnry of thf I' nit f J Stiitrs, vol. iii, 98-99.

l6o llw Atiitriciin F(imd\

That mother would assist her overburdened daughter by mak-
ing the necessary K^rments, take thnn t(j her house and lay
them carefully away in a drawer, but no word of ack now led ce-
ment ever passed between them. This was characteristic of
those olden times, when there were seldom any confidences be-
tween mothers and dautjhters in re^jard to the deeix-st and most
sacred concerns of life, which were looked upon as subjects to
be rigidly tabooed.

Marryat. wlm was in America in 1837-1838, spoke of
ptruilcr\ : Anicrican girls would not say "leg." Sonic
even referred to the "limb of a tabic." An English
lady keeping a boarding-house in an Atlantic citv said
some girls showed hysterical agitation at meeting a
man or hoy unexpectedly. Cirattan in his Civilized
.'Imerica said :

The newspapers . . . abstain, on a point of delicacy,
from ever announcing,' the birth of a child; while marriages
and deaths occupy their columns without reserve. . . No
lady allows herself to be seen publicly while she is visibly en-
ceinte. A rigid confinement to her house, and even to her
"chamber" is observed for a considerable time preceding her
confinement. . It h.is frequently happened to me to miss

ladi«"s from . . . parties . . . and on enquiring .
to be told tliey were "in the country" or "visiting" and on
meeting them, in probably a year or more, to find them [with
a new child].

Buckingham ifi the Shivc Stales of .hmrua has a
comment, made at Athens, on American prudery.
"Hip" and "thigh" arc, he says, tabooed. They alter
praycrbo(ik and Hibic by the elimination of "womb,"
"belly," "cock." He speaks in contrast of the demor-
alization wrought upon young New Englandcrs, many
of whom rcturti from the Soutli dissipated rakes.

VIII. THE STRUGGLE FOR THE WEST

The project of building a homestead West enccjun-
tered five large obstacles: the opposition of the Indians,
the stubbornness of distance and environment, the ex-
pansionist projects of the plantation South, the un-
scrupulousness of voracious land speculators, and the
selfish obstructionism of the eastern capitalist jealous of
his cheap labor. All these were positive enemies of the
homestead family and handicaps to the western home.
All save the first require brief attention.

In 1786 William Cooper, father of James Fenimore
Cooper, opened the sales of forty thousand acres
"which, in sixteen days, were all taken up by the poor-
est order of men."

The greatest discouragement was in the extreme poverty of the
people, none of whom had the means of clearing more than a
small spot in the midst of the thick and lofty woods, so that
their prain prew chiefly in the shade; their maize did not ripen ;
their wheat was blasted, and the little they did gather they had
no mill to grind within twenty miles distance; not one in twen-
ty had a horse, and the way lay through rapid streams, across
swamps, or over bogs. They had neither provisions to take
with them, nor money to purchase them; nor if they had, were
any to be found on their way. If the father of a family went
abroad to labor for bread, it cost him three times its value be-
fore he could bring it home, and all the business on his farm
stood still till his return. [Cooper canu* in one April with
several loads of provisions. Sofin it was all snapjx'd up, for
people were living r)n roots and on maple water.] Judge of
my feelings at this epoch, with two huiuired families about me,
and not a morsel of broad. . . I . . . obtained from
the Legislature . . . seventeen hundrni bushels of corn.

1 62 The American Family

This wc packed on horses' backs, and on our arrival made a
distribution amonj; the families, in proportion to the number
of individuals of which each was composed.

This settlement was at the foot of Otsego Lake (Coop-
erstuwn, New ^'ork). The extract is from Cooper's
Guidt in l/if inUtrni'ss, published in Irelanci in 1810
to promote migration (o Otsego. Me says further:

If the fXM)r man who comes to purchase hind has a cow and
a yoke of cattle to brin^ with him, he is of the most fortunate
class, but as he will probably have no money to hire a laborer,
he must do all his clearing with his own hands. Having no
pasture for his cow and oxen, they must range the woods for
subsistence; he must find his cow before he can have his break-
fast, and his oxen before he can begin his work. Much of the
day is sometimes wasted, and his strength uselessly exhausted.
Under all these disadvantages, if in three years he attains a
comfortable livelihood, he is pretty well of?: he will then re-
quire a barn, as great losses accrue from the want of shelter
for his cattle and his grain; his children, yet too young to af-
ford him any aid, require a school, and are a burden upon him;
his wife bearing children, and living poorly in an open house,
is liable to sickness and doctors' bills \\ ill be to pay.

John Hrailburv (author of Travels in the Interior
of America in the Years iSOQ, iSlO, anJ / tS I / ) ,nn-
ticed that emigrants lacking the stamina for clearing
the wilderness always found opportunity to huv out
the backwoodsman's clearing. The latter preferred
the har^h frontier to the encroaching civilization. The
clearing that he sold generally consisted of a log house,
an orchard, ami from ten to forty acres enclosed and
partly cleared. Poverty on the sea-board pushed peo-
ple westward. Bradbury observed many farms aban-
doned in X'irginia. A traveller in Pennsylvania about
the same time mentions a "singular party of travellers-
a man with his wife and ten children. T^he eldest of
the progeny had the youngest tied on his back; and the
father pushed a wheelbarrow, containing the movables

The Struggle for the West 163

of the family" They were leaving New Jersey and
making for Ohio. Farther on a young woman was
passed, "carrying a sucking child in her arms, and
leading a very little one by the hand."

An Irish traveller giving advice to his fellow coun-
trymen drew an interesting picture of the possibilities
for an immigrant on the cheap western land as con-
trasted with ugly city conditions. A man and wife
without children could get employment in the same
family. She could earn four or five dollars a month -
sufficient in a year to stock a farm. In one year or
thereabouts, tho they landed penniless, they could be
ready to start to the West where the land was cheap and
good. A couple with small children, under ten or
twelve years, would have difficulty in getting a start.
Older children could get work in families or factories.
But with small children the wife would have to have
a home, where she must stay earning nothing. Thou-
sands of Irish, reared on farms and unacquainted with
the vicious life of cities, had, on coming to America,
settled in filthy cellars and garrets, and worked in the
nasty labor allotted to friendless strangers. When they
have earned a little money, instead of moving out in
search of a wholesome farm they married and started
a familv in the midst of poverty, vice, and sin; the
family, subject to the countless evil influences of city
life, and often disgracing the parent and the father-
land. "But when you get the farm, Patrick, the more
children you have the happier you will be." Thus
even in the first half of the nineteenth century the con-
test between city and country was on; and their con-
trasting influence on the family noted.

The opening of California Icil to a mad rush toward
the Pacific.

Mothers Plight he seen w.uhn^ throuj^h the deep dust or hrax')'

164 riw .1 tfttfiKin Fiunily

sand of the deserts, or climbing mountain steeps, leading their
poor children by the hand ; or the once strong man, pale, emaci-
ated by hunger and fatigue, carrying upon his back his feeble
infant, crying for water and nourishment, and appeasing a
ravenous appetite from the carcass of a dead horse or mule.

A traveller of iS;;4 w rntc of Chicago:

A family of (jermans going by the hotel one morning
struck me as the most remarkable show I had seen in the
West - the coming in of Kurupean immigrants to take posses-
sion of our western plains.

The father sfrt)de down the middle of the street. Un.nc-
customed to the convenience of sidewalks in his own country,
he shared the way with the Iwasts of burden, no less heavily
laden than they. . . Hy one hand he held his pack, and in
the other he carried a large tea-kettle. His gude-wife followed
in his tracks, at barely speaking distance behind. A babe at
the breast was her only burden. Both looked straight forward,
intent only upon putting one foot before the other. In a direct
line, but still further behind, trudged on. with unequal foot-
ster>s, and eyes staring on either side, their first-born son, or one
who seemed such. There were well towards a dozen summers
glowing in his face. A big tin pail, containing, probably, the
day's provisions, and slung to his young shoulders, did not seem
to weigh too heavily upon his spirit. He travelled on bravely,
and was evidently trained to bear his load. A younger brother
brought up. at a few paces distant, the rear, carrying, astride
his nci k ... a sister.

Tliey would not stop or turn aside, save for need-
ful foiid and shelter, until they crossed the Mississippi. On
the rolling prairies beyond, the foot-worn travellers would
reach their journey's end, and, throwing their weary limbs
upfjn the flowery grass, would rest in their new home, roofed
by the sky of Iowa.

As if the vast distances of the continent and the hard-
ships that the environment imposed upon the pioneer
were not enough, the history of settlement has been
a continual record (jf the e.xactions of rapacious land
speculat(jrs '* whose sjjjny tr^il reaches from the Atlan-

^* Myers. Hutory of ihf Stifrrmr Court, 304-354, 372-388, 403-469.

Tilt' Struggle for tlw ll'ist 1 65

tic to the Mississippi, to the Great Plains, to California
and Oregon, and now linaliy to the ultimate continental
frontier in Alaska. Early, the Supreme Court heard
cases "revealing that thousands of families had been
peremptorily driven from their homes, ami reduced to
destitution, by the claims and exactions of land j(jbbers/'
The Court had validated these claims. A Senate
Committee in 1836 reported that land speculation was
looking to a land monopoly.

The poor but inciustrious occupant generally attends the land
sales, having no more money than a sum sufficient to buy the
land he occupies at the minimum price; a speculator bids a
few cents over him, and becomes the purchaser of the land and
the owner of an improved farm, paying not one cent for the
value of the improvements. In other cases, where the settler
has collected something more than the money sufficient to pay
for the land he occupies, at the minimum price, and bids that
sum, the speculator, by some secret agent . . . overbids
the settler, the land is struck off to this agent, and the settler
leaves the sale in disgust, to mourn over the injustice of the
government of the Union, and to prepare for the removal of
himself and family from the little farm which he has improved
and expected to have purchased from a paternal government.
After the departure of the settler, the tract is forfeited for non-
payment, and the speculator purchases in his own name the for-
feited tract, probably at the minimum price per acre.

The scenes ensuing at many of our land sales are scenes of
the deepest distress and misery. They arc scenes in which
many families are driven forth from their homes to seek some
other spot in the wilderness, where keen-eyed avarice and sor-
did monopoly may not overtake them. Hut another laiul sale
comes on, the same scene is repeated, till all hope is extinguished,
and nothing is left to the settler but di*spair and ruin
taking all the sales of the public lands, from the adoption of
the cash system, in July. 1820, down to the present period, the
average price received by the governmetit upon these sales, has
been less than six cents an acre over the minimum price.*"

'° Myers. History of the Sufrrmr Court, 386-387.

1 66 'The A til I- ru (in I-drnily

I'hc committee proposed the sale and entry of all of
tlic public lands in forty-acre lots -"a whimsical sug-
gestion to make to a Congress a large number of the
members of whith were interested in the hind com-
panies."

Gareschc wrote from Louisiana to tiie Secretary of
the Ireasurv on June (), 1S36:

It is folly to talk ot tlu- poor squatter - the laws have ncvrr
bcrn made for him ; he j^rts but a very small fraction of the
whole; all the benefits of the speculation fall into the hands of
the intritruer ; it is for him that the bill is introduced; it is for
him alone that the voice of our orators is heard on the floor of
Congress."'

The New I'JiL^dand Protective Union declared: "We
must proceed from combined stores to combined shops,
from combined shops to combined houses, to joint own-
ership in (jod's earth, the foundation that our edifice
must stand upon." The first Industrial Congress of
the United States (New York, 1845) declared "it is a
well-known fact that rich men, capitalists and non-pro-
ducers associate to devise means for securing to them-
selves the fruits of other men's labors"; therefore farm-
ers, mechanics, and workingmen ought to organize. It
was declared that further traffic in land by the govern-
ment should stop and that the public lands should be
made free to actual settlers so that every person might
have a home.

The Laborers' Union memorialized Congress to end
traffic in public lands. "This system ... is fast
debasing us to the condition oi dependent tenants, of
which condition a rapid increase of inequality, misery,
pauperism, vice, and crime are necessary conse-
quences.""

" Myeri. History of tht Suprrmr Courf, 387.
*' — fJrm, 444-446.

The Struggle for the ff'fst 167

Before the close of 1852, bills, resolutions, and me-
morials for grants of land t(^ actual settlers were intro-
duced in Congress. A homestead bill passed the
House in 1852 but the Senate did not pass it. Ham-
mond of South Carolina in 1858 said in the Senate:
"Your people are awaking; they are coming here.
They are thundering at our doors for homesteads, one
hundred and sixty acres of land for nothing, and South-
ern Senators arc supporting them." In 1862 Congress
passed the Homestead Bill presenting one hundred and
sixty acres to every settler on condition that he built a
home and proceeded to cultivate and improve the soil.

The consequences of the struggle for the soil have
been far reaching. On the whole, even the well in-
tended homestead acts have not safeguarded general
welfare but have grown or been twisted into agencies of
special privilege in the form of unearned increments
to the undeserving successors of the pioneers or to their
speculative exploiters. "Our efforts to give land to the
landless have bred an immense amount of corruption,
fostered speculation, endowed private monopoly with
public wealth, and pauperized whole communities.""
The far reaching fact is that originally through the
ignorance, carelessness, or corruption of the govern-
ment the people's heritage of land was dissipated and
the vast stores of natural wealth not created by any man
were made into a lever by which most of the created
wealth has been separated from its producers so that
decent home life has been for millions pushed far
beyond the bounds of possibility.

It is important to note how the self-interest ot the
eastern labor exploiters opposed the opening up of the
West for settlement for fear that the homesteads of the
new country would reduce their supplv of labor and

** Ely. Outlines of Economics, 593-594.

1 68 The Anurii iin lunuilx

advance its price. It was urged, indeed, that "instead
• 't i^ivin*; homes to the liomeless, the hill will unsettle
the homes of manv honest persons who have houi^ht
their farms with iiard earnings by bringing them into
competition with other farms received as an alms by
men too indolent and improvident to ac(|uirc them as
others have""* It is not generally known that Daniel
Webster's "Liberty and I'nion" oration found its oc-
casion in the conspiracv against the free home of the
West as a refuge from exploitation in the Kast. It
was delivered in support of a resolution by Senator
Foote of Connecticut to stop the survey of public lands
and limit sales."* One would suppose that the West
and the laborers of the East might have awakeneil to
the real situation and if necessary sought alliance with
the South against what was to prove the deadly foe
of ail of them the capitalist power of the financial
centers. There were indeed signs of such a rapproche-
ment of West and South; but the attempted expansion
of the plantation system to the West and Northwest was
regarded as an encroachment on the pioneer home and
as a possible curb to the spread of the small farmstead
by the sons of the pioneers. The danger was in reality
insignificant; for, inasmuch as one can not repeal the
laws of nature, the slave svstem could never have been
a serious menace to the upju-r \N'est. Hut Westerners
and would-be pioneers thought it was and gave their
sons to crush the fancied foe. the South, while under
cover (jf the Wat their nominal allies, the monied men
of the East, were forging a new conspiracy and fasten-
ing f)n the neck of the whole nation a new and lasting
slavery, a practicable, workable sort of bondage. Thus

•♦ Satiofirtl Intrltif^rncfr, June i, 1852, cited in McMaster's History of
Ihe Pfoplf of the I'nitrJ Statrs (1913), vol. viii, 107-109.
•* Simons. Social Form in /Imrrican History, 203.

Tlw Struggle for the Wat 169

the homes of the West and the proletarian homes of
the East have suffered immeasurably for their faulty
sense of proportion, their failure to size up the real
enemy. The Civil War was in a sense a war for a
specific type of family and a specific type oi home. Its
sequel was not merely the reconstruction of the svstem
of the South but the reconstruction of the West like-
wise at the hands of the money lender of the East.

The liberalizing influences of new-world life were
largely a function of the frontier and tended to become
conservatized as fast as the frontier receded before the
advance of urbanization. Meanwhile migration west-
ward factored in the shaping of family conditions in the
more settled East. To the settlement of the Great West
went the young and vigorous leaving the elderly, the
invalids, the orphans to the care of some widowed or
unmarried sister or daughter. Throughout the older
states there were countless such broken families. The
guardian of the household "stood in her lot strengthen-
ing the things that remained.'' In consecjuence of the
young men's migrating westward in great numbers,
many eastern young women, who normally would have
been their wives, married widowers oKl enough to be
their fathers. Such conditions contributeii to the de-
crepitude of the old New P>ngland stock. P3ven after
the Civil War the westward drain of men continued,
leaving an excess of women in New Englanil.

It was not the "best people" from New England that
moved to the Western Reserves. It was not the "suc-
cessful" families at home that pioneered Ohio. But the
\N\'St "has been icd all along bv the prolific stocks of
New England. It was the families with large numbers
of children that moved west. If tin- prolific stocks mi-
grate to the west thev leave the unprolific stocks."

lyo lilt' .1 niirii lift linml\

Hence (perhaps) some of the modern sterility of the
North Atlantic Americans.

The West constituted a refuse for the hard-pressed
and hankrupt of the seaboard states. Hy 1S17 some
eastern cities ceased to ^row, so great was the e.xodus of
the poor from the coastal states. Hard times in the
Middle States in the thirties pushed people West. Prior
to 1840 some one remarked that "our fashionable wo-
men do more for the settlement of the western
country than the soil, climate, and cheapness of land."
Competition in the Kast was too sharp for some mer-
chants, and professional men were too numerous, even
before the War. Some such, having married early, and
having expensive habits could not keep pace with the
demands of an increasing family. In such cases the
West offered an escape. In that crude country one
might live more simply and cheaply without losing so-
cial position. ( )ften the wife consented to removal only
because she could not help herself. Such women were
likelv to be ill-suited to roughing it. In some instances
families were driven back by the wife's discontent. But
sometimes fashionable women, settling in the West,
became, from e.xample or from necessity, splendid
housewives. "That is to say," observed the Bostonian,
"thev scrub their own floors, clean their door handles,
wash the windows . . walk about with children
in their arms; all which ... is done by the women
of the best society in the western states without de-
stroying either their health or good looks." Thus the
hinterland served as a safety valve to the developing
East. This relation must be kept in mind, for it re-
tained in the older country something of the pioneer
flavor and retarded the growth of the family phe-
nomena that more recently mark our industrial civili-
zation.

IX. THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ORDKR

At the close of the Revolution, wages were low and
the price of necessities was high. Only by strictest
economy could a mechanic keep his children from
starvation and himself from vile imprisonment. The
home of the workman was plain and unattractive. "He
rarely tasted fresh meat as often as once a week." The
pinch of poverty, North and South, guaranteed a wel-
come for anvthing that would make possible a com-
pleter utilization of the labor force, including women
and children, reduce dependence and charity, and
add to the wealth of the community. Home produc-
tion for the market developed to some extent but was a
fleeting stage in America. Some more efficient system
was indispensable.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century many
children of agriculture were just preparing to leave
the farm for the factory. Household industry lin-
gered long in country districts. In Indiana, for in-
stance, in 1816 there were 2512 looms and 2700 spin-
ning wheels, most of them in private cabins ''whose
mistresses . converted the wool which their

own hands had often sheared, and the flax which their
own fingers had pulled, into cloth." Before 1836 in
New England nearly every article of domestic use that
is now made with tlie use of machinerv was "done by
hand;" the population was mainly rural and the male-
rial for clothing was grown on the home farm and
fabricated by the women. Even the sons of compara-
tively prosperous families went to college in homespun.

172 77; c' Atturuan Funiily

In the infancy of the factory system a frequent argu-
ment in its favor was that it couhl utilize the hihor of
women and children who would otherwise be iille.
Washington in a letter to Lafayette said: "Though I
would not force the introduction of manufactures by
extravagant encouragements, and to the prejudice ni
agriculture, yet I conceive much might be done in the
way of women, children, and others, without taking
one really necessary hand from tilling the earth.'"*"
Hamilton observed that one advantage of the extensive
introduction of machinery would be

The employment of persons who would otherwise be idle, ami
in many cases a burthen on the community, cither from bias of
temper, habit, infirmity of body, or some other cause indispos-
ing; or disqualifying them for the toils of the country. It is
worthy of remark, that, in jjeneral, women and children are
rendered more useful, and the latter more early useful, by man-
ufacturing establishments, than they would otherwise be.

He seems to have had in mimi principally the gain to
the heads of families, for he said: "The husbandman
himself experiences a new source of profit and support,
from the increased industry of his wife and daughters,
invited and stimulated by the demands of the neighbor-
ing manufactories."*' Such philanthropists as Mat-
thew Carey pointed out the extra value to be got from
girls between the ages of ten and sixteen "most of whom
are too young or too delicate for agriculture" and by
way of contrast directed attention to the "vice and im-
morality to which children are exposed bv a career f)f
idleness." "

Manufacture was earlv contemplated as the salva-
tion of the South. The exercises incident to the lay-

•* McVfV. MoJfrn Industrialism, 45.

•^ Brard. Economir Intfrpretatinn of l/ir Constitution, 26.
*' Abbot, Early History of Child Labor in .-Imrrira should be ronsulted
a^ a Rcncral reference.

The New Industrial OrJir 173

iiig of the corner-stone of "The South Carolina Home-
spun Company of Charlcst(jn" in 180H brcjught a gath-
ering of three thousand people. Mr. Lloyd, head of
the Masonic order of South Carolina, "said in a most
memorable address about the prospective cotton mills:"

Here will be found a nevcr-failiriK asylum for the friendless
orphans and the bereft widows, the distribution of labor and
the improvements in machinery happily combining to call into
profitable employment the tender services of those who have
just sprunj^ from the cradle, as well as those who are tottering
to the K^'ivc, thus trainin}; up the h'ttle innocents to early and
wholesome habits of honest industry, and smoothing; the
wrinkled front of decrepitude with the smiles of competency
and protection.®"

Many instances might be given of the employment
of children in the early factories. They became a more
and more profitable mechanism and their labor was
looked upon as a valuable asset in view of the scarcity
and cost of male labor. (Jay complained in 1784 of
the "wages of mechanics and labourers, which are
very extravagant.") At Slater's first establishment in
Rhode Island the operatives were described as between
seven and twelve years. Manufacturing no longer re-
quired able-bodied men but was "better done by little
girls from si.x to twelve years old." A New Mamp-
shire act of 1791 empowered overseers to bind out the
poor and the idle. By means of such acts the factory
capitalists obtained a cheap supply of woman and child
labor. Before the close of the eighteenth century,
manufacturing with child labor was so far developed
that, as a French traveller put it, "men congratulate
themselves upon making early martyrs of these inno-
cent creatures, for is it not a torment to these poor little
beings ... to be a whole day and almost every
day of their lives employed at the same work, in an

"" VVcthcrcII. .Irnnrn; ihf totton Mills, 416.

174 1 Iw Auuriidn Family

obscure and infected prison?""* Josiah Quincy in 1801
found a RliDilc Island fattorv cniplovin^ over a hun-
dred children at twelve to iwenty-tive cents a day.

One attendant was very eloquent on the usefulness of this nian-
ufacture. ami the employment it supplied for so many poor
cluldrrn. Hut an oloquence was exerted on the oflu-r side of
the ciufstioii more commanding than his, which callrii us to pity
the>e little creatures, plying in a contracted room, amonj; flyers
and conjjs, at an a^;e when nature requires for them air, space,
and sports. There uas a dull drjecticjn in the countenances of
all of them."'

The early Anierican factories were "manned" large-
ly hy women and chihiren. it was maintained that
social as well as economic jj^ains came from the em-
ployment of women in industry. Young women who
had been "with their parents in a state of poverty and
idleness, bare-footed and living in wretched hov-
els .. . are comfortably fed and clothed, their
habits antl manners and dwellings greatly improved and
they have bcc(jme useful members of society," w hile the
women in villages remote from manufactures are
"doomed in idleness and its inseparable attendants vice
and guilt." A village where "free independent and
happy workmen with their wives and children were
employed" was an emblem of pr(jsperity. Manufac-
tures educated women in habits of honest inciustry and
gave added encouragement to labor and pcjpulation.
"They become eligible partners for life for young men,
to whom they will be able to afford substantial aid in
the support of families. Thus the inducement to early
marriages ... is greatly increased . and

immensely important efTects produced on the welfare
of society." "To depri\e the wives as well as the chil-
dren of the farmers and country laborers of profitable

•^Oneal. H'orkm in .■Imfr'uan History, 128-129.

" VlassachiMctts Historical Society, Proceedings, second »er., vol. iv, 124.

Till' At u Industrial Order 175

employment in manufacturing establishments would be
most injurious."""

Women formed, njughly speaking, two-thirds to
three-fourths, and in some places as much as nine-
tenths, of the total number of factory operatives in the
first half of the century. Many of the early mill-work-
ers were country girls who simply came in for a time in
order to earn a little money, often for their wedding
outfits. Mrs. Robinson, who went to work in the
Lowell mills at the age of ten, has said:

The most prcvailinti incentive to our lalx)r was to secure the
means of education for some male member of the family. To
make a gentleman of a brother or a son, to give him a collei^e
education, was the dominant thought in the minds of a great
many of these provident mill girls.

In such towns as Waltham and Lowell the hands were
almost all farmers' daughters, who lived in corpora-
tion boarding-houses. Since the board cost more than
a child could earn, the employment of children was
unprofitable. But children were often employed very
young, even in "model" places like Lowell and Wal-
tham. Most of the women operatives in the early
days were in the lower twenties. Of a thousand women
employed by the LawTence corporation only thirty
were married or widowed. 'Vn Lowell came widows
to open boarding-house or store, and sometimes mar-
ried women came and worked in the mills in order to
assist their husbands to pay for farms. \\'()men with
a past came to hide their identity. In New York, fe-
male operatives were enableil to support dependent
families.

Samuel Slater transplanted to Providence and the
neighborhood the family-system which he had known
in P>ngland. The Rhode Island type of factory vil-

"' Abbot's articlrs ritrcl in the bibliography should be consulted as general

reference on wom-in labor.

176 The .1 nii rit (in l\intil\

lage was, therefore, made up of families entirely tie-
pendent on their lahor in tlie mills, and the mill chil-
li ren lived at home with their parents. Connecticut
ami southern and western Massachusetts resemhled
Rhoile Island with its tendency towanl the family sys-
tem. The following memorandum of January 27,
1815. illustrates the family system:

Dennis Ricr . . has this clay cnKaRcd to come with

his taniil> to work in our factory on the following conditions.
He ... is to have the followinjj wa^jes per week:

Himself . . $5.00 Sister . . . $2.33

Son, loyrs. . . .83 Her daughter, 8 yrs. .75

Daujihter, 12 yrs. . 1.25 Son, 13 , . 1.50

Son, 13 yrs. 1.50

Son. U) yrs. . . 2.00 4.58

10.58

Smith Wilkinson wrote from Pomfret, Connecticut:

We usually hire poor families from the farming business of
from four to six children, and from a knowledj^e of their for-
mer income, bein^^ only the labor of the man say $l8o-200, the
wall's of the family is usually increased by the addition of the
children to from $450-600. [A^ain] In C()llet:tinK our help,
wc are oblij^ed to employ poor families, and Kcn^rally those
having the greatest number of children.

The company's real estate investments are explained as
an attempt "to give the men employment on the lands
while the children are employed in factory." A writer
in \ilfs' Rt^ristt-r in 1H16 calculated the gain to the
parents of employing the whole population of children
in cotton factf)ries. Miss Martineau noted that more
parents were bringing their children to the factories.
Hefore 183^ "whole families (not one of whom can
read or write)" were finding "an asvlum" in Maryland
factories." An advertisement in the Federal Union

*' Abdy. Journal of a Rrsuirnce anj Tour in the UnitfJ Stales, vol. i,
383.

The New Induitrial Order 177

of Milledgeville, Georgia, 1834, showed that a textile

company wished

To hire twenty to thirty suitable laborers to work in the fac-
tory. White women, girls and boys are such as will be want-
ed, aged ten years or upwards. Entire families may find it to
their interest to engage in our service. A good house of en-
tertainment will be kept near the Factory.®*

About 1850 J. H. Taylor of Charleston represented
that:

The active industry of a father, the careful housewifery of
the mother, and the daily cash earnings of four or live children,
will very soon enable each family to own a servant; thus in-
creasing the demand for this species of property to an immense
extent."*

During the period in which the factory system was
fastening itself upon the country, labor experienced no
golden age. Of about 1816, Carey said:

Thousands of our laboring people travel hundreds of mill's in
quest of employment on canals at 62)'S, 75, and 87^^ cents per
day, paying $1.50 to $2.00 a week for board, leaving families
behind, depending upon them for support. They labor fre-
quently in marshy grounds, where they inhale pestiferous mias-
mata, which destroy their health, often irrecoverably. They
return to their poor families broken-hearted, and with ruined
constitutions, with a sorry pittance, most laboriously earned,
and to take their beds sick and unable to work. Hundreds
are swept off annually, many of them leaving numerous and
helpless families. . . There is no employment whatever,
how disagreeable or loathsome or deleterious soever it may be,
or however reduced the wages, that docs not find persons will-
ing to follow it rather than Ix'g or steal.""

In 1820 Flint wrote of having seen upwards of one
thousand five hundred Fiicn out of employment during
the previous eleven months. Wages at Philadelphia
and elsewhere had droppeii to twenty cents per day

^* Documentary History of .Imrrican InJuitr'tal Socirty, vol. ii, 3J4.

"* Tower. Slavery VnmaskfJ, 347-348.

'"Simons. Social Forces in .Imerican History, 174.

178 7 //'■ .1 tnttu tin I-titmly

and board. A Cincinnati paper advertised a place for
receivinj^ old clothes tor the poor and cast-off shoes for
children. Of the period 1825-1829 .McMaster says
that "Nothing hut perlect health, steady work, sobrie-
ty, the strictest economy, and the help of his wife could
enable a married man to live on such wages" as la-
borers received.

Northern capitalists diil not need to repine over the
passing of the prolitless ne^ro slaverv. CJustavus
Myers says:

A system aliowini:; the iinrfstrictcd exploitation of white inen,
women and children for fourteen hours every workinj^ day in
the mills, and paying from $1.75 to $2.00 a week to wr)men,
and less to chihiren. presented its superior advantaj^es over the
chattel slavery system. That many of the workers were swept
to premature death hy disease contracted in the factories, or in
foul habitations, or hy accidents while plying their trade, en-
tailed no economic loss to the mill owners."^

Southern enthusiasts were fon(l of boasting of the
greater cheapness of labor in their section. An anti-
slavery writer reported that while in Lowell men got
eighty cents a day and women two dollars a week, in
Tennessee the rate was not over (iftv cents a day for men
and on the average a dollar and a c]uarter a week for
women. A .Mr. (jregg said on one (jccasion: "It is only
necessary to build a manufacturing village of shanties,
in a healthy location, in any part oi the state [of South
C^irolina], to have crowds . . around v<)u seek-

ing employment at half the compensation given to
operatives at the north." He shows that slavery is a
club whereby in the South capital can control labor.
But in spite of the fact that the races could be induced
to work side by side, "the uhite girls working in the
same room and at the same loom with the black girls;

" Mycr*. Hiitory of the Suprrmr ('ourt, 301.

The iVi'w InJustrud Order I 79

and boys of each color, as well as men and women,
working together without apparent repugnance or ob-
jection,"'"' and in spite (jf the need to find remunerative
employment for indigent persons and to relieve distress,
industry could scarcely be said to flourish in the South.

Early factory labor was almost incredibly severe:
twelve to fifteen hours a day. By 1830 some of the
factories became chambers of horrors. Women and
children were frequently beaten with cowhides and
otherwise abused. Wages, too, were miserably low
and tended downward. By 1835 chiefly the poorer
sort of workers filled the mills but even skilled labor
complained constantly of cruelties and injustice. There
were sad cases of cruelty to children, and outrage of
every sort among the women, whose pay had dropped
almost to the subsistence point. Parents gave false re-
turns of age and grasped eagerly at the chance of their
children's earning something.

Harriet Robinson, one of the early mill girls of
Lowell, has said :

Except in rare instances, the rij^hts of the early mill-jiirls were
secure. They were subject to no extortion, if they liiil extra
work they were always paid in full, and their own account of
labor done by the piece was always accepted. They kept the
figfures and were paid accordinfjly. This was notably the case
with the weavers and drawin^-in ^irls. ThouKh the hours of
labor were lon^, they were not overworked . . . and they
had plenty of time to sit and rest. Help was too valu-

able to be ill-trratrd. After a time, as the wa^cs be-

came more and more reduced, the best portion of the ^Irls left.

Humane employers deplored "the policv which con-
fines and constrains small children during the working
hours of a long day, and consequently excUules them
from the benefits of school." Hut the "benefits of

'"'On this paraj^raph sec Dncutnfnlnry History of .Imfriiun InJustrial
Society, vol. ii, 339, 357; Tower, Slavery I'nmaskeJ, 350-357.

l8o The Amiricdti i(iniil\

school" were likely to be nominal."" School-teachers
of 1835 were prone to cruelty. "The day of children's
rights had not yet ilauncil." In 1836 the Massachu-
setts House Committee on Education declared that
since

Human labor . . . must inevitably be dearer in a country
like our own than it is in any other with which we are brou^^ht
in competition in manufacturing, this operates as a constant in-
ducement to manufacturers to employ female labor and the la-
bor of children, to the exclusion of men's labor, because they can
be had cheaper. (The factory families arc near the poverty
line.] Of course when such families numerous and indigent as
they usually arc, be^in to increase, and when their wants bctjin
to press hard upon their scanty means of comfort, or perhaps
even of necessary subsistence, there is a strong interest and an
urjjent motive to seek constant employment for their children
at an early age, if the wage obtained can aid them even but
little in bearing the burden of their support. . . [Causes]
are operating, silently perhaps but steadily and powerfully, to
deprive young females particularly, and young children of both
sexes in a large and increasing class in the community, of
those means and opp<jrtunities of mental and moral improve-
ment . . . essential to their becoming . . . good cit-
izens.

The committee called attention to the fact that in four
of the largest manufacturing cities (excluding Lowell)
with a population of a little less than twenty-five thou-
sand, there appear to be "189c; children between the
ages of four and si.xteen who do not attend the common
schools any portion of the year."

In the Vfjice of Industry, a labor paper published at
Fitchburg, Massachusetts, in 184:;, a typical instance
of labor conditions is given in the statement of a frail
girl of eight or nine years: "I go to work beff)re day-
light in the morning and never leave it until it is dark,

»» McMaiiter. History of ihf People of the United States (1910), vol. vii,
157-161; Robinson. Loom and Spindle, 19-20.

The A t'u' Industrial Order i8l

and don't make enough to support mother and baby."
The paper refers to the increase of two hundred per
cent in the cotton mill dividends in a single year, and
a corresponding decrease of twelve and one-half per
cent in the wages of women and children.

Early labor organizations opposed child labor partly
on account of its effects upon the wage-scale and partly
out of regard for the physical, mental, and moral wel-
fare of the children. In the forties and fifties some
minor gains were made in the way of legislation -suffi-
cient to stir the enthusiasm of well-wishers but not
always sufficient to escape the scorn of Horace Greeley
and the Tribune. A Massachusetts Legislature Com-
mittee of 1850 reported with reference to long hours
that left almost no time for amusement or betterment
that so long as the operatives were the children of New-
England trained in good homes and at school the men-
ace was not so great. But foreigners were rapidly re-
placing the New England mill hands. Untaught at
home and having no leisure for education here they
would remain steeped in ignorance, and morals and
physical condition would be low. The committee ac-
cordingly urged a limitation of the hours of labor and
more time for meals, and reported a bill, which was
not passed. "The real precursors of adequate child
labor legislation were the two Massachusetts acts of
1866 and 1867."

Under the old apprenticeship system children were
supposed to receive certain education. Franklin wrote
in 1784 with reference to apprenticeship contracts:

[They] arc made before a magistrate, who re^^iilates the agree-
ment accordiiiK to reason and justice; and having in view the
formation of a future useful eiti/en, ohhj^e the master to en-
gage by written indenture, not only that during the time of
service stipulated, the apprentice shall he duly provided with

l82

7 /it" .1 mcrii iiti iiimil\

meat, drink, apparrl, washing, and lodKinK, and at its expira-
tion with a complete new suit of clothes, but also that he shall
be taujiht to read, write, and cast accounts; and that he shall
be well instructed in the art or profession of his master, or
some other, by which he may afterwards k«i'" «i livelihood, and
be able in his turn to raise a family.

The factory system niii^ht possibly have been recjuired
(as was sug^esleil by a writer in \ilt's' Jl't-ekly Rcgis-
ttv in iSiO to assume responsibility for some instruc-
tion; but one of the conspicuous ilctiiamls of or^aiii/.cil
labor was for a system of free public schools. Some
even favored a plan to remove the children from
their parents lest they acquire the foolish ways of the
old society, and to clothe, feed, shelter, and teach them
alike. On this comtiiunism of education the New
"\'ork labor movement split. But final victory for dem-
ocratic facilities of education was secured over the op-
position of aristocracy and intellectual fossildom.

The t]uestion of woman in industry raised similarly
urgent issues. The nnich-(]uotcd statement of Harriet
Martineau that in 1H36 only seven occupations were
open to women (teachini^, needlework, keeping board-
ers, working in cotton mills, book-binding, type-setting,
house service) is erroneous. Before 1837 women were
employed in over a huncireci different industrial occu-
pations. It is true, however, that prior to i8c;o there
was no field for e(1ucated women; and there were prac-
tically no t)pportunities for training.

At the beginning of the second cjuarter of the century
the earnings of women were lower than even the star-
vation wages of men. Many occupations now open to
women haii not then arisen or were confined to men.
Women in need of work might bind shoes, sew rags,
fnl(i and stitch books, become spoolers, or make coarse
sheets anci duck trousers at eight or ten cents apiece.

Tilt' New I nd Hit rial Order 183

Shirt making was much desired because the work could
be done at home, the seamstress being often the mother
of a family and perhaps a widow. The most expert
could not finish more than nine shirts a week, for wliich
the stipend would be seventy-two or ninety cents. I'if-
ty cents seems to have been the average.

A Boston paper of 1832 contains reference to tables
showing the gain to the community from having women
spin and weave in factories instead of at home. In the
factories they may earn perhaps one hundred twenty-five
dollars each per year. But the strain of factory labor,
of a different nature from old-fashioned home industry,
however trying that may be, coupled with unsanitary
surroundings and unhygienic habits raised a serious
problem with regard to the health of the future moth-
ers of the race, a problem that is still unsettled. In
this way factory industry has an additional bearing on
the family. In the early factory with its long working-
day the ventilation and lighting were poor, and the
corporation boarding-houses were overcrowded and
insanitary. (The Lowell Manufacturing Company's
rules, 1 830- 1 840, provided that all employees must
board at the company house and observe its minute
regulations.) Factory girls often slept si.x to eight in
a room and even three in a bed. A delegate to the first
National Trades' Union Convention (1834) asserted
that the cotton factories were "the present abode of
wretchedness, disease, and misery."

Mr. I), cntcrrd into a licscription of the effects of the present
factory system upon the health anil morals of the unhappy in-
mates, and depicted in a strong lij^ht the increase of disease and
deformity from an excess of labor, want of outdoor exercise, and
of j;(kkI air -of the prevalence of depravity from their exposed
situation, and their want of education, having no time or oppor-
tunity for schooling, and observed, that the decrepid, sickly, anti

184 1 fw .1 tiuruan I'drnily

drbilitatcd inmates of these prison houses were niarryin^j and
propajjating a race of beings more miserable if possible than
themselves. "We talL." said Mr. D., "of the rising gen-

eration! What must that generation be, coming from such a
Stock of dise;Lse and deformity!"

Charles Dickens visited several Lowell factories in
1842 and found the K'^'s ^vell dressed and cleanly as
they thronged from the mills.

Tltry were healthy in appearance . ami had the man-

ner and deportnKnt of young women ; not of degraded
brutes. The rix)ms in which they worked were as well

ordered as thenvselves. There was as much fresh air,

cleanliness and comfort, as the nature of the occupation would
possibly admit of. . 'Hie owners of the mills are partic-

ularly careful to allow no persons to enter upon the possession
of [the boarding-houses], whose characters have not undergone
the most searching and thorough inquiry. . lliere is a

joint-stock piano in a great many of the boarding-houses.
The girls labor in these mills upon an average, twelve hours a
day; these girls (often the daughters of small farmers) come
from other states, remain a few years in the mills, and then go
home for good.

There were, indeed, in the life of the Lowell mill
girls, in the early days, certain opportunities for im-
provement and cultivation that must have been of im-
portance to the communities to which they returned.

One of the most interesting features of the situation
arising from tlic presence of women in industry was a
recognition on the part of workingmen, in spite of the
irritaticjn felt at female competition, that the women
were, so to speak, in their trust. In the thirties organ-
ized labor took a serious interest in the problems inci-
dent to woman's entry of industry, ami if, as earlier, the
concern was stimulated by resentment at the conse-
quences of female competition in the wav of lower wage
levels and the elimination of men, still the discussion

The New Industrial Order 1 85

evidences serious concern for the health and morals of
women and their economic rights. Frederick Robin-
son in a July Fourth oration to Boston trades unionists,
said:

All lepslative power is in our hands \vc arc the

natural p:iiar{lians of the other, the weaker and the better half
of our own species. . . However much we have borne from
the aristocracy in every age, our mothers, our wives, our sis-
ters, our daughters have been still more abused. Their suf-
fering calls for our immediate interposition and we ought never
to rest until we regulate the hours of their labor in factories
by direct legislation, until we make it a crime to work
- more than six hours a day.

Being subjected to like treatment, the man and the wo-
man worker tended to draw together.' A new chivalry
was in process of formation inasmuch as woman lacked
the right to political self-expression. ' The pressure of
the new industrial conditions began to forge a bond of
fellowship between the sexes that furnished, in a sense,
a substitute for the old industrial bond of family union
that had been broken by the decadence of domestic in-
dustry.""^ But the new unity was broader than the family
and more communal.

The wrongs of working women received marked
publicity, partly in connection with the woman's rights
movement, as we have seen in a previous chapter, and
partly in labor publications, but also in the general
press. The Ladies' Matrazine (Boston) of 1830 con-
tained an appeal for relief for orphans and widows. A
writer said that inquiry showed that in New York, Bal-
timore, and Philadelphia earnings of females were in-
adc(]uate for their support. In I'hiladelphia a number
of the most respectable ladies said that expert seam-
stresses, if fullv employed, and unencumbered with
children could not make over one dollar twelve and one-

1 86 I Iw .Itnituiiii I'timtly

half cents a week. They had to pay fifty cents for lodi;-
iiii^s. leaving nine cents a day for all other expenses.
Moreover there were cases uhcrc piece rates were as
li)\v as half the ahove. These women were frequently
unemployeil. Many were widows who formerly lived
in affluence. Various other species of female lahor
were as badlv j^aid. Ihe reverend Mr. Tuckerman
said there were numerous cases of mothers iloiuL; their
utmost ft)r the education of their children, with little
assistance from their husbands, and rei]uirinj^ aid. It
was hard, however, to arouse enthusiasm in the cause
of this oppressed labor.

The Mdti of .March 3, 1834, quoted the Trades Iti-
ion on Lowell girls.

rUv price ot tciiKilr lal^or is already too low, and tlu' amount of
labor that females have to perform too preat. Many of these
youn^ women have poor and a^cd parents depending on the
earnini^s of their children for support. Others who are not
oblij^ed to assist their parents, can receive no assistance from
them, and must, out of their small earning, which rarely ex-
ceeds two dollars and fifty cents a week, provide board and
clothing, and lay by something to support themselves when
they arc sick or unemployed.

The M(in of March 7, 1H34, reports that six hundred
factory girls at Dover, New Hampshire, met and pro-
tested against a wage cut. "Resolutions evincing on the
part of the girls a thorough knowledge of their rights
and interests were passed unanimously." These reso-
lutions set forth that manv of them were far from home,
parents ami friends, and that it was only by strict
economy and untiring industry that any of them had
been able to lay up anything. The Man of March 15,
1834, quoted the Sun as follows:

The low rate of female labf)r h a grievance of the very fir=t
magnitiide, and pregnant with the most mighty ills to socie-
ty. . . This unjust arrangement of remuneration for scr-

Tlic A i'li- Industruil Order 187

vices performed diminishes the importance of women in so-
ciety-renders them more helpless and dependent - destroys in
the lower walks of life much of the inducement to marriage -
and of course in the same dej^ree increases the temptations to
licentiousness. It is difficult to conceive why, even in th«>sc
branches, wherein both sexes are enjjaged, there should be such
an extreme defjrec of disparity in the recompense of labor.

The Man of March 20, 1834, quoted a Lowell girl
thus:

If the proprietors and agents are not satisfied with alluring us
from our homes - from the peaceful abodes of our childhood,
under the false promises of a j^reat reward, and then castin^^ us
upon the world, far from our friends and our homes and mere-
ly because we would not be slaves.

In the Man of March 26, 1834, there is an account of
working girls at Lowell being insulted at a labor meet-
ing. The instigation of the outrage was attributed to
members of the aristocracy.

Susan B. Anthony as a young woman was indignant
at the ^'custom everywhere to pay men four times the
wages of women for exactly the same amount of work,
often not so well done. Even the government was an
exploiter of women. Mrs. Bodichon shortly before the
war declared :

In the mint in Philadelphia, I saw twenty or thirtv youn^ la-
dies who received half, sometimes less than half, the wa>;es
given to men for the same work. They were working ten
hours a day for a dollar. This pror>ortion shows the lament-
able amount of competition amon^ women, even in the United
States, for any work which is open to them.

To a certain extent women found courage to stand
for their rights. In New York City in 1845 several
hundred women constituting the Female Industry As-
sociation, tailoresscs, shirt-makers, book-folders, cap-
makers, representatives of ;ill trades then open to wo-
men, met in tfie Superior Court room to assert their

1 88 The A nurii lui F(itml\

rights against oppressive employers. The president
said that in her ir;uic wages were from ten to eighteen
cents a day. Only the most capable received twenty-
five cents. On such pay it was not possible to live de-
cently and honestly. A committee was therefore ap-
pointed to prepare an appeal to the public.

In 1845 and 1846 great meetings of workers in Low-
ell. Chicopee, Manchester, New York, Philadelphia,
demanded a ten hour day. In these agitations girls
ami women were as aggressive as the men. I'o supply
the place of these agitators the Chicopee mill-owners
sent a wagon on regular trips through New P^ngland,
paying the man in charge a dollar or more for every
girl secured. It was charged that farm girls were en-
ticed on the representation that the work "was very
neat, wages high, and that they could dress in silks and
spend half the time in reading."

Vicious conditions developed early. McMaster,
writing of the period of 1825- 1829, says:

To the desperate poverty produced by such [starvation] w aj^es
[of women] many evils were attributed. . , Children were
sent into the streets to bej; and pilfer, and younp ^irls were
driven to lives of shame to an extent which but for the report
of the Magdalen Society in New York and the action of the
people elsewhere would be incredible.

Newspapers of 182J; report that at Portland the people
on three occasions pulled down houses of ill fame, and
that a similar riot occurred in Boston. Horrible prison
conditions had contributed to immorality.

Miss Martineau thought that the morals of the fe-
male factory population might be expected to be good
considering of what class it was composed. Many of
the girls, she said, were in factories because too proud
for domestic service. Such could hardly be low enough
for gross immorality, it seemed to her. Chevalier

The Ne-w Industrial Order 189

in the thirties quoted a director of a factory at Lowell as
saying: "There have been in our establishment only
three cases of illicit connections, and in all three in-
stances the parties were married immediately, several
months before the birth of the child." His statement
seems very shallow.

The Lowell Offering, however, in December, 1840
had an interesting article signed by a "Factory Girl"
in vigorous rebuttal to the editor of the Boston Quar-
terly Review who had said: "'She has worked in a
factory' is sufScient to damn to infamy the most worthy
and virtuous girl." The writer asserted that the editor
slandered

A class of girls who in this city alone are numbered hy thou-
sands, and who collect in many of our smaller tow ns by hun-
dreds; girls who generally come from quiet country homes,
where their minds and manners have been formed umler the
eyes of the worthy sons of the Pilgrinis and their virtuous
partners, and who return again to become the wives of the
free, intelligent yeomen of New England, and the mothers of
quite a proportion of our future republicans.

Wyse, in his America, wrote:

[The daughters of shopkeepers and mechanics, the working
girls] the moment they are enabled to work . are sent

abroad to seek employment, in some of the numerous trades
to which the American females are usually accustomed; and
arc from thenceforth only entitled to a place within the do-
mestic circle, as they are able to contribute to a proportionate
share of its expenses. . . When a female arrives at an age
that enables her to exert herself after this mode, she ceases, to
be an object of parental anxiety, or consideration, is no longer
considered entitleil as of course to any indulgence, or those
other advantages she might reasonably expect to derive from
her parents, circumstances, or position in the world. When
with this is considered the difficulty of realizing by female in-
dustry and labor the merest necessaries of life, the thoughtless-
ness and love of dri-ss, which is almost inherent in every young

IQO The American Family

person, witli tlu* inirctiuus :iiul lirinorali/in^: iiiHufiicc of bad
example - the many temptations to spend money, with the few-
guards and restraints to which females arc subject in tlie United
Stales, it is scarcely surprisinj; that morality should be at a very
low ebb, and female impropriety (to speak in milder phraseol-
oj^) amongst this class, unfortunately of frequent and very
^Jeneral occurrence.

The reverend A. Stevens, writing in 1849 on woman,
said: "I'eniale viee does exist among us, but it is less
common than in anv Kuropcan communitv: it prevails
almost exclusively among our denser populations, and
is chiefly the result there of poverty and miseducation."

Southerners found satisfaction in assailing the indus-
trial system of the North and sometimes impugned the
virtue of its working women. The northern factory
girl was representeii as a great slave, and the "misery,
and poverty, and hunger, which is to be met with among
the poor willows, and orphans, and free negroes of the
north" was compared disadvantageously with slave
conditions in the South. In truth, the wretched sewing
girls who toiled incessantly for bare sustenance and
broke down or ilieil in misery while benevolent cus-
tomers beat down prices and neglected payment might
have envied the slaves on manv a southern plantation.
Conditions were of course worst in the P^ast.

A book of the fifties entitled the North and Sou th, or
Slavery anJ ils (loutrast asserted that there was just as
real slavery in the North. Children were torn from
bosoms that loved and nurtured them and exposed to
every cruelty. In a recent case a so-called lady whip-
ped severely a little bound girl and shut her up till she
died of starvation. "Let the tliousands of slender,
fragile, children, in each of our great cities, children
covered with the coarsest garments; their little feet
bare; their hacks bowed their features sharp

The New Industrial Order 191

and pinched . . . let their sorrows plead." The
binding of apprentices to the employer's service by hard
and fast indenture fell into disuse before the middle of
the century; but for a long while after this change, in
small towns the apprentice often lived with and drudged
for his employer's family.

The Industrial Revolution brought urbanization.
In 1790, three per cent of our population lived in cities
of eight thousand or over; in 1800, four per cent; in
1830, six and seven-tenths; on the eve of the Civil War,
sixteen per cent were urban dwellers. By the early
twenties: "In many of the cities, the high price of
fuel and rent is severely felt by the lower classes. This
causes several families to live in one house. There are
even instances of two families living in one room; the
consequences of which are highly injurious to the health
of the inhabitants." The tenement house was a prob-
lem before 1830. The cities were growing with great
rapidity. In New York, houses could not be found for
all. Buildings were put up cheaply. Some collapsed.
Others were torn down by order of authorities.

The winter of 1837- 1838 was mild and open far into
January but it was one of pervading destitution ami
suffering in New York City owing to paralysis of busi-
ness. Tens of thousands were in danger of starvation.
Horace Greeley wrote:

I saw two families, incluciin^ six or cip:ht children, burrowing
in one cellar under a stable - a prey to famine [vermin, and
disea.se]. I saw men who each, somehow, supported his fam-
ily on an income of five dollars per week or less, yet who cheer-
fully Rave something to mitigate the sufferinps of those who
were really p(K)r. I saw three widows, with as many children,
living in an attic 00 the profits of an applestand which \icliicd
less than three (ioliars per utrk, and the landlord came in tor
a full third of that.

192 The American Fmuily

Again in iS;;o he took uy> the intlictincnt of society:
While Labor builds far more sumptuous mansions in our day
than of old, furnishiiiji tlicm far more t^or^jeously and luxuri-
ously, the laborer who builds those mansions lives oftenest in a
squalid lodgint:. than which the builders of palaces in the fif-
teenth century can hardly have dwelt in more wretched
while the demands for labor, the uses of labor, the efHciency of
labor, arc multiplied and extended on every side by the rush of
invention and the growth of luxury around us, yet .
lalxjr is a dru^: on the market the temperate, efficient,

uprijjht worker often finds the comfortable maintenance and
proper education of his children beyond his ability.

By 1852, gold flow had resulted in depreciation and
steady rise in prices. "Rents and the cost of clothing,
meats, flour, hutter, provisions of all sorts went higher
and higher till the workingman forgot all other griev-
ances and cried out for higher wages." Hammond of
South Carolina, in the Senate in 1858, said: "Your
people are assembling . . . with arms

in their hands, and demanding work at one thousand
dollars a year for si.\ hours a day."

In view of conditions disclosed, it would seem prob-
able that some of those citizens that were so greatlv per-
turbed lest higher education for women should "break
up the home" might have found in the industrial sys-
tem a real danger to attack. The reverend R. B. Thurs-
ton wrote well when he said:

All progress in domestic felicity and in religious culture de-
pends on property, and also on the equitable distribution of pos-
session of property, as one of its essential conditions. Property
lies in the foundation of every happy home, however humble;
and property gilds the pinnacle of every consecrated temple.

The nascent capitalism of the North when put to this
test did not compare too well with tlie chatteldom of
the South.

When Southerners, assailed bv the abolitionists,

The New Industrial Order 193

learned of negroes in Philadelphia living in houses and
cellars with hardly any furniture they were excusable
if they remarked: *'And this is nigger freedom!"
Forrest in Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Nor-
folk, Virginia, gave vivid information that was certain-
ly of interest to Southerners. He quoted from the New
York Express a description of "Cow Bay," a negro
quarter of New York:

A small narrow, and cxccodinKly dirty court, about one hun-
dred twenty or one hundred thirty feet deep, with a row of
shabby three story brick houses on one side, and dilapidated
brick and wooden hovels on the other. Pips, cats, dogs, rats,
and children black and white, wallowing in the mud, or taking
their initiatory lessons in rascality together - a labyrinth of
alley ways, bordered on all sides with dirty and filthy houses -
a hive, sweltering full of human brutes - a small city in itself,
teeming with a population altogether of a different nature from
those who live but a few blocks from them. [Here] is the
principal dwelling place of the negroes . . . here they live
and die like pigs, and their carcasses arc stowed away in some
corner of the Potter's field with about as much respect as would
be paid to the carrion of an old horse.

The houses have generally eight or ten rooms, including the
attics and cellars, and in these are crowded not infrequently
two or three hundred souls. The cellars are so arranged that
the sidewalk comes up to within eighteen inches or a foot of
the wall of the houses and, looking down, one may perceive a
deep, dark, nasty trap, into \\ hich all kinds of refuse are thrown,
and into which, not infrequently, the inebriatetl inmates of the
courts themselves meet their end. At intervals, reaching from
the sidewalk to the bottom of this gutter, are placed ladders or
steps, to give ingress and egress to tiie animals who burrow in
the cellars. The front cellar is usually eight or ten by six-
feet . . . with a ceiling so low that an ordinary sized
man must look out for his hat on entering. One end of this
apartment is fitted up with a bar, st(K'krd with vilIainou>. com-
pounds called liquors, which are sold to the wretcheil inhab-
itants for three cents a glass each, as long as they have money,
and four cents credit, as long as they have any personal prop-

194 ^^^ American Family

crty that the landlord can levy upon tor his pay when tlu-ir
iDoficy is j^urje. Hack of the "bar-room" appt-ars another apart-
ment, perhaps a little lar^tr, perhaps a little smaller, accordinn
to the size of the house, and in this kennel arc often crowded
toj^ether fifteen or twenty ixrsons, nejjroes and whites, male
and fenule, adults and children, without any more li^ht and
air than what can come in through the door. These sleep to-
pethcr on the same rags - beds there are none - or on the same
straw, and rarely or never do the inhabitants of these cellars
retire to their rest until they arc too much inebriated to remain
longer awake, when they lay themselves down, in the clothes
which probably they have not taken off for months, and sleep
off the fumes of their drunkenness in the midst of the most re-
volting filth.

Not infrequently, in the larger houses, one or two apart-
ments are not all that are to be found in a cellar; sometimes
these sinks arc two stories deep, or have side branches extend-
ing under the courts, and these all, of course, worse than the
lirst. With no floors, or with such as were originally laid,
long ago rotten and worn out, so out of repair that whenever it
rains the filth of the gutter and courts is washed down to make
part and parcel of the heap the wretches sleep upon; never
cleaned out from one year's end to the other - these noisome
holes are not fit habitations even for the vermin which swarm
in them; and yet here these creatures, who call themselves men
and women, and who would feel insulted were a white man to
call them "niggers," drag out their miserable existence.

During the day, the inhabitants of "Cow Bay" and its
"courts" and "alleys" keep themselves pretty quiet; they only
step out to get their three or four cents worth of gin, and then
burrow theniselvcs in their dens again. [By day they loaf or
steal, or l>eg. By night they drink and dance and gamble -
male and female. The law discriminates against negroes. They
arc not citizens till they own (unencumbered) five hundred dol-
lars' worth of real estate. They can't get licenses to do certain
jobs till they arc citizens.]

We have ourselves seen, in a six by eight attic room of a
house in Thomas Street . two entire negro families

containing thirteen individuals, male, female, young and old,
who in that small kennel, with only one window of six panes

The New Industrial OrJtr 195

of glass, ate, drank, slept - indiscriminately, men and women to-
gether-cooked, washed, and ironed (for the women generally
help to support the family, by takin}^ in washing), and in fact
transacted all the business of a household. . . Not only did
they cover the floor, but moveable shelves, which during the day
time were let down parallel with the wall by a hinge, were at
night time, when the negroes wished to "turn in," propped up,
and, having a raised edge to keep the inmates from tumbling
out - with the clothes worn by the sleeper during the day
thrown on the shelf to make it a little softer . . . they de-
clared they had capital accommodations. Table they had none,
chairs they had none, but the sleeping shelves, when a table
was wanted for eating or ironing, answered every purpose, and
the floor, or half a dozen camp stools, that could be shut up
and stowed in a small space, answered for the seats.

Such were conditions ten years before the War. The
author of the book in which the extract was reprinted
said, doubtless with a contented smile at the contrast to
t!ie South: "We withhold the darkest part of the
fri<^htful picture." In the Planter: or Thirteen Years
in the South (1853) it is stated that in the North "among
the millions of working people, the number is . . .
miserably small, in proportion to the whole, who get
for their labor more than the necessary food, clothing,
and shelter for themselves and families; and innumer-
able is the host that fall very far short of the commonest
needful comforts of life." Hundley (a southern man
that had lived north) in Social Relations in our South-
ern States (i860) said: "We do not cntcrtaiti the least
doubt butthere are fully one hundred thousand respect-
able families in the North, who are out of employment,
and who consecjuently will have to live for the next
three months ... in a state of semi-starvation."
The tenement class of New York City was living in
1863 in "hives of sickness, vice, misery, and wretched-
ness."

196 Ihi' .1 nurii (in Fiimily

As in more recent times there was before the War

positiNc niistrust ot (he tendencies awav troni tlie huul
ami troni home. Coiuly Ra^uei argued in the I'^rcc
TraJf Ailvocatt- "that farm work was better for both
boys and girls than factory work, and that girls were
more likely to become good wives if they worked in
kitchens insteail of factories." As early as 18:54 a
speaker at the Trades Union National Convention de-
plored the drawing of the farmer's

Sons and daujihtcrs from the farm to the factories. For a few-
years past, the sons of our farmers, as soon as they are of
sufficient ajje. have been induced to hasten of? to the factory,
where for a few pence more than they could get at home, they
arc tauj^ht to become the willing servants, the servile instru-
ments of their employer's oppression and e.xtortion ! The
daughters, too, must quit the farm house, the scene of ruddy
health and former content, for a confined and baneful work-
shop, where, to be sure, she earns a little more money, for a
short time; but as surely loses health, if not her good charac-
ter, her happiness!

In iSy> a ccjmmittee of the Massachusetts House
enlarged upon the fact that the industries of Massa-
chusetts were rapidly changing from agriculture to
manufactures; that the population was shifting from
rural to urban; and expressed the conviction that in
view of this change

It becomes the solemn and indispensable duty of the represen-
tatives of the people to provide seasonably and eflFectually that
those institutions which have given New P'ngiand her peculiar
character for general intelligence and virtue he not changed
with the changing employment of her people . . . [for it]
requires no spirit of prophecy to foresee and to know that the
collection of large masses of children, youth, and middle-aged
persons of both sexes, into compact villages, is not a circum-
stance favorable to virtue.

As manufactures and commerce took precedence
over agriculture. New England h)St her young men

Tlw A tic' Industrial Order 197

while the young women were held by industry. Com-
petition of Irish girls depressed the standard of labor.
Catherine Beecher wrote in 1S51 :

The power-loom and spinning-jenny have banished household
manufactures. Conveniences and luxuries have attracted

the j;entlcr sex, and artificial wants have rendered female labor
more solicitous of employment. . Wages of men have

been reduced; and half of the unmarried females have few
means of obtaining support, or of gratifying their artificial
wants, by labor appropriate to their sex.

^ The significant feature of the economic transforma-
tion detailed in this chapter is that the economic ground
of family unity was slipping. Family bonds were being
weakened. Woman seemed to be coming dangerously
into competition with man, as when organized labor
attempted to better itself by strikes. In the waiters'
strike at the Broadway House in the fifties women were
used as strike-breakers; girls were similarly employed
on newspapers. The openings that woman secured in
the industrial system were menial rather than uplifting.
Long hours of factory labor abolished family life. In-
sufficient wages forced parents to set children prema-
turely to work. In short the transition had begun that
has resulted in so many vexed questions of family in-
tegrity to-day. Especially significant is the fact that
with the passing of home industry woman had to go out
into public work or remain a dangerous parasite. The
man might go to the works without upsetting the home
center, though his constant absence couhl not hut weak-
en old ties; likewise the children; but when woman
ceased to be "housekeeper" the reality of the home
came in question. Evidently the sweat-shop conditions
that introduced into the home the infection of outside
industrialism were not preferable to the menace of the
factorv. One notes with interest such an item as occurs

198 riif Atiuru (in iiiuiilx

in the Man of March 17, 1834, to the effect that the
Dover Gaztttt- expects silk culture at honic to be a
pleasant alternative to factory labor bv women. But
no expedients couKi retain the old basis of family
stability.

A transition j^limpse is gained in the case of Daniel
Anthony (father of Susan B.), who in 1826 moved to
New York State to manage a factory. His wife was
almost heartbroken at leaving her aged father and
mother. (The distance was forty-four miles.) Tene-
ments were built for the operatives. Every man had a
little garden around his house. Mr. Anthony looked
on the employes as his family. But in the long run
patriarchism had to go. It could not expand or other-
wise adapt itself sufficiently to save the day. The stage
of domestic industry had been favorable to the unity of
the patriarchal family. As the business head, the
father's will was the criterion of family interests. But
when the family passed into the factory they could not
be kept under his eye. They came to be trcateci, not as
a family, but as units. The members of the family
were no longer directly dependent on him for a liveli-
hood. Moreover if he could not find work where the
family liveii he would have to leave in search of em-
ployment. A new basis of family integrity was in
order.

The movement described has had a large place in the
democratization of the family. Whittier, who recog-
nized many evils in connection with the early cotton in-
dustry, saw compensation for the hardships of the mills
in the fact that there, more than in any other mechanical
employment, woman's labor was substantially on an
equality with man's. He said:

Here at Ir.ist, f>nr of the many social disabilities undrr which
woman, as a distinct individual unconnected with the other

The New Industrial Order 199

sex, has labored in all times is removed ; the work of her hands
is adequately rewarded ; and she goes to her daily task with the
consciousness that she is not spending her strength for naught.

We may question the adequacy of her reward but it is
true that the day of woman's economic independence of
man had dawned -the day of unsettled marriage rela-
tions that force a readjustment of marital institutions
on a new basis.

To one class of women in particular, the new open-
ing came as a boon. Mrs. Robinson has said:

In almost every New F^ngland home could be found one or
more [spinsters or widows], sometimes welcome, more often un-
welcome, and leading joyless, and in many instances unsatisfac-
tory, lives. The cotton-factory was a great opening to these
lonely and dependent women. . . For the first time in this
country woman's labor had a money value.

It should be noted, too, in connection with woman's
access to industry that public works constituted a new-
prophylactic against inbreeding. They drew people
from various communities and widened the range lor
choice of life-partners. This fact was wholesome in
the long run, both in the enhancement of opportunity
for family happiness and in the dynamic effects of the
mixing of cultures. Though according to Mrs. Rob-
inson the early mill workers were not deemed capable
of education into something more than mere work
people, the most favored of the girls were sometimes
invited to the homes of the dignitaries of the mills anil
some Lowell mill girls married into the "best families."
"At one time the fame of The Lowell Offertni^ caused
the mill-girls to be considereil very desirable for wives;
and that young men came from near and far to pick
and choose for themselves, and generally with goovl
success."

X. THE REIGN OF SELF-INDULGENCE

Even in the colony days there were signs of aristoc-
racy in the midst of the new life, Schouler says in his
Americans of iyj6 that in some centers like Philadel-
phia, feasting among the fashionable (at weddings) was
prodigal. De Rochambeau, one of the French allies,
said that the wives of American merchants and bankers
were clad to the top of French fashions. Brissot de
Warville, who visited America in 1788, wrote:

At Mr. Griffin's house at dinner, I saw seven or ei^ht women
all dressed in great hats, plumes, etc. It was with pain that I
marked much of pretension in some of these women ; one acted
giddy, vivacious, another the woman of sentiment. This last
had many pruderies and grimaces. Two among them had
their bosoms very naked; I was scandalized at this indecency
among; republicans,

A Hessian captured at Saratoga wrote: "The daugh-
ters keep up their stylish dressing because the mothers
desire it. Should the mother die, her last words are to
the effect that the daughter must retain control of the
money-bags." Chastellu.v wrote:

The salary of a workingman must not «)nly provide subsistence
for his family, but also comfortable furniture for his home,
tea and coffee for his wife, and a silk dress to put on every time
she goes out.

Bayard said:

In vain Citizen Livingston, of venerable memory, recalled his
fair compatriots to their spinning wheels and to conservative
simplicity of manners and fortune, for he was not listened
to. . , The rage for luxury has reached such a point that

202 I hi' . I nifriitin luniily

the wife of the laboring man wishes to vie with the merchant's
wife, and she in turn will nut > ielil to the richest woman in
Europe. '^°

So much for the ci^litccFith century. But on through
the era of nationalization a well-marked type of
''swell" life continued to rise counter to democracy.
This new development inlluenceil markedly the family
and the home.

One of its most important consequences was a de-
cline in marriai^e. In Pennsylvania even before the
national government came into existence tliere was a
''Batchelor's tax." Schoepf wrote:

Kvery male person twenty-one years old and still unprovided
with a wife pays from that time on I2s. 6d. ... a
year. . . It cflFects the desired purpose, because youn^ men
will not long expose themselves to mockery of this sort in a
country where working hands can so easily find support for a
family.

The existence of such a law implied a reluctance to
marry. Both Brissot and Mazzei attacked vigorously
the hard-hearted bachelors, the former conceding, how-
ever, that luxury is to blame "for the extravagance of
the women makes them fear marriage." Mazzei adtl-
ed : "As for bachelors, who should be rarer here than
in Europe (and for well-known reasons), they are more
numerous in Philadelphia than in any other American
city, while in other parts of Pennsylvania they are no
rarer than elsewhere." He thf)ught the bachelors ran
small risk, because they were treated so frankly. Im-
lav noted that the sea-faring life of New^ England kept
the sexes apart there, but he observed also that slavery
caused contempt ft)r labor; amusements were invented;

**>* Schoulcr. .-Imfrirnns of IT7^>, 36-37; Hale and Mcrritt. History of
Tennttttf and Tennrssrrans, vol. ii, 417-418; Shcrill. Frrnch Memories of
Eighteenth Century America, SS-5<»-

The Rt'ign of Self-indulgence 203

dissipation followed. "The fair sex were neglected;
marriages were less early and less frequent."""

In the early years of the nineteenth century fast wo-
men of fashion were not numerous enough to form a
considerable class in any part of the land; but in the
Ladies' Magazine (Savannah) of 18 19 occurred an
item from the (New York) National Advocate^ on the
falling off in marriages.

Why don't people marry? Why are there so many antiquated
damsels and superannuated bachelors? . . . The errors of
education, and the extravagance of fashion, for which young
ladies are celebrated, frighten the young men from making ad-
vances - and the follies and personal expenses of young men,
render them insensible of all the joys and comforts of matri-
mony; faults thus on both sides, have a tendency to keep them
separate, 'till young ladies become old, and old bachelors marry
to get nurses. . . I see, with regret, mothers dragging their
daughters of twelve and thirteen years to parties and balls,
under an erroneous impression, that it gives them an air of ease
and confidence . . . boys arc very apt to be equally spoilt.

The New York Cabinet of 1829 made note of "in-
creasing extravagance of the modern fair" and that
"the really prudent and somewhat home-bred man feels
obliged" to relinquish or postpone marriage bv reason
of the cost of living.

Writers of the forties and fifties call attention to the
repression of marriage by the luxury and rivalry of
fashion and by the indolence and extravagance of young
ladies. Artificial standards of consumption were de-
terring many from assuming the risks of matrimony.
"We see marriages in fashionable life every day becom-
ing fewer; thus leaving in our cities a nunicrous class
of finely dressed, pretty and accomplished young ladies.

'°* Schocpf. Travrls in the ConffAtration, vol. i, 139; Slirrrill. Frenrh
Memorlrs of Eii^htrfnth Crntury .Irrtfrira, 64.-6$; Imlay. Topographlcat Dr-
scrlption of thf iirstrrn Trrritory of Sorth Amfrica, 57-58.

204 1 he Atturii (in Fatuily

doomed to become disappointed 'establishment seekers'
and to fade into trcttul and repining 'old-maids'."
Men took rclu^c in clubs; it unscrupulous they not in-
frequently tried their hand at peculation or specula-
tion; vice was promoted.'"^

Tower (a formerly proslavery preacher) wrote of
New Orleans: "As no young man ordinarily dare
think of marriage until he has made a fortune to sup-
port the extravagant style of housekeeping, and gratify
the expensive tastes of young women, as fashion is now
educating them, many are obliged to make up their
minds never to marry." A mistress would suffice. Ac-
cording to this author there were hundreds of the
lowest grade brothels all through the city; and adultery,
fornication, and prostitution seemed to be unknown
categories. A record for their practice made one a
beau ideal. Hundreds .of pairs lived like man and
wife but unmarried. Some had private marriages per-
formed in onler to enable children to inherit property.
A gentleman found in a clergyman's private book of
marriage records that he had within two years married
thirty-three heads of families many of whom were
parents of married children. Business men and others
from the North kept here a second family. Such men
were (juite respectable. The concubine might be as
faithful as a wife; otherwise she would be discarded.
Such differences were fewer, Tower said, than if the
pair had been really married.

It was a sort of honor to be able to support two fam-
ilies; but

There is still another class of individuals here who have not
the means to support two families. They are for the most

''"' Compare for instance, "Family Circle," in Democratic Revinv, vol.
xliii, 243; Olmsted. Journry in the Seaboard Slave States, 600; Bodichon.
K'omcn anj Work, "Introduction," by Catherine M. Sidgwick, 5-6.

The Reign of Self-indulgence 205

part, men enga{ied in the same business with others, and re-
quired to be absent from the city nearly half the time. Thi-sc
men also have mistresses, cither white or colored. . . \V hilc
the man is in the city, the house which the woman (Kcupies is
their home, jointly and as distinctly as if they were married;
and when he is absent, the woman seeks another companion,
for the time being, and in doing this does not in the least
hazard the displeasure of , . . "her husband" as she calls
him. [Thus] she is able to support herself in great style, and
with as much ease and comfort around her as can be desired.
They usually occupy a room, or suite of rooms, a parlor and
bedroom, furnished with as much elegance and splendor as
money can purchase. Most of [these females] have been flat-
tered and seduced, poor things, away from their home and
friends by glowing descriptions and representations of the pleas-
ures, and gaieties, and unceasing enjoyments, which go to make
up life in New Orleans. Connections of this character are as
much a matter of contract, and the terms and conditions by
which each shall be governed are as definite, as any other busi-
ness transaction can be, and thus they live for years, and in
many instances an attachment for each other is the result, and
they finally settle down as man and wife, and sooner or later
are married, and become respectable, for New Orleans at least.
The extent of licentiousness and prostitution here is truly
appalling, and doubtless without a parallel, and probably double
that of any other place in the whole civilized world. The in-
dulgence and practice is so general and common that men sel-
dom seek to cover up their acts, or go in disguise; but in all
these things keeping their mistresses or frequenting bad houses
and having women come to their rooms at night, they tio it as
openly, and as much before the eyes of the world, as any other
act among the common civilities of the social circle.
Three-fifths at least of the dwellings and rooms in a large por-
tion of the city are occupied by prostitutes or by one or the
other class of kept mistresses. Those women who are the
companions of one man, and hold that position under a pledge
of confidence not to seek intercourse with others, hold them-
selves very much above the character of common prostitutes,
and regard themselves as respectable ; and as such many of them
move in society with some degree of favor and consequence.

206 The American Family

The rr^^lar prostitutes . . arc composed of a crowd -

nay an army of broken down females so large tiiat tlu-y can
scarcely be numbered.

One day in my tour of observation I came pat upon whole
streets and squares of these localities occupied by these poor
creatures. There, said I to myself, are thousands of ruined,
fallen immortal beintjs, once fair and beautiful, of elevated
moral caste, the pride and center of some distant family and
social circle: perhaps a wife or daughter, the adored of her hus-
band and parents.

Many of these poor, abandoned things, I am informed, come
here at the opening of business in the fall, and return to the
North in the spring as business closes, as regular as mechanics
and other business men; (juite a number of them come from
New ^'ork and other northern cities under the protection of
young men, a certain class of gamblers and blacklegs who have
long made this their field of operations during the winter
months. The prostitutes of this migratory class form the great
mass of the inmates of the regular kept brothels, of which
their number here is legion.

The character of these houses cannot be misjudged, as the
females who occupy them arc constantly making voluptuous ex-
hibition of themselves at the doors and windows and very un-
ceremoniously inviting men as they pass by to come in. And in
some of the principal streets . . . just at evening, it is no
unusual sight to see the windows and doors of almost every
house as far as the eye can recognize them, filled with these
women. As bad as New Orleans is, its municipal regulations
arc such that these creatures are prohibited from publicly prom-
enading the streets; hence they are obliged to resort to other
measures to make themselves known. In view of all these
abominations, doubtless the main cause of so much licentious-
ness, and the immense number of prostitutes, of every class,
grade and color that is human, is the overwhelming number of
loose irresponsible men who frequent this place. Under such
circumstances as men meet here, they almost lose their identity
as resp>onsible beings, having no checks around them, and un-
der no obligation to society, consequently no pride of character,
they soon become as bold and reckless in licentiousness and
crime as though the pall of night perpetually shrouded their

The Reign of Self-indulgence 207

deeds. And yet men, and some women too, will come here,
and mingle in rounds of dissipation and pollution, who before
and while at home and in other associations, would shudder at
the sight, and even at the very thought of deeds they have un-
happily been lured into. Such persons I daily meet. . .
Another cause that aids in promoting these evils, is the small
portion of men who have families here. Probably not one in
twenty is married, and if so, leaves a family at the North, and
while here entirely forgets that at home he has left a wife, who
is little dreaming of the rounds of licentiousness and dissipa-
tion, that constitutes the almost daily track of her truant hus-
band. [Good men] arc "few and far between," [so that] the
sins of licentiousness, adultery and prostitution [come] to be re-
garded as the proper elements of society.

A large number of men with their wives, who visit New
Orleans to spend the winter ... to support themselves
take the round of the gay and fashionable throng, and . . .
the wife, with a perfect understanding of the matter with her
husband, suffers herself to become seduced, and thus falls into
the arms of some wealthy, wild, dashing young southern blood,
who is proud of his conquest. He lavishes uf>on her costly
presents and money, and in fact will bestow upon her anything
that she may demand, within the compass of his purse. And
when he ceases to give large sums, the husband contrives to
make the accidental discovery' of their intimacy, and in the fear-
less rage of an injured husband, threatens to come down upon
the seducer with all the heated vengeance of southern chivalry.
And to save himself the man will pay almost any sum the in-
jured husband may demand. Thus the wife will go on, for
months, making conquest after conquest, and being seduced at
least by half a dozen different men she has victimized, and with
all of them, practicing the most cunning and deceptive arts,
charging each one to be exceedingly circumspect and cautious,
so as to avoid the least suspicion in the eyes of the world and
her husband i*spccially. During all this time her hands arc
filled with costly and magnificent presents and money, and in
fact, anything she may desire, while each one of her victims re-
gards himself as the sole possessor of the stolen fruit. She is
enabled to pursue this course, and avoid suspicion among her
favorites of being intimate with more than one, by meeting

2o8 The American Family

them at houses of assignation. . '1 lu-y usually ^o in dis-

t;uisc, 1 am intormcd, and ottrn in mxsk, and very frequently
are unknown to the men w ho see them there, and their name is
ne\er inquired for, as it is generally understood, that none hut
respectahle ladies, both married and unmarried, frequent these
houses. Ami yet durinj^ all these love stenes . the

lady anil her husband are in the foremost rank of the fashion-
able circle, supportinj^ a style and splendor of equipage that
few can surpass or even imitate, . . Into this circle arc
thrown the virtut)us and unsuspecting visitors who come into
this city for pleasure, pastime or business, and if they can pass
throu^h and come out unsullied and as pure in mind and as
chaste in their sense of propriety and as virtuous in feeling as
when they entered, they are equal to the three Hebrew children
at the fiery furnace.""

In the South the extreme facility of promiscuity, or
concubinage, with nei^ro women encouraged some men
to remain bachelors. Similarly in the North the de-
velopment of vice went along with celibacy. St. Victor
wrote in 1832 of terrible prostitution and debauchery.
A little later Miss Martineau wrote:

Even in America, where every youn^^ man may, if he chooses,
marry at twenty-one, and appropriate all the best comforts of
domestic life, even here there is vice. Men do not choose to
marry early, because they have learned to think other things of
more importance than the best comforts of domestic life. A
gentleman of Massachusetts, who knows life . . . spoke
to me with deep concern of the alteration in manners which is
going on: of the increase of bachelors [etc.].'"*

In 1834 a New "^'ork grand jury indicted a paper run
by a minister for presenting "odious and revolting de-
tails" of vice. Marry at notes the case of a man in New
^'ork who. having murdered his mistress in a brothel,
was acquitted and allowed to depart for Texas. r)ne
man at New Orleans, conceding that quadroon con-
cubinage was not right, declared it "much better than

"•'Tower. Slavery I'nmaskfJ, 319, 321, 335-342
"** Martineau. Society in .Imfrica, vol. iii, 127.

The Rcign of Self -indulgence 209

the way . . . most young men live who depend
on salaries in New York."

American fecundity, at least in some regions or class-
es, suffered diminution even in the colonial period and
the decline continued in the nineteenth century. Cen-
ters of population were most likely to he affected. '°' In
the early days and in country life the family had been
an asset. With the rise of the standard and cost of liv-
ing and the growth of cities it became an expense. I'he
difference in cost of living between city and country
districts early became great. Life in provincial cities
is pleasanter and cheaper than in the great centers,
wrote Sidons in 1826. He said:

With seven to ei^ht hundred dollars a family of six to eipht
memhers can, if they have their own house, live very decently,
and keep three horses and as many hlack servants, which in
l*hiladelphia would cost four thousand, in New ^'ork five
thousand, and in New Orleans six thousand dollars.""'

In the decade of the thirties immigation greatly in-
creased, yet the population of 1840 was about what
would have been expected had no increase in foreign
influx occurred. In 1H43 Professor George Tucker
predicted a decline in birth-rate by reason of prudence
or pride, and increasing with the increase of cities and
of the wealthy classes, so that the population in 1890
would be sixty-three million. In the forties, arrivals
from Ireland and Germany were enormous, but the
population increased during the decade at a lower rate
than when foreign arrivals were relatively negligible.

Mansfield said in 1845:

The progress of population, wealtli, and fashion in our country
has made [the crime of criminal abortion] quite common. In

*"'' EnKlemann. Education not the Cause of Race Decline, 178-180; Thorn-
dyke. Professor Pearson on the Distribution of Fertility; Dwinht. Travels
in Ne^w F.ni^land and S'rti.' York, vol. ii, 270-272.

>o« Sidons. Die I'ereinigten Staaten, vol. i, 98.

2IO I lit' .1 niifii tin itiunlx

the large cities it is, we fear, practised frequently, as it has been
in the large cities of the old world. Indeed, public advertise-
ments, shameless as they are, have been published in the news-
papers, directing the child of fashion or of vice, where she
might find a woman to perform that service.

A IcadiiiL^ rnciiiiai pri)fcssor said in iH;;4:

The evil atlects educated, refined, and fashionable women; yea
in many instances women whose moral character is in other re-
spects without reproach. The contagion has reached mothers
who are devoted with an ardent and self-denying afifection to
the children who already constitute their family.

In 1858, Professor H. R. Storcr read before the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences a paper on
the "Decrease of the Rate of increase of Population
now obtaininu: in luirope and America." He attri-
buted the declining birth-rate in America almost whol-
ly to pruilential checks, tho he did not think that pas-
sion had cooled or come more generally under control;
nor was the infecundity to be attributed t(3 abstinence
from marriage. "Prevention of pregnancy, to what-
ever extent existing, can not account for the decrease
of living births; actual pregnancies being proved fully
as frcijuent as ever." in \ew Yovk City while the
population had increased but sixfold since 1805, the
annual number of still and premature births had mul-
tiplied over twenty-seven times. Dr. Storer gave a
table intended to show the increase in foetal death-rate
in New "\'()rk. The figures indicate an almost uninter-
rupted rise from one in i6;^3 of the population in 1805
to one in 341 of the population in 1849. He added,
however: "It is evident that but a small propc^rtion of
the abortions and miscarriages occurring are ever re-
ported," and f)ne may raise the (juestion whether part
of the contrast of figures may not be due to improve-
ment in accuracv of data. The New York ratio of

The Rt'ign of Sclf-indulgcnce 211

foetal to general mortality in 1804-1809 was given as
one to 37.6 and in 1S56 as one U) ii.i. The foreign
population of Massachusetts had a much higher pro-
portion of living births to pregnancies tlian did the na-
tive Protestant, and this fact the doctor attributed to
the attitude of the Catholic church, whereas "we find
infanticide and criminal abortion . . . justified,
rendered common, and almost legitimated [by political
economy]." '"^ This phenomenon is not hard to account
for. The encroachments of luxury demanded retrench-
ment somewhere. So long as women are not mistresses
of their own persons, abortion is the logical outcome.

During the generation preceding the war material
conditions were becoming more favorable in some ways
to normal increase of population. The old deadly
medicine was being banished from civilized commun-
ities; houses were becoming larger; food and clothing
were improving. The changes, however, did not suf-
fice to counteract the influence of the more ambitious
standards of city life and the custom of boarding.

Doubtless infecundity was not all intentional. There
may be significance in the fact recorded by Schouler in
his Americans of I JjO that "no advertiser figured more
constantly in the local wants . . than the wet

nurse with a good breast of milk." This prominence
of hired lactation suggests functional (or social) de-
fect. A book appearing in 1807 inf(ums us. too, that
"venereal doctors . . . rise up in print like
mushrooms." '"^

Female fragility was a considerable factor in the

'"^ Nf.Tnsficlil. I.fs^nl Rights, I.iahilltirs, anJ Dutirs of H'omrn, ij6;
Untjfje. On criminal .Ihortion, cited bv C'arlicr, in Mtirna(ff in ihf I'nitfJ
States, 157-159. Storcr's article wan printnl in i8'>7 in the .Imeriran Journal
of Sciencf and Arts, Kccond *er., vol. xliii, 141-155.

•'*• Janson. Thr Strant^rr in .tmrriia, 349.

212 The Anwncan Family

question of racial integrity. Girls still married too
young -were chcaicii out ot their youth. As late as
1850 a girl was rather oM at twenty, an old maid at
tweniy-tive.""' This earl\ marriage and the conse-
(juent undue cares were very injurious to the health of
women. Many writers of the first third or so of the
nineteenth century comment on the early fading of
American women. Works ot the forties continue the
plaint of woman's frailtv. W'yse saiil that married wo-
men very soon faded and that offspring were seldom so
numerous as in Kngland. Von Raumersaid: 'T have
seen in no country in the world, among handsome wo-
men, so many pale, sickly faces. . Many profes-
sional men complain of the great number of still-horn
chiKlren ami premature births." The reverend George
\\'. IJurnap wrote that women did not take enough care
of their health ; there was a great falling off in one gen-
eration ; the women then passing off were a very differ-
ent race from their successors. "When I sec the fra-
gile and diminutive forms of the women of our times,
and compare them with the women whom I recollect as
the partners of the men of the revolution, it seems to me
that if the men of that age had had such mothers, we
never should have had any revolution at all." Luxury
had loaded the tables of the affluent with the delicacies
of all lands. This rich living to women sitting in warm
rooms reading or doing needle-w^ork while almost to-
tally neglecting active exercise was absolute destruc-
tion. Add to this late hours and improper clothing.
\\'hen Ivuropean woman is at meridian, said Hurnap,
American Wf)man is withered. "°

The delicacy of American women during the first
half of the nineteenth century was to some degree the

'«>»Black«cII. Thf l.^Kij of IJff. 143.

'>*Bumap. Tftf Health of /Imerican H'omrn, i8$-i88.

The Reign of Self -indulgence 213

realization of an ideal. Woman was supposed to be of
finer clay; and this "finer-clay," fragility, futility ideal
was already pretty well established at tlie end of the
eighteenth century. In American periodical litera-
ture of the early part of the nineteenth century, girls
languishing of broken hearts or dying (jf (lower-like
nature were an inmienscly popular theme, especially in
ladies' magazines. Women up to the War and beyond
were nourished in the cult of female delicacy and re-
finement. Of course this theory was capable of com-
plete application only in leisure-class circles; but it
helps us to understand the neglect of physical training
for girls and also to appreciate the remark of a physi-
cian of the first quarter of the nineteenth century who
said that not one woman in ten enjoyed perfect health.
At a much later date Catherine E. Beecher "made
enquiries into physical health of American females
and . among her immense circle of friends and

acquaintances all over the union, is unable to recall ten
married ladies in this century and country who are per-
fectly sound, healthy, and vigorous.'"*'

With increasing prominciuc of wealth ami iuxurv
went an increase in sordid economic marriage. Vzom
the very beginning of the nineteenth century repeated
evidences of shameful I v mercenary matches obtrude.
Various writers of the first half of the centurv treat
emphatically of this evil, sometimes witli reference to
parents' abuse of their daughters' deeper welfare and
again in condemnation of the procedure of ambitious
young folks of either sex. Robert Owen attacked mar-
riage resting on a property basis.

A magazine of iHo;; informs us that "advantageous
settlement" for their daughters is the universal aim of

^"Rcrd. Fftnnlf l)el'uii,y in thf Sixfirs, 8<;<;-86j; Hixon. H'/iitf Con-
qurst, vol. ii, 309.

-14 i fi^' .'luit-rti (in Fdutilx

parents and tlic major object of female instruction. A
rc\ic\\ ot Miss Martiucaus work adirnis that "many
of our fairest are sacrificed at the expense of their af-
feciiiHis, and that this is an increasing evil." In a
periodical of the early forties occurs reprobation of the
numerous mercenary marriages forced by parents -of-
ten with lieadly consei]uence to the victim.

Fortune-liuntin^ males were at lar^e. A book of
1807 cited a lottery advertisement in New York papers
which ur^ed people to become rich since "the cjuestion
now asked concerning a lady is not, Is she handsome?
Is she accomplished? or. Is she amiable? hut, Is she
rich?" A Broadway clerk thought he might "pick up
a fortune in the way of marriage." A New York pa-
per of 1829 remarked the "ridiculous rage among
gentlemen for rich sweethearts. . . The first en-
quiry that our young men make now. when a woman is
proposed for a wife is, 'Is she rich?' and for variety, or
a salvo, Ms she handsome?' Let a husband die and
leave a rich widow or heiress and

how the beaux scamper." A periodical of the forties
referred to the many females of character and merit
sacrificed to the machinations of a fortuFie hunter!"
Marryat said :

However much the Americans may wish to deny it, I am in-
clined to think that there are more marriages of convcnancc in
the United States than in most other countries. The men bc-
fjin to calculate long before they are of an a^e to marry, and
it is not very likely that they would calculate so well upon all
other points, and not ur>on the value of a dowry; moreover the
old people "calculate some," and the girls accept an offer, with-
out their hearts being seriously compromised. Of course there
are exceptions: hut I do not think that there are many love
matches made in America, and one reason for my holding this
opinion is, my having discovered how quietly matches arc
broken off and new engagements entered into; and it is, per-

The Reign of Self-indulgctue 215

haps, from a knowledge of this fact, arising from the calculating
spirit of the gentlemen, who are apt to consider twenty thousand
dollars as preferable to ten thousand dollars, that the American
girls are not too hasty in surrendering their hearts. . . On
the whole, I hold it very fortunate that in American marriages
there is, generally speaking, more prudence than love on both
sides, for from the peculiar habits and customs of the country,
a woman who loved without prudence uould not feel very
happy as a wife [the men are so little at home].

That the feminine feelings often had a mercantile
turn is corroborated by other writers. Mrs. Moustoun
extenuates this failing by the consideration that Amer-
ican young ladies see so little of their husbands that the
amount of money they can secure from their mates is
the prime concern. Thus matrimony is a business ven-
ture. "A partner at a ball, who has chanced to receive
encouragement as the owner of a pair of horses is
speedily discarded for one with four, and he, in like
manner, must stand aside if the possessor of a still larger
stud should chance to present himself." The reverend
F. A. Ross of Alabama in Slavery Ordained of God
wrote:

Do you say the slave is sold and bought? So is the wife, the
world over . . the New Kngland man, the New ^'orker -

especially the upper ten - buy the wife - in many, very many
cases. She is seldom bought in the South, and never among
the slaves themselves; for they always marry for love. . .
Old ugly brute, with gray goatee - how fragrant - bids one,
two, five, ten hundred thousand dollars, and she is knocked off
to him - that beautiful young girl asleep up there, amid flowers,
and innocent that she is sold and bought. Sir, that young girl
would as soon permit a baboon to embrace her, as that old,
ignorant, gross, disgusting u retch to approach her. Ah, h.ns
she not been .sold and bought for money? Hut - Hut what?
But, you say, she freely, and without p.irrnt.il authority ac-
cepted him. Then she sold herself for money, and was guilty
of that which is nothing better than legal prostitution. I know
what I say; you know what I say. Up there in the gallery

2i6 The American Family

viiu know: ^ ou ikhI to uric anotluT. All! son know the" par-
tics. \'cs, yuu say - All true, true, true.

F^rcach of promise cases were a normal accompani-
ment of mercenary marriage. In a magazine of 1819
was an account of a verdict of five thousand dollars in
New York against a man who seems to have been lured
away by the wealth of anotiier woman. Naumann re-
marks in his S orJamtrika that it behooves well-to-do
young men to be very careful in their language to girls.
Golovin said that "the most vulgar flirtation is often
times considereil as a matrimonial declaration" and
told of a Pole who was forced to marrv his washerwo-
man. It would seem that juries were ready to decide
in behalf of victimized women; and shrewd females,
taking advantage of the readiness to accept circumstan-
tial evidence of engagement, lured on elderly men of
wealth until they thought sufficient evidence was ac-
cumulated and then demanded marriage or indemnity.
Sometimes the man yielded; sometimes the case came
to trial \.\n(\ the man was heavily assessed. This busi-
ness went on until the New York Semi-Jrcckly Times
of April 6, i860, remarked that "it has become abso-
lutelv dangerous for wealthy men to be polite towards
an unmarried woman."

.As in cverv propertv civilization, marriage in the
Old South was largelv a mode of conveying possessions.
It involved the economic dependence of woman and
mercenary marriage. In Letters from Virginia pub-
lished in iKf6, it was said:

'Hie fair (iam.scls of Virginia show no disposition, that I can
src, to drclarr themselves independent of the men. So far
from it, I overhear frequent complaints of the scarcity of beaux
and husbands. The embargo and other restrictive meas-

ures have fallen very heavily upon the ladies by im-

povcri-shinc their lovers at home, and cutting of? supplies from
abroad.

The Reign of Selj-inilulgence 217

It is maintained that in the first half of the nineteenth
century "the female portion of Tennessee's popula-
tion . . . had an eye to the money bags." The
author of "Singleton's" Letters from the South and
IVest (1824) wrote of New Orleans: "It is common
to ask a young gallant, who is about io marrv-'hovv
much?' rather than -'whom?' And too fre(]uently do
insolvent libertines come from the North to the South,
to speculate into a lady's heritage."
Buckingham was impelled to say:

From all the observations I have been enabled to make
and from the facts I heard from others, I should think that the
wealth of the respective parties about to form a matrimonial
alliance, was much more frequently an object of consitleration
in the Southern States of America, at least, than in Kn^land,
[although] no one need be deterred from marria^^e from a fear
of being able to support themselves. There are two causes,
which appear to me to lead to this state of pecuniary considera-
tion in the marriages of the South. . . First . the
chief, if not the only certain method, of ensuring homage or
consideration from the mass of the community is the acquisition
of wealth. To this, therefore, all attention is directed, and in
this almost every other passion is swallowed up and absorbed.
Marriage is one of the modes by which this object of universal
desire may be most easily achieved ; and it is therefore planned
and pursued as an affair of business: and a fortunate alliance of
this description is talked of as a matter of skill and good man-
agement on the part of the husband, just as a successful issue of
some well-planned speculation in a commercial undertaking.
Many are the instances in which a man marries two sisters, in
succession, each of them very wealthy, and sometimes even a
third, so rapidly do they give place to each other. A srcomi
cause of pecuniary marriages, I think, is this - that the passion
of love is not felt w ith the same intensity by either sex
as even in F'rance ; still less so than in Fngland.

A writer in the Louisville Exnttiiner prior to iH;;(^
said that the worst slaveholders were men that came

from the North and marricii plantations and gangs of

2i8 The American Family

slaves, with wives annexed. An Kn^lish traveller said
that women in South Carolina looked more to a pros-
pective husband's means than m the probability of liv-
ing happily with him. I'he Nortli Carolina Univer-
sity Magazirif of 1S57-1S5H, in an article on "Husband
Hunting" proclaimed that women were keen anglers.

Let him but waltz once or twice and his fate is sealed. A
touch of her soft hand - a glance of her bright eye smiling in
voluptuous languor - the f^entle trembling; pressure of her
rounded arm, resting in such innocent confidence upon his
shoulders as they whirl around the room, f Hut she won't
marry you unless you have money.] It requires no gift of
prophecy to foresee what must be the ultimate effect of a sys-
tem of education, which sets out with the datum that to obtain
a rich husband is the summum bonum of a Rirl's existence -
the great end to which she is born. To bring about this con-
summation so devoutly wished for, she is taught from her earli-
est infancy that no sacrifice is too great. It is to purchase this
that she is endowed with beauty -it is for this that neither
trouble nor expense has been spared to teach her the fashion-
able accomplishments; it is for this that mamma is so particular
about her dress - so careful of her complexion - so anxious
about her health. She is early taught tiiat her smiles and
glances are too precious to be wasted, and she measures them
out by rules of proportion, which, by the way, is nearly all the
arithmetic she is ever taught - as your income, so shall my af-
fability be. Her creed is: "I believe in elder sons, a
house in town and a house in the country, I believe in a coach
and six, diamonds, a box at the f)pera, point <li- BrtixcUts lace,
crinoline, etc." . . No natural emotions, none of the finer
feelings find a place in such a system, neither would they flour-
ish in such arid soil. . . Thanks to this cramping process,
to which they are subjected day by day and year by year, the
minds of most young ladies lose their elasticity altogether, and
by the time they arrive at the age for turning out as the phrase
goes (it should be trotted out), they arc quite as artificial as
the most exacting parents could desire. Like the Chinese
women, whose feet are so cramped from infancy, that they be-
come utterly useless for walking. - the minds of most of our

The Reign of St'lf-uuJulgence 219

young ladies are so contracted, that it would be a difficult mat-
ter to determine whether they ever had any. [How would
such a woman] be a help to any man - unless to help him spend
his money, for which most of them show a very decided talent,
and for which, indeed, their previous training peculiarly fits
them. [Our woman-culture is like that of the Turks. The
rest of a Trans-caucasian family eat coarse food, bathe in the
river, and wear old clothes in order that a handsome daughter
may be groomed for the Sultan. Similarly in America.] Have
you not seen the heads of families pinching themselves and the
other children to give some favored one an education beyond
their means that she may marry well as they call it? Have
you not been witness in your own country to a bargain and sale
quite as flagrant, as any that was ever transacted in the slave
market of Constantinople? My innocent friend without going
fifty miles from the place where I now sit, I could cite you an
instance . . . where the lovely bride was forced into the
arms of a man whom she loathed - where the agonizing screams
of the helpless victim were unheard amidst the musical chink
of the bridegroom's dollars. . . In most cases the victim is
anything but unwilling . . . it is by no means uncommon
for the lady to conclude the bargain for herself - indeed I be-
lieve it is usually the case. . . "Charity covereth a multi-
tude of sins" but money hideth them much more effectually.
Dissipation of the very worst kind and an empty head - aye
even disease itself is considered no drawback, if the bridegroom
elect has metallic attractions sufficient.

Such is the manner in which most of our young ladies arc
brought up. . . Like the deadly Upas tree, its influence
poisons and withers every natural emotion - dries up the very
purest feelings of our nature . . and makes the victim a

mere machine, capable of moving (aye, and gracefully too), of
singing divinely, of smiling sweetly, of thinking - never.

It extends to the marriage relation, and brings into con-
tempt that which ought to be reganled as the most solemn
compact into which a man can enter. . . Of this levity with
which men look upon marriage, we have abundant proof in the
"elopements in high life," and the numerous applications for
divorce, and the readiness with which they are granted.
Marriages of convenience, a term fit for the mouth of a liber-

220 The American Family

tine or a fool, arc the legitimate result ul the art of which we
are speaking. • • As matters now stand, marriage is a lux-
ury which is of necessity confined to those who arc compara-
tively rich. And if the present state of thinj^ continues, we
may look for a lar^e and continually increasing stock of old
hachelors and old maids, in the upper classes of society.

In the next volume of the same magazine an author
told that some men counted a girl's father's "niggers";
nothing counteil with them but gold.

Americans prized rank as well as wealth. Sidons in
1H26 remarked about girls being on the lookout for at-
tractive foreigners. Sealstield in 1828 said that the
ladies are prone to set off their attractions, particularly
if a foreigner of supposed rank should appear. St.
Victor in 1832 commented on the passion of the Amer-
ican laciies for titles of nobility. Mackay said, near
the middle of tiie century:

The social position of the husband is not carried, in all its ex-
tent, into the social relations of his family. Kquality
without, cxclusivcncss within - such seems to he the contrasts
of American life. The professional man may be on the very
best of terms with the bl.icksmith, but ten chances to one if the
daughters of the professional man know the blacksmith's daugh-
ters, or if they would acknowledge it if they did.

Carlier held that the greatest ambition of the young
American girl was to wed a title; an European of title,
however doubtful his character, could be sure of a rich
wife. "Place before her two men, one of whom has
but his noble title; and the other a man distinguished in
science, in letters, or in business, - there will be no doubt
of the young American's choice." In his Lcj^alizcd
Proslititti'-jn. published in 1862, Charles S. Woodruff,
M.D., asserted that when two young people contem-
plate matrimony

Xhe social world looks on, with its long list of form and cere-
mony, warning them continually that they must he of ccpial

T/w Rt'ign of Sflf-indulgence 221

rank, as established by social order, or else public opinion will
frown upon them so terribly that one or the other shall lose
caste, and be banished from all intercourse in certain cliques or
grades of life.

Woodrufif went on to say that in tlic case uf two young
people of equal rank they put the best on the surface
and were able to hitle under a pleasing exterior the
shallowness and hollowness of their hearts. Many al-
liances were contracted by the power of wealth alone -
the soul being bartered for gold and the mismated
couple held together in an unholy union entailingcurses
on the offspring. The lives of many were no better
than prostitution.

We observe, in the daily walks of life, young and fair maiden-
hood withcrinj:: and pininjx away under the curse of hereditary
blif^ht, the product of disunited souls, who, living in disobedi-
ence to nature's commands, have brought forth "buds of prom-
ise" only to find, for earthly hopes, a premature grave; and on
the other hand, imbecile young manhood stares us in the face
at almost every turn of the street-corner having depicted upon
the countenance the brand of that transgression of nature's laws
which has been committed by parents and of which he remains
a living witness, though entirely innocent himself.

With the rise of econr)mic surplus and complex city
life, old moral criteria lost influence. Even as early as
the twenties in the nineteenth century in club-cellars of
New York were found the sons of high and low enjoy-
ing oysters, drams, tobacco, and low revelry. "Thou-
sands become morally rotten before they are ripe. The
number of tippling shops is prodigious; and there is
perhaps no part of the world where [it is so cheap to
get drunk as in the Cnitcd States]." Boys of twelve
or under drink in li(]uor shops. VhcMan in iH;^4 notes
that a fashionable hostess at a small party is drunk.
Parents in the forties are warned against allowing chil-

222 7 V/c- Anurii iiri I'd mil \

dren to run wild in the temptations of the streets and to
loiter at nii^lu around some coffee house. "^

The cityuard ilritt was early a menace. Before 1820
remonstrance was maiie against the sending of children
to the city. "Most of our small retail stores are lilleil
thus with the sons of fariiiers. who, eager to escape salu-
tary lahor. and partake of the delusive pleasures of a
cilv, are crowilini^ to New ^'ork."'" The old folks
hack home were likelv to be more and more neglectetl.
In the Hfties this subject received magazine attention:
a young man in the city was reluctant to visit his "old
folks" in the country; it was too dull; they wanted him
to stay too long; he did not go as often as he could.

The current of life was setting away from the home.
New conditions augmented the new world tendency
to coolness of family affection. At least as early as 1840
many husbands and sons seemeii to consider home as a
mere place of boarding and lodging; to provide for the
physical wants of one's family was the sum of duty.
"Shows, convivialities, plays, entertainments .
do their part in turning men loose from home and
breaking those hallowed social bonds whicli are the
strong guards of virtue and the firmest barriers to
vice." A thousand interests were crowding on the
minds and stirring the blood of the vigorous and the
young; hence h«ime influences and restraints suffered
and home contacts were circumscribed. A magazine
article of the fifties presents the f)pinion that too many
wives burn the midnight oil waiting for their husbands
and alleges that many men allow societies or clubs to

''^* Literary anJ Scientific Repository, vol. i, 525-526; Cobbctt. Year's
Residence in the I'niteJ States, 212; ^fan, .April 30, 1S34, 241; D'uight'j
.■Imerican Sfai^azine, vol. i, 268.

^^^ Indies' Maf^azine (Savannah), vol. i, 182-183, quoting New York
S'aftnrt'il fdfocate.

The Rcign fjf St'lj-indulgcnce 223

crowd out their wives."* Carlier saw in summer jaunts
a weakening of the family; the husband could visit his
wife only at intervals; the children lost home restraints.
Women of 1840 often received men that hati for-
feited the approval of right thinking people. "Such
ladies . . . are strong in the faith that 'a reformed
rake makes a good husband';" (but they found in
course of time that the charm was a failure). Kuro-
pean looseness tended to creep into American society.
In the Ladies Repository (Cincinnati) of 1H44 we learn
that Bulwer and his type were diffusing in America
ideas of European high life-sacredness of marriage
betrayed; the seducer commonly the hero. And Sue's
enormity "has been deemed a meet offering to the youth
of America!" In the same periodical in 1S49 appeared
this stricture:

That fashionable and decorated vice, which exists amon^ the
more pretending classes in all European communities, has not
yet dared to obtrude itself amon^ the American people, how-
ever frequently instances of it may be detected untier the deep
concealments in which it is here compelled to shrouii itsrlt.
[Yet] the almost universal apinj:; of European fashion and pay-
ety amonfx us, and, above all, the imported h'teraturc and scenic
drama, which have of late years overspread tlie land, threaten to
break down the hallowed barriers that have circled the do-
mestic purity of American life.

There was surely point to a story in Grnhani's Magu-
zine of 1845 of a husband's neglecting his wife and
going with a scheming coquette; the wife pines and
dies. Said Milburn in the Pioneer Preacher:

Mamma sutigests that all youn^ men arc a little wild, but mar-
riage cures them of that ; and our young ladies think him only
the more interesting because he is esteemed a "fast young

"* Ciraves. fl'oman in .tmrrica, 65, 160164; .Irthur'} Home Sfa)(a*inf,
vol. vii, 123.

2 24 I hi' .Iniirimn iintnl\

man." . . You pcmiit the seducer to lead your dau(;htcr to
the altar, aiul ^ivc him >our patrrnal blcssinK.

The domesticity (if women in certain circles seemed
to suffer decline, in the Liti-niry Focus of 1827- 1828
a man expressed a desire to marry but declared that in-
stead of the former beauiilul domestic creatures he
found a set of ^i^^lin^ tritlers, who thought chicflv of
balls, carriages, and novels. They never entered the
kitchen and were i ignorant of domestic affairs. Hus-
band and father were simply old fashioned furniture -
in the way. Fashionable females had nothing to do
but harass servants and ^oui^e monev out of luishand
and father.

A woman answering tiie indictment acknowledged
the prevalence of the evils in every part of the country
but blameti the men: nine times out of ten thev paid
more attentioti to the giggling nondescripts than to
worthy, unassuming females. In order to get a train
of admirers a girl needed to play a little, and sing af-
fectedly, pretend to study French, have a name for hav-
ing a fortufie, take a journey on pretext of ill health.
Most gentlemen were attracted by these things, said
this ladv. while (jualifications of greater use were treat-
ed with ridicule.

Fanny Kemble in her Journal of a Ri'siJcru c on a
Georgian phintdtion said:

Tlie democratic daughters of America are, for the

most part so ignorant of fsewinR] that I have heard the most
eloquent preacher of the city of New York advert to their in-
capacity in this respect as an impediment to their assistance of
the poor, and ascribe to the fact that the daughters of his own
parishioners did not know how to sew, the impossibility of their
giving the most valuable species of help to the women of the
needier classes. . I have known young American school

girls, duly instructed in the nature of the parallaxes of the stars,
but, as a rule, they do not know hr>w to darn their stockings.

The Reign of Self-indulgence 225

In Grund's Aristocracy in America it was alleged that
a fashionable young wife is no use save as a stimulus to
industry.

Mrs. Graves charged women with overlooking home
responsibilities and enjoyments or wantonly deserting
them "for those of a more ostentatious character that
are to be found abroad. Thus comparatively few wo-
men at the present day are content to be simply useful,
and to shine in the domestic circle alone." The de-
cline of female domesticity was attributable to the
"flood of European follies" that was sweeping in; to
the new ideas of woman's sphere; to the "fatal notion
that there is something servile in labor;" to the desire
for the "luxury of indolent leisure."

It is not avarice that crouds our cities with those who are
"making haste to he rich ;" it is the desire to he lifted ahove the
necessity of lahor. . . Many of our females in their ambi-
tion to be considered "ladies" re-fuse to aid their toiling mothers,
lest their fair hands should lose their softness and delicacy, and
while using these useless appenilages in playing with their
ringlets, or touching the piano or guitar, they will speak with
contempt of the household drudge, and boast of their lady-like
ignorance of domestic employments. Many a woman of intel-
lect, on becoming a housekeeper, finds herself . . unpre-
pared. . . Want of practical knowledge and the unskillful-
ncss of inexperience cause what little strength she possesses to be
IneflFectually expended. . Our women are generally less
fitted for active household duties than in some countries are
those even of the higher classes who are never placed under the
necessity of performing them. . . [ Few mothers teach their
daughters how to be happy and useful at home.]

Thus idleness, the toilet, men, were displacing house-
keeping. A writer in the Lndics' Repository (Cincin-
nati) of 1841 complained that mothers often entrusted
their children to coarse, vulgar servants; that tluTc was
too much violent angry thrashing and scntiniental in-
dulgence.

2 26 77/ 1' . 1 tnirti tin Idiuily

Works of the fifties corroborate the charge against
women. Mothers do not keep their girls within bounds
and "romping giddv girls become dressy, un-

companionable wives, and negligent and careless
mothers." Ladies go shopping and lunch down town
and are not good company at dinner, even it their hus-
baruis are lucky enough to find dinner ready.

In ru» sal(M>t> throughout America, diil I ever sec any fcinalf
even momentarily rmployrd with chiltirfn, with b(K)ks. or with
needlework. When an Knuiishuoman of whatever class,

would have had her embroidery frame or her crochet work or
even her novel, the American woman whether rich or poor, had
her riK-kinn-chair and her fan ; her simper and her sij^h, her
whine and her finery.

Mrs. Bodichon said :

I believe tlnre is in America as stronp: a public opinion against
women working for a livelihood as in FZnKland. No father in
a "respectable class" thinks of nivinj; his daughter a professional
education. If he can live in some "style" he counts on his
daughters marrying, and if he cannot, he probably sends them
to some relative in a city, who receives them for a long visit,
with the hope of "fjcttinK them of?." Many thousands of young
girls come to the cities to stay with brothers, uncles, or friends
for this purpose. A worse preparation for any serious life can-
not be i()ncei\ed. ^'ears of idleness arc often passed in this
way, years spent in nothing but driving and dissipation - and
what does it lead to? Marriage probably: but what sort of
marriage can be formed by young girls looking at the world
from such a false position. . . Unless a wfiman can earn
her own livelihood or has a certain income, she has little chance
of forming an equal union.

Another said : "Can it be ilenicd that the toilet and the
men arc the two influences of absorbing interest to the
mass of young American women between the ages of
sixteen and twenty?" Catharine Sidgwick wrote:

[Our forefathers' wives] were helpmeets. If they could not
earn bread, they could make it. If they did not comprehend

The Reign of Self-indulgence 227

the "rights of wumcn" they practised her duties. If they did
not study political economy and alt^cbra. they knew the calcula-
tion by which the penny saved is the penny gained. Instead of
waiting to be served by costly and wasteful Milesians they
"looked well to the ways of their household, and ate not the
bread of idleness." The Puritan wife did not ask her husband
to be decked in French gauds.

The fact of the matter was that the new world was
developing Orientalism and among the "better classes"
woman was developing into a parasite. From being
regarded as drudges, women "came to be admired as
dolls. The first decades of the nineteenth century
record this transformation." The tendency has already
been affirmed for the South in connection with econ-
omic marriage and will receive e.xplicit treatment ifi
connection with the discussion of the southern family,
but the aristocracy of the North were involving them-
selves in the same evil. Concerning this Mrs. Graves
wrote in 1841 :

"The tendency to Orientalism" is visible, too, in the false pt)si-
tion in which woman is placed, as a being formed for no higher
purpose than to be decorated, admired, and valued for her per-
sonal charm. Do we not see females in every fashionable circle
who fill no loftier station in social life, and who live as idly and
as uselessly as the gorgeously attired inmates of the harem.
When we hear it said that woman should he kept "like a jewel
in a casket," and listen to the soft flatteries . . we can

not help feeling the injustice that is done her. [Women thus
become feeble u.seless things. They can not bear the trouble
of taking care of children. A hired nurse or school will do.
How many women fail of their full liuty to their husbands!]
They seem to look upon their own interests, or those of the
family, as being something separate from the interests of its
head. Thus they consider whatever is added to the furniture
or wardrobe as so much gained, without reflecting that every
superfluous expense is a sum withdrawn from the general fund
to which they must all look for support. .Ami if their husband

ecu,

228 The American Family

bccoinrs embarrassed in business they regard these domestic ac-
quisitions as a clear savinj;, tor^iettinu that the money thus laid
out may have been one of the causes of their embarrassments.
[This is natural] since so many husbands do but little to make
their wives feci their responsibility as partners. Men are

losers in every way by not charjiin^j their wives w ith tin- respon-
sibility of managinn the family expenditures, and by keeping
them iiniorant of the limits within which they must be con-
fined. . . Do not experience and observation ordinarily show
that the character of the wife depends more upon that of the
husband that does the husband's upon that of the wife? Man
usually does not enter into the married state until after his
character has become f'lxt, but woman most frequently in all
the tender pliancy of youth. . . We condemn the Chinese
for barbarously cripplinj^ the feet of their women, while we
with scarcely more humanity, anil with deeper injury, cripple
in ours the jjrowth of all that is vigorous in thought or ener-
getic in action, by keeping them bound from infancy to ma-
turity in habits of indolence and of helpless dependence. We
despise . . . the folly of the Turkish di'spot, who ab-
surdly supposes that guards and imprisonment are required to
keep women virtuous, while we, instead of relying upon the
cultivation of virtuous principles and of moral strength, adopt
the scarcely less preposterous maxims of the world, which teach
that woman's safety is in the social restrictions by which she is
surrounded.

Mrs. Bodichon in the later fifties wrote:

In no country have I been so much struck by the utter idle-
ness of the lady class, except perhaps in the East, among the
Turks and .Moors. There is in America, a large class of la-
dies who do absolutely nothing. . . In America - in that
noble, free, new country, it is grievous to sec the old false snob-
bish idea of "respectability" eating at the heart of society, mak-
ing generations of women idle and corrupt, and retarding the
onward progress of the great Republic. [In this respect, so-
ciety presented great contrasts.] A great proportion of Ameri-
can women live indoors and do nothing; the others, again, live
indoors and do too much. There are thousands who have to
do household work, bear and nurse children, cook and wash, and

The Reign of Self-indulgence 229

live continually indoors, often in badly built, undrainrd, un-
healthy wooden houses, and suffer terribly. The be^inninK of
civilization falls hard on American women. As a pendant to
this, side by side, may be seen a sister, livinj^ in the midst of
luxuries, which many an Kn^^lish lady ot rank would refuse as
superfluous.

The proletariat naturally was adept at imitation.
Burn who spent three years among the working-classes
during the war said :

In the towns, many of the younp women are ruined by vanity
and false notions of personal independence. Pride of dress is
rampant in all ranks, a masterly self-will sets them above ad-
vice, and there arc few who will bend to paternal author-
ity. . . Think of a workingman's partner being obliged to
decorate her head with four different styles of bonnets in the
course of twelve months! In the country, young women arc
instructed in all the household duties; but in the towns it is
difficult to find a girl who can darn a pair of stockings, much
less do the duties of a domestic establishment. . . I was in
the company of a woman a short time ago who had left her
husband because, among other things, he did not allow her more
than thirteen dollars a week, out of which she had to provide
food for themselves and a baby ; the husband paying rent, coals,
and clothing. This model wife was the partner of a sober,
hard-working man. The father has the child, and she is per-
forming in the character of a young wiiiow in a hoarding-house
in another state, two hundred miles from all her woman's heart
should hold dear.

Female parasitism was in part due to man's propen-
sity for admirini^ futility when he can afford to suh-
sidize it. If American ladies hecame "very fond of
show, adornment rather than culture." man was pri-
marily responsible. Candler wrote prior to IS2^ : "It
it be true, as I was several times assured, that the lailies
prefer Europeans to their own countrymen, may it not
be in part attributed to the superior respect paid to
their understandings by the former? What sensible

230 The American Family

young lady admires being treated as if she were only a
dressed doll?" In a ladies' magazine of 1833 occurred
a comment on "Hiring a Cook." A man found that a
cook demanded four dollars a week. He paid a boy
and a chambermaid each one dollar and twenty-five
cents. Each would cost at least two dollars a week
for board -twelve dollars and fifty cents a week in all.
His income was only fifteen hundred dollars at most.
Something was wrong. An educated man might work,

But women who arc educated must not put their hand to house-
hold employment ; tho that is all the task we assi;jn to our fe-
males. It would degrade a lady to be seen in her kitchen at
work. (), how many are now sitting at ease in their parlors,
while their husbands, fathers, brothers, or sons, are toilinjj like
slaves! -and what is worse than toil, anxiously bearing a load
of care, lest their exertions should not meet the expenses of
their families. . It may be the folly and pride of us men,

after all. We want the whole command of business, the whole
credit of management. We do not communicate to our wives
and daughters the embarrassments we suflFcr, or the need we
have of their assistance, at least, cooperation.

So he put his daughters to cooking and found it worked
like a charm. Not all men, however, were guilty of
folly. The Ladies' Wreath of 1848- 1849 has an article
by Professor Alden of Williams College on Gentility
and Industry -2. storv of two would-be ladies, girls that
thought housework ungentecl. The hero passed them
by and married a farmer's daughter of cultivated mind.
It should be kept in mind that the status of women
in general was by no means revolutionized. Mrs.
Graves spoke of the opinion *'still so current, even
among men of intellect, that a wife was intended to be
nothing higher than the obsequious ministering servant
of man -a menial without wages." Speaking of Amer-
ican wives Mrs. Houstoun in i8:;o said: "When (as
too frequently happens) their husbands are reduced by

The Reign of Self-indulgence 231

one unfortunate speculation from wealth and case, to
poverty and privation, tlicn it is that tiieir fortitude
smooths the path of misfortune, and their courageous
exertions lessen the force of the blow." Mcintosh in
1850 remarked :

An incrc^sin^; family brinj"; increased expenditure; [retrench-
ment must conic where the world will least sec. The wife
must work! The superintendent of an insane asylum in Hart-
ford, Connecticut reports that] in many cxses. not havinj^ re-
ceived in early life a judicious physical or moral training for her
new and arduous station, the youn^ wife, impelled by affection
and an honest pride to her utmost efforts soon finds that, with
her increasing family, the burden of care and duties increases;
while her physical strength and capacity for endurance diminish
in even greater ratio. An economy sometimes deemed neces-
sary, more often ill-judged and cruel, leads the husband to re-
frain from supplying the necessary domestic assistance; the
nurse is discharged too soon and sometimes no suitable one is
provided. . Thus it must naturally follow, that between

child-bearing, nursing, and the accumulation of household
duties and drudgery, the poor heart-broken and disappointed
wife loses, in turn, her appetite, her rest, and her strength ; her
nervous system is prostrated, and sinking under her burden, she
seeks refuge in a lunatic hospital. This process of inducing
insanity is by no means limited to the above-mentioned classes;
the same thing, differing more in degree than in manner, is
often seen elsewhere.

Evidently the age of conspicuous consumption was
on. In his Personal Narrative, 181 7- 181 8, Fordham
noted that Virginia "women are pretty, languishing,
made-up misses. Their chief pleasures seem to be in
dressing well and in combing their long fair hair.
They have most beautiful hair." In Tennessee at the
same period "in the summer the girls wore Leghorn
hats . sometimes costing fifty dol-

lars."'" The -Methodists had occasion to condemn

*" Hale and Mcrritt. History of Tfttnessff anj Tfnnfstffani, vol. ii, 419.

232 The American Family

garish apparel. The desire to reniain among the rela-
tively luxurious scenes ot the h.ast began to lead to
various inconveniences and even to pauperism. City
stores lured women to speiul lavishly. In a periodical
of 1819 occurred a (juotation from a New York paper
inquiring why ladies of character and tlelicacy shouhl
attire themselves in the trappings of luxury. A pros-
titute goes along Broadway with several hundred dol-
lars of attire on her person. A New ^'ork merchant is
said to have sold a cashmere shawl to a lady in that city
for eleveri hundred dollars."" In 1H34 in Tennessee
some capes cost one hundred dollars.'"

McMaster describes picturesquely the New ^'ork
City of 1H40. Broadway of an afternoon presented "a
sight such as no other American city couhl show."
Barefoot girls swept the crossings and ragged urchins
vended matches and newspapers; but young beaux ap-
peared "with I^vron collars and whiskers under their
chins" and women displaved bright attire. "Heaven
save the ladies," wrote Boz, "how thev dress. We have
seen more colors in these ten minutes than we could
have seen elsewhere in as many days, \^'hat various
parasols, what rainbow silks and satins, what pinching
of thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons and silk tassels,
and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and lin-
ings!" Another traveller asserted that the finerv worn
by the women was astounding, "That the show of
shawls, bonnets, feathers, furs, and waists pinched al-
most to nothing was astonishing, and that any fine day
you could see enough velvet yt four dollars a yard to
cover Broadway from one end to the other." Mc-
Master says that "Fashion and luxury were running
riot, and there were now a Ladies' Oyster Shop, a

'•*/^</»Vi' \fajfatine (Sivannah), vol. i, 14.

"^ Male and Ntcrritt. History of Trnnrssrr and Trnnnsrrans, vol. ii, 420.

The Reign of Self-indulgence 233

Ladies' Reading Room, and a Ladies' Bowling Alley
with luxurious carpets and ottomans, and dressing
rooms, and girls to set up the pins."'"

The number oi servants employed was continually
growing. People that used to tlo their work often
hired help. In Atlantic cities and villages "we find
the wives of j(jurneymen mechanics and laborers fol-
lowing . . pernicious example set by the wealthy
or those who are making a show of being such."'"

In the absence of proper intellectual interests, fashion
received inordinate attention. There was conspicuous
consumption in the house. The wife made drudges of
the servants. Thackeray wrote in New '^'ork: "It
suffices that a man should keep a fine house, give par-
ties, and have a daughter, to get all the world to him."
Olmsted wrote in 1859:

A woman may have spent a year in learninK how a loaf of
bread and a dish of soup can be made, a steak broiled, and a
potato boiled, in a perfectly wholesome and yet palatable man-
ner; thinj^ which it is certain that not one American man or
woman amon^ a thousand has ever seen. . . She may have
spent ten years in the study of beauty, of taste and domestic
fine art, and thus possess an unfailing power of self-cheerinc
and of elevating the lives of all in her house, and it will com-
mand for her, if her husbanil is a bookkeeper, or an editor, or
an actor, on a small salary, less respect and less influence - tt)r
her children, less exterior social advantages - than the woman
with no solid acquirements will possess, it her husband is able to
pay one thousand dollars rent for a stone veneered dwelling,
and furnish a stylish carriage for her to send cards from.

Perhaps I am wrong in saying that this is so. I believe in
New York it is not so. But such is the general opinion, and
by this unfortunate opinion the m.xss of young minds .ire
ruled. There are ... so few houses built in our

towns with prime regard to health and simple convenience, and

"" McMastfr. History of Ihf Pfof^lf of ihf I'nilfJ Sttit/t (1910), vol. vii,

75-77-

'"•Ciravcs. U'omitn in .Imrrica, 84.

234 7//t' .1 nitfii tin liinitly

there arc so few of us suflRciently ctlucated as purveyors and
cooLs, to provide a palatable variety ot ^ood food, except at a
wxstetul expense, that a larj^e income is really made necessary
for a merely wholesome and comfortable family life.

Stirling in his Lfttcrs from tin- Slave States dcciarcil :
The dresses of American women m-nrrally. at least of tin- lu-w
rich class, arc Sf»methinii fabulous in evpcnse. The

dresses of ladies in New Orleans. I am told (and by New
Orleans people) are often equal [to] those of your crowned
heads. . Ladies [in that city] think nothing of expend-

ing a larjje proi>ortion of the profits of a year's trade on a few
dresses. [Husband] WDrks, or speculates, and his wife

wears the sf>olia opima. [Land in America is t(K) cheap to
create adequate social distinction. ^Our \\ ife's back is the only
place to display your wealth.]

As has already been iiuiieateci. reckless expenditure
brought many families to tiisaster. .\ nia^a/ine of
1819 cited the New ^'ork National Advfjcatc to the
effect that New York merchants were failing. Some
of their houses had been furnished e(]ual to those of the
British nobilitv. Several of the bankrupts had spent
ten thousand dollars per vear for ten years in houses,
carriages, and wines. A merchant would rent a house
for one thousand or twelve hundred dollars.

Whv will families plunge themselves in ruin, merely to live
a tew years in luxury? . . . While . . . amiable
wives are . anxiously strut^^linj: to >:et rid of their

husbands' motu-y, their husbands ... are toiling in the
sun, borrowing, at large premiums, in Wall St., and doing all
to preserve their credit, while their unthinking companions arc
plunging them into deeper difficulties. . . Why buy a plat-
ed soup tureen for forty dollars? - will not one of china for
five df)llars do full as well- [other things likewise]. The ec-
centricities of f.ishion are ruining families by wholesale.

In the same magazine was this statement:

I was told that several bankruptcies occurred lately in Bal-
timore, among merchants who had foolishly lived like nabobs-

The Reign of Self-indulgence 235

and I also heard, that their wives and daughter behaved
well . . . and resij^ned their luxuries and extravagancies
without a sigh."*"

The New York Literary (iiizctti- in 1S25 contained
warning against wifely expensiveness. In the LaJies'
Magazine (Boston) of 1830 fortune was said to he pre-
carious in America. "Family wealth" was relatively
unknown. "Marriage settlements, properly speaking,
are almost unknown." People were reckless. Extrav-
agant women, lavishing large sums on foolish finery or
extravagant housekeeping, were exhorted to remember
this. In Grund's Aristocracy in America it was said:
With us, where young men without fortunes marry, at the age
of twenty-one, girls of eighteen that have no money either,
where the husband relics solely on his wits for supporting his
wife and children, but few men can indulge themselves in reck-
less expenditure without growing indifferent as t<j the ways
and means of paying their debts. . With all the morality,

virtue, and beauty of our women, they are but helpless crea-
tures. The wife of one of our young "merchants of respect-
ability" requires more waiting than, in proportion to her rank,
an English peeress; and, ten chances to one. does not even un-
derstand superintending her servants. The husband has to
take care of his household.

Craving for finery resulted in reckless speculation
and ruin. "\N'itness the innumerable instances," said
Mrs. Graves, "of families by these causes plunged from
afHuence into the depths of povertv." (ira/nnn's Mag-
azine of 1843 gave a story of a "Decayeii Family."
The father demanded retrenchment. The familv was
extravagant; he as bad as they. They did. however,
cut down expenses. F'inally failure came. In the
I.dtlies' Repository ( Giruinnati ) of IS4^, a minister
wrote: "Many a husband ami father is being made

^^° iMiiifs' Mat^iitirtr (Savannah), vol. i, 137, ij8, 156.

236 1 lit- American Family

bankrupt by female extravai^ance. [Some ladies even
boast ignorance ol domestic science.]" Greeley in 1850
said :

Half tlif mrn who arc loathed as dranKinn tlowii thrir faiui-
lics to shanir and drstitution arc really themselves dra^'^ed
down hy those famih'es - driven to bankruptcy, shanic, and
crime by the thounhtiess and basely selfish extravacancc of wife
and children. Let a man be in the way of receivinjj consid-
erable niuney, and havinjj property in his hands, and his fam-
ily can rarely be made to comprehend ;md realize that there is
any limit to his ability to j^ivc and spend. The man of

means or of business is too often regarded by his family as a
sponge to be squeezed, a {joose to be plucked, an orange to be
sucked. . . Not one of them could bear to disgrace him by
earning a dollar; they couKln't go out shabbily drest, for fear
his credit would suffer.

'J'hc husband was often to bianic nevertlu-less in that
he did not make his wife ac(|uainted with his affairs.
One writer had saiil : "Her husband's hair stands on
vuKi at the idea of her working, and he toils to indulge
her with money." Another wrote in a magazine of
1852:

[She] knows nothing -has not even an idea of her husband's
fortune. . She spends, as a matter of course, all he gives

her to spend with the full confidence that when that is gone,
and she asks for it. he will give her more. Many a wife

who is plunging her husband deeper and deeper into debt
through ign(jrance. wf)uld, if she knew his embarrassment be
the first to retrench [and] help . . reinstate his falling

fortunes.

It is easy to imagine how children were reared in the
circles of economic surplus. Timothy Dwight as ear-
ly as I 82 1 assertcti that

People of fa,shion in Boston and elsewhere often try to ni;ike
their children objects of admiration. Children arc brought
into the presence of guests for praise and show off. Children
Icarn that the end of their efforts and existence is appearance

The Reign of Self-inJulgence i^J

only. Girls are taught to regard dress as a momentous con-
cern. Girls are reared in romance and unreality.

Children came to be neglected. Grund said: "The
education of the children is only at the extreme North
and South . . superintended pcr<<»ii.ill\ hv the

mother."

According to Mrs. Graves, an oft- repeated Ameri-
can ma.xim was: "Girls should enjoy themselves while
single, because, poor things, they will have trouble
enough when they are married." A young lady re-
marked: "I do not kFiow how some of my acquaint-
ances find time to do their own sewing; mine is whollv
taken up in dressing myself, paying morning calls, and
sitting on the sofa to receive my visitors." Through
the eyes of Mrs. Graves:

We see mothers toilinj:; on from day tn day; overwhelmed u ith
the pressure of domestic cares; wearing out their lite and short-
ening its natural period by exertions to which their age and
failing strength are wholly inadequate; and who still permit
their daughters to waste their hours in idleness or in trifling
occupations, and neglect to call upon them for that assistance
they so much need. . . We often see aged fathers, whose
few remaining locks are whitened by the many years that have
passed over them, still treading with trembling steps the same
fatiguing round of business duties, while their sons are. per-
haps, rioting in dissipation or li\ing in indolence, on the means
thus painfully accumulated; and many, many a toil-spent,
"time-worn mother." too. still hastening with anxious solici-
tude to answer every call for every member of the family, as
if her part in the duties of life was not only to have waited
upon her children in infancy but to conduct them to an easy
and luxurious old age; in short to spare their feet from
walking, their hands from labor, and their heads from
thought. . . Look around upon the groups of young fe-
males who crowil our private parties or public balls; who
lounge upon the sofa receiving visits, or throng the city prom-
enades to exhibit their decorated persons or to m.il'- moi-ninjj

238 The American Family

calls, aiul liiiw many can sou point out aniont:; thcni w lio have
fulfilled one useful purpose of existence to themselves to their
families or to s(Kiety. And all this waste of time and energy
in the pursuit of folly is in the hope of becominji; thereby can-
tlidates for matrimony, while by this very means they are un-
tittinjj themselves for the situation they arc seekinj; to attain.

Coxc said in 1842 :

I apprehenil ^reat and aliixtst incalculable evil has been pro-
duced by this ambitious feelin^, so prevalent amon^ the moth-
ers of America. If we look around on every side, we behold
innumerable examples of women, who are practicinK self-denial
and enduring privation, not in reality to train their children
for the stations to which God has appointed them, but to eilu-
cate them above the place which they will probably be called
on to fill; and who have thus, strictly speaking, been the en-
emies anil not the true friends of the objects of their affections.

Probably in this last instance we must blame the in-
adequacy of means for real education. Parents them-
selves had been poorly educated and accordini^ to
Duncan (1852), at an examination of their children
often exhibited weariness when the subjects of investi-
gation were solid.

In no country shall we find more lovely examples of cheerful
domestic union, or more honorable and self-denying exertion on
the part of the parents, in sharing and lightening the studies
of their children . . but, in the ever-changing mass of

people in the maritime and commercial cities, such steadfast and
enlightened characters arc far from being the majority.

Hotel and boarding-house life constituted a striking
phenomenon of the generation before the Civil War.'^'
Numerous causes contributed to this abandDinncnt of

i

'"Holme*. Acrount of the Vnitrd States, 355; Martinrau. Society in
America, vol. iii, 132-135; (Jrund. Aristocracy in America, vol. i, 125; Arf-
wedton. The I'niteJ States and Canada, vol. i, 33-34; Von Raumer. America
and the Ameriran People, 500; Maury. Englishiuoman in America, part i,
J93. 196-197; Markay. fVestern H'orld, vol. i, 220-221; Duncan. America as
I found it, 161-174; Bunn. Old England and Xeii- England, 37-42; Milburn.
Pioneer Preacher, if,(,; Bodichon. H'omen and ff^ork, 16-20; Grattan. Civil'

The Reign of Sclf-iiululgence 239

the home: boys and girls marrying before they were
ready for the cares and troubles of housekeeping t<Jok
to boarding; the possibility of this course encouraged
early marriage. Young married people constituted a
large part of the clientele of the boarding establish-
ments. 1 he life was livelier than could be fcjund in
the seclusion of a home, and attracted young women
still in giddy girlhood. It was a comfort to have no
housework or other duties; plenty of time was available
for amusements. In addition, boarding was thought to
be more economical than housekeeping; it was some-
times hard to get houses, and rents were in some cases
excessive. The high standard of living of the "better"
class made housekeeping too expensive for persons of
limited means. "I know many an American that is
now living in Europe merely because he does not wish
to board, and is not rich enough to keep house accord-
ing to our expensive fashion," said one person before
1840. The scarcity, uncertainty, and difficulty of man-
aging servants was another contributing factor. Al-
most any city family, even the wealthiest, might, at
some time, try this manner of life. Probably the
responsibility lay chiefly with the wives. This care-
less public existence often continued from a couple's
youth to their maturity and might even be resumed af-
ter a period of housekeeping. P^ven in the South the
usage found entrv. Stirling in Ltlttts from the Slavt'
States wrote from New Orleans that "the St. Charles
Motel is a characteristic picture of American

life." Owing to the scarcity and unsatisfactory cjuality
of servants, he said, it was natural for the American
girl-wife to seek refuge in a hotel. .Another contribu-

izfd Amrrica, vol. i, 109-113; Oldmixon. Transallantii H'anJfriHft, 37;
Mackay. I.ifr and Liberty in .imrrica, 3034.

240 The American Family

tory factor was the feebleness ol ihc domestic tie be-
tween parents anil chlKlren in Anicrica. Accoriiini; to
Slirlini^, tlie young American ni\ reaching self-support
left home for a neighboring hotel. In summer, north-
ern hotels were full of planters ami their families; in the
winter, the reverse occur rcii. I^lanters spent one or
more weeks or months in winter with their families
at New Orleans. "In every large town in the Unit-
ed States," sail! Mrs. Bodichon, "There are five or
six (in some places t\venty or more) large hotels or
boarding-houses containing several hundred inhabitants
each. This hotel popuhition mainly consists of families
who live altogether in hotels."

It goes without saying that in hotels and boarding-
houses real familv life was impossible. The women
were free to gossip, and having nothing else to do, were
prone to enjoy this freedom. Conditions were highly
unfavorable to the character and happiness of young
couples; there was little of the essential privacy; what
shouhi have been family secrets became public prop-
erty, ami differences between husband and wife were
complicated by the "sympathy" of meddlesome on-
lookers. The life ministered to selfishness, laziness,
and vanity in the women or to positive vice; it offered
no training for home-making, but rather tended to be-
get carelessness and want of forethought. Mrs. Bodi-
chon said :

These [hotel] "ladies" have not the cultivation which glosses
over the lives of so many women in F^urope, and does fjivc
them some solid value in society as upholders of the arts and
literature, hut are generally very ignorant and full of the
strangest affectations and pretentions. The young ladies, espe-
cially, reminded me of certain women I have seen in Scraglifjs,
whose whole time was taken up in dressing and painting their
faces; with this difference, tin- l.idirs of the East spend their

I lie Rt'ign of St'lj-indiilgence 241

days in adorning themselves to please one lord and master - the
ladies of the West to please all the lords of creation.

Especially was the homeless life pernicious for the
children on account of unsuitable food, excitement, ami
the promiscuous associations of life in public.

The dangers of female parasitism even outside of
hotel life were arousing discussion. In the period be-
fore the War the importance of giving women a means
of livelihood independent of marriage was discussed by
the press. The necessity of greater activity among wo-
men was urged vehemently by the newspapers in the
belief that "the health of the mothers of men . . .
is deteriorating in America in consequence of the ex-
treme idleness and luxury in which the ladies live."
Women were menials or idlers in too many cases. For
want of discipline of the mind "large numbers of our
married women degenerate into housekeeping drudges
or drones, with scarce a thought above cooking and
dusting, fall into scandalmongering, or what is worse
into the wTetched and painful boarding-house life of
towns and cities, sink into intrigue, wantonness, and de-
struction." Professions for the idle hotel-women "are
necessary to save their souls from the devil, and to save
their husbands, too, from that terrible treadmill, that
'everlasting grind' in which American men live."

It must be remembered in retrospect of the ground
so far covered in this volume that new world influences,
the rise of industrialism, and the development of urban
luxury were contemporaneous. The first factor was,
indeed, soonest in the field, and the last was largelv a
matter of the generation before the Civil War, but in
order to understand that generation the three factors
must be thought together. In a sense the latter two
were different phases of the same thing; exploitation

242 riic .Inurn (in /•titmlx

and parasitism at opposite poles, but alike wreckint; the
family. Duriiiii; the period so far covered, the special
advantages of the new continent hei^an to he of less sig-
nificance in shaping institutions, and the artificial proc-
esses of commercialism and industrialism came to play
an increasing role. In some particulars the three fac-
tors tended in the same direction, e. g., in the matter of
unsettling family traditions. On the whole, however,
the influence exerted directly hy the conditions ot the
developing continent was wholesome while the earlier
manifestations of the new economic forces of indus-
trialism, though not without their redeeming features,
were ominous. Hy the time of the Civil War, the
problem of the family had assumed, at least in outline,
the character that it wears to-day. Before stutiying the
consequences of that struggle upon the family, it is
necessary to examine in some detail the distinctive fea-
tures of the familv in the old South.

XI. NEGRO SEX AND FAMILY RELATIONS
IN THE ANTE-BELLUM SOUTH

During the period covered in this volume the South
was becoming more unlike the North. The senescence
of chatteldom expressed itself in institutions markedly
different from those that nascent capitalism bestowed
upon the North; different also from the usages of the
new West. How much the new world movement and
the counter-trend of industrial exploitation affected the
civilization of the Slave States may be better estimated
after a specific survey of the old South.

Of family life in the old South, as indeed of all the
social institutions, the suzerain was Slavery. The chat-
tel system avenged by its pollutions the exploitation em-
bodied in it. The threshold to our study of the vaunted
family life of the South must be a study of the sex and
family relations of the slave race. These were extra-
moral phenomena-the behavior of irresponsible cattle.
If the blacks were gross and bestial, so would our race
be under a like bondage; so it is now when driven by
capitalism to the lower levels of misery. The allegedly
superior morality of the master race or class is not an
inherent trait hut merelv a function of economic ease
and ethical tradition.

In some cases, negro-breeding was carried on like
that of animals. A Charleston advertisement of ne-
groes for sale stated "they were purchased for stock and
breeding negroes. :\n^\ to aiiv piaiiter who particularly
wanted them for that purpose, thev are a verv choice

244 ^^''' ''JfHi'riitui I'lunily

and desirable ^an^." Another notice read: "I-'or
Sale- a CJirl abt)ut t\vcnt\-nine years of age, raiscil, in
\'irginia, ami lier two teniale children. She is

very prolitic in her generating ijualities, and aftords a
magnificent opportunity to any man who wishes to raise
a family of healthy niggers for his own use."'*'

When a young man hail a tine family the planter
very often forced him to serve as a stallion. A gentle-
man interrogated a line-looking fugitive slave as to
why he luid run awav. 1 he man was slow to reply:
said he was not cruelly treated but ditl not like his work.
When presses! to explain he reluctantly said that he had
been kept "as a breeding man, in order to improve the
stock of little niggers for the market. Similar

statements are whispereil from other cjuarters." '*'

A "Stranger in America" wrote in 1807 that the ne-
gresscs were valued for their fecundity. "The infant
slave is generally valued at a year's service of the
mother, ami as she is compelled to work, three parts of
the time she is breeiiing and nursing, planters are very
attentive to this mode of enhancing the value of their
estates." In Virginia it was common for planters to
commaml girls and women to have children. ( )n a
Carolina plantation of about one hundred slaves the
owner threatened to (log all of tlie women to death be-
cause thev didn't breed. "Thev told him thev could
not while they had to work in rice ditches (in f)ne or
two feet of water). .After swearing and threatening
he told them to tell the overseer's wife, when they got in
that way. and he would put them on the land to work."

In iS^2 K.\-gr)vernor Randolph of Virginia protested
against the state's being made a slave breeding mcnag-

^** Dofumfntary lliilory of .■Imrriian InJustrial Socirty, vol. ii, 57-58;
Suppmsfd Book about Slavery, 175.

•" No«l. Frffdom and Slavery in the United Stales, 87; Newman. Char-
acter of the Southern Stales of /Imerira, 8-9.

Negro Sex and Family Relations 245

erie.'''* Olmsted found that most gentlemen of char-
acter in Virginia objected to discussing the slave-trade
and that it was denied warmly that slaves arc often bred
for sale. But "that a slave woman is commonly es-
teemed . . . most for those qualities which give
value to a brood-mare is . . . constantly made ap-
parent." A slave-holder wrote him:

In . . . Maryland, V'ir^iinia, North Carolina, Ken-
tucky, Tennessee, and Missouri as much attention is paid to
the breeding and growth of negroes as to that of horses and
mules. P\irthcr South we raise them both for use and for
market. Planters command their girls and womi-n (married
or unmarried) to have children; and I have known a great
many negro girls to be sold of? because they did not have
children. A breeding woman is worth from one-sixth to one-
fourth more than one that does not breed. '*^

An admixture of white blood tended to improve the
breed. About the end of the eighteenth century in Vir-
ginia an orphan white girl was identured to a man wjio
died insolvent and left her thus in the hands of a cred-
itor. He treated her as a slave and compelled her to
cohabit with a negro, by whom she had several chil-
dren. After long litigation she and her children were
declared free. Obviously profit-seeking abetted sensu-
ality; for, said Ferrall in 1832 "if the offspring . . .
be a handsome female, from eight hundred to one
thousand dollars may be obtained for her in the Orleans
market. It is an occurrence of no uncommon nature
to sec the Christian father sell his own daughter, and
the brother his own sister." One planter offered a
white man twenty dollars for every impregnation of a
female slave -his purpose being to improve the brcrd
Elliott remarked that

Great solicitude is often manifested th.nt the breeding wenches.

'**\\'vsc. .Imrridi, its Rfntilifs and Rfsourcfi, vol. ii, 8-9.
''"Olmsted. Cotton KingJnm, vol. i, 57-58.

246 1 III' .hui ru (in idniilx

as they call them, should be the mothers of mulatto children,
as the nearer the young slaves approach to white the hij^her
will their price be, especially it they arc females. . . Some
affirm that rewards are sometimes ^iven to white males, who
will consent to be the fathers of mulattoes.

Xcwniaii remarked that "the master's lieeiitinusncss does
but breed for him a peculiarly valuable stock of cat-
tle."''" Tradition still lingers of the importation of
college boys from the North to spent! a profitable sum-
mer improving the slave breed.

There seem, hnwcvcr. to have been circumstances
(probably altered market conditions) that sometimes
worked against such miscegenation. Marryat in 1837-
1838 reconled that planters of Virginia and other east-
ern states did not encourage intercourse with negresses.
[Young men visitors] cannot afiront them more than to take
notice of their slaves, particularly the li^litcr colored, who are
retained in the house and attend upon their w ives and dau^zh-
ters. Independent of the moral feeling which really guides
thrm (as they naturally do not wish that the attendants of
their daughters should he degraded) it is against their interest
in case they should w i>h to sell ; as a mulatto or light male
will not fetch as high a price as a full-blooded negro; the
cross betw^'n the Kuropcan and the negro, especially the first
cross ... is f>f a sickly constitution, and quite unable to
bear up against the fatigue of field labor in the West. As the
race becomes whiter, the stamina is said to improve.

Slave conditions furnished facilities for spontaneous
sensuality. .Mr. Jefferson said that the negroes "are
more ardent after their females," but an anonymous
commentator added : "If thev appear so (though I am
by no means satisfied of the fact) I think it may be

"*• Abdy. Journal of a Rfsidrncr anJ Tntir in the Vn'ited Stairs, vol. iii,
9-10; Ffrrall. Ramble of Six Thousand Milrs throuifh the United States,
195; American Anti-«Iavcr>- Societ>'. Ameriran Slavery as it is, i6; Elliott.
Sinfulness of /tmeriean Slavery, vol. i, 154; Newman. Character of the South-
ern States of .'Imerica, 7.

r

Negro Sex and Family Relations 247

fairly ascribed to the greater facilities of indulging a
criminal intercourse which their manners, morals, and
mode of living impose upon tlic violence of their pas-
sions." Yet "love seems with tiiem to be more an eager
desire, than a tender, delicate mixture of sentiment and
sensation." Carolinians said: "Oh, there is no dan-
ger of a nigger being at a loss for a wife, or a wench in
finding a husband upon any estate." Slaves paired at
discretion and the more chihlren the better for the mas-
ter. In 1834 Mr. Seabrook of South Carolina said:
In general, the intercourse bi-tuorn servants is as unrestrained
as the most unbounded ambition could desire. The daily bus-
iness of the plantation having been finished . . . the mas-
ter . . . knows not, and apparently cares not, in what
way the hours of the nij^ht are passed by his people.

A man who spent some time in the South in 1837-1838
said: "I have seen from forty to sixty, male and fe-
male, at work in a held, many of both sexes .
entirely naked -who did not exhibit signs of shame more
than cattle." Many slaves worked, especially in sum-
mer, with only a breech-clout. Clothes were often so
torn as not to serve common decency. Women worked
in warm weather clad in a short petticoat with some
covering for their breasts. Slave huts were ordinarily
small and cramped. Men, women, and children often
lay down together. Sometimes persons of both sexes
were thrown together without regard to family rela-
tions. Gorling said that when a negress became a
mother, the father generally treated her as wife; the
master would "set them up."

The promiscuities of chatteldom must have spreail
disease among both races. A Georgia overseer wrote
to his employer that two negroes

Are down with the venereal disease, Die and Sary. Doctor
Jenkins has been ;ifr<tii!iti!' Die four weeks :mi(1 very little al-

248 riw .1 till rudu iiiimly

tcration as I can learn. It is very hard to gel the truth but
from what 1 cari Irarn S;iry i^ot it trom Friday. 1 have {^ot
Mr. Hrou^liton niiw to diKtor those that are yet to take it as
I have been infornird he is a very ^;ood hand.

At the bottom is a note, probably by the owner: "IVi-
dav is the house servant sent to lletreat every suiiinKT.
I have all the servants e.xainined before they leave
Savannah." in view of the miscegenation detailed in
the foUowinj^ chapter, one is prompted to surmise that
the proverbial "delicacy" of the ladies of the South may
ha\e been, at least in sonic measure, the result of ve-
nereal disease cnntracted from their self-indulgent
husbands.

It should not be supposed, however, that ne^ro sex
relations went entirely uncensored. Some masters re-
strainc(i se.\ relations in order to prevent irregularities
that mi^ht hurt male labor or female fecundity. Large
owners often refused to allow marriage off the place.
An essav on management of slaves written by Robert
Collins of Macon, Georgia anil printed in many south-
ern papers, says that marriage abroad should be avoided
as it tends to trouble.

They cannot live tojjether as they ou^ht, and are constantly
liable to separation. .Many of them look upon their

obligation to each other very lightly; but in others, a^ain, is
found a de;;ree of faithfulness, fidelity, and affection, which
«)wners admire; and hence they always dislike to separate those
manifesfinp such traits.

Sentiment was a precarious safeguard however. The
St. Louis Rt'puhlican in I8^4 reported the complaint
of a free negress that her husband has taken another
wife. "As the subject of the second marriage is a slave,
and some fears being entertained that lie might take
her out of the state to the injury of the master, the City
Marshall sent some police officers and had

him arrested."

Negro Sex and Family Relations 249

Slave marriage was likely to involve the master's
consent. Maryland forbade ministers to marry slaves
without the owner's consent, under penalty of a heavy
fine. In North Carolina free negroes were forbidden to
cohabit with slaves without the written consent of the
master and in 1830 even the master's consent was made
ineffectual. Of course slaves could have no legal mar-
riage and often there was not even a marriage form.
The reverend Mr. Long, a Maryland man, said just
before the War: "Masters seldom attach any impor-
tance to the marriage of their slaves. This is shown by
refusing to give the slave money to pav his marriage
fee."

Favorite house servants might be honored with a
pompous ceremony in the great house under the aus-
pices of the white folks. Often there was a negro wed-
ding at the holidays. The master might officiate, or a
colored preacher might perform the ceremony in the
quarters. "It was a gay occasion, and the dusky bride's
trousseau had been arranged by her young mistress, and
the family was on hand to get fun out of the entertain-
ment, and to recognize by their presence the solemnity
of the tie." In some cases proper ceremony was a re-
quirement of the master, who provided the partners.

The tie was as easily undone as formed. Unless the
master enforced the bond a slave could leave his wife
when he tired of her. There was little to emphasize the
sanctity of the marital relation. Yet Hiiilreth asserts
that "more husbands and wives among the slaves are
separated by the hammer of the auctioneer, than bv the
united influence of infidelity, disgust, or the desire of
change." Yet a

Gay carpenter's wife was a woman of serious sentiments.
They did not aprrec very well. She had informed her

owner that, if he would like to take her into the country with

250 The A till- tic an Family

him, she had no particuhir objections to being separated from
her husband ... he was "so gay."

A mother ot thirteen children left their father and went
with another nian. A maid in South Carolina pre-
ferred to go to Alabama with her mistress who married,
rather than stay with her husband. She got a new man.
On the occasion of a contemplated visit to the old place
she laughed as she spoke of probably meeting her old
husband. An overseer when asked whether marital
partners were true to each other laughed heartily and
"described a disgusting state of things. Women were
almost common property, though sometimes the men
were not all inclined to acknowledge it; for when 1
asked: 'Do you not try to discourage this?' the overseer
answered: *No, not unless they quarrel.'" The wife
of an Alabama pastor says that a certain Colly could
not be made to see the guilt of forsaking his lawful
wife and taking another. She was too extravagant he
said and he left her for some better-ofY nigger. He was
distressed at ofTending his master but his conscience was
clear.

Not one in a thousanil. I suppose, of these poor creatures have
any conception whatever of the sanctity of marriage ; nor can
they be made to have ; yet, strange to say, they are perfect
models of conjugal fidelity and devotion while the temporary
bondage lasts. I have known them to walk miles after a hard
day's work, not only occasionally, but every night, to see the old
woman, and cut her wood for her, etc. But to see the coolness
with which they throw off the yoke is diverting in the extreme.

This lady was amused at an attempt of a negro woman
to discard her husband. The reverend Doctor Mal-
lard, however, writing on plantation life says: "There
were as many faithful husbands and wives, we believe,
as are to be found among the working white population
in any land." Jealousy was operative. A mulatto

Negro Sex and Family Relations 251

child was born to a black cook in Tennessee. Her hus-
band hated the child and threatened her life so that she
had to be sent away. Such facts were frequent.

Of course slaves could have no guarantee of family
ties. There was no such thing as legitimacy of chil-
dren. The attorney-general of Maryland declared:
"A slave has never maintained an action against the
violation of his bed. A slave is not admonished for in-
continence, or punished for fornication or adultery-
never prosecuted for bigamy. . ." Marriage was a
temporary contract dissoluable at any time at the ca-
price of the master. Booker Washington wrote:

In the days of slavery not very much attention was p;ivcn
to . . . family records - that is, black family records. .
Of my father I know even less than of my mother. I do not
even know his name. I have heard reports to the efifect that
he was a white man who lived on one of the near-by planta-
tions. . . I never heard of his taking . . . interest in
me or providing in any way for my rearing.

The full property right of the master involved, of
course, the right to break up families and sell the mem-
bers apart, and this right was frequently exercised.
When Miss Martineau asked a southern lady, "Is it
possible that you pair and part these people like
brutes?" the lady looked surprised and asked what else
could be done. When slave mothers wished to keep
their children quiet they threatened them with the ne-
gro buyer. One woman had three husbands sold from
her in three years by reason of the straightened circum-
stances of the master. A fugitive slave from Kentucky
complained that his "wife was sold at a great price to a
French profligate for vile purposes." There was re-
lated the case of a quintcroon daughter of a Scotchman
who thought himself legally married. Nine children
were kept in slavery. Delia, in sight of brother and

1 hi' .1 nil in tin Itirnily

mother, was brutally whipped because she would not
submit to a new master's lust. When he could not pre-
vail he sold her (o a New ( )rlcans brothel, ller beauty
attracted a Kreiuhinan who took her to Mexico, eman-
cipated, atui married her. One master was for live
years doubtlul about selling a man and would not let
him marry a woman because he did not like to part hus-
band and wite. .Meanwhile the pair had four chil-
ilren. A violent ne^ro wife tried to kill her husband
with an a.\e. 'Ihe master sold her to a New Orleans
trader in order to ^et her away but he sold her to a
nearby planter. She threatened to kill anv ^irl her
husband miL,dit take; so he had to stav single till her
death. One ne^ro man ami wife about to be separated
coriimitted suicide. A younu; mulatto girl, favorite of
her master and disposed of on his marriage, did like-
wise when she found that she was not being taken to her
mother as promised. At Xew Orleans a doctor bought
an old woman over si.\ty, mother of twenty-one chil-
dren, all of whom at different times had been sold in the
New Orleans market. In order to induce her to leave
home (juietlv she was toM that she would be put with
some of her chiklren. "And no," she said, "aldo I
suckle mv massa at dis breast, vet now he sell me to
sugar planter after he sell all my chihiren away from
me." At '^'orkville. South Carolina, a negress was ex-
ecuted for murdering her child. She did it because she
was going to be sold away from her little one. An old
man besought a lady with tears to buv his little bf)ys,
as his master was about to sell them to Louisiana where
he could never see them again. rhe lady did not want
them ; so thcv w ere carried off. A St. Louis master sold
a slave to a driver. Determined not to part from a
beloved wife, he said to a prospective purchaser: "If

Negro Sex and Family Reiations 253

you buy me you must buy my wife too. [Then] I will
willingly go. But if you dnn\ I shall never be of any
use to you." Repelled, he cut his throat. In another
case the wife became a raving maniac.

Heartrending scenes occurred at slave auctions where
families were separated. A train passenger described
pitiful parting of wives and husbands sold apart, at
which none of the passengers expressed sympathy.

Young ladies, daufjhters of slaveholders, well educated, con-
nected with refined families, were in the cars, but they did not
.seem to pity the poor despairing; slaves. They iauj^hed at
them and ridiculed their expressions of grief. "Look out here,"
said one to a schoolmate opposite, "just see those niggers!
What a rumpus they are making! Just as if niggers cared
anything about their babies! See CuflFee kiss Dinah! What
a taking on! Likely as not he will have another wife next
week."

In 1835 the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky pub-
lished an address to their churches as follows:

Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives,
are torn asunder and permitted to see each other no more.
These acts are daily occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks
and agony often witnessed on such occasions proclaim with a
trumpet tongue, the iniquity of our system. There is not a
neighborhood where these heartrending scenes are not displayed ;
there is not a village or road that does not behold the sad pro-
cession of manacled outcasts, whose mouriitul countenances tell
that they arc exiletl by force, from all that their hearts hoM dear.

A pamphlet on Virginia described slaves driven along
fastened by iron chains "attended by a black woman, a
reliance on whose conjugal or sisterlv affection pre-
vented the application of handculfs or neck collars."

Professor Andrews, sometime of the I'niversitv of
South Carolina, inquired of a slave-trader near Wash-
ington. "Do you often buy the wife without the hus-
band?" "Yes, very often; and frcijuentlv too they sell

254 Tilt' .1 nil I iKin Jiiniily

me the mother while they keep the children. 1 have
ulicn known tlicm to take away the infant from its
mother's breast, aiul keep it wliilst they sold her."
Farmers near Washington breil slaves like cattle for
market and eared no more lor mother's agony than for
the lowing of a c«)w. A standing advertisement in
Charleston papers read: "Several small boys without
their mother." A Cicorgia female slave had a chilil by
one of the master's visitors. When the child grew up,
it was thought desirable for its father's sake to send it
away. The mother threatened to sulk and kill the boy.
Accordingly she was sold to west Georgia anti the boy
to South Carolina. "Such separations," says Bucking-
ham, "are quite common, and appear to be no more
thought of, by those who enforce them, than the separa-
tion of a calf from its . . . parent."

\\'hitc citizens of North and I^ast often kidnapped
negro children and soltl them south. Many families of
free colored people in free states mourned over rela-
tives who had suddenly disappeared- presumably kid-
napped and sold.'"

Apologists for slavery tried to condf)ne the separa-
tion of relatives by comparing it with similar phenom-
ena among free peoples. 'I'hus the laborer places his
children to service, many persons left home for the gold
regions, and "many in Europe have abandoned their
families for Australia, or the Cnited States, or the
Canadas." We are told that in practice there was no
more separation of children from parents in chatteldom
than in New England families whose children as a rule
scattered all over the earth. ]n the writings of a trav-
eller of the early forties we read that "members of the
same family of negroes arc not so much scattered as are

'-'Hood. I'nitfd Slatfs Constitution and Sorialism, 23; American and
foreign Anti-ilavery Society. Tenth Annual Rrport, 86.

Negro Sex and Family Relations 255

those of workingmcn in Scotlaiui, whose necessities
compel them to separate at an age wlien the American
slave is running about gathering health and strength."
A northern man thought that "probably in no slave
state were there more voluntary separations of husbands
and wives among the slaves than in some of the New
England states that could be specified for the same
period."

The influence of the slave system and the attendant
lack of fundamental morality was disastrous to organ-
ized religion among both whites and blacks. In gen-
eral, the clergy were the chattels of the slave power and
had to acquiesce in the evil; so that some even came to
accept it as right. In Kentucky "in the kitchen of the
minister a slave man was living in open adultery with
a slave woman" church-member while the slave's wife
was on the minister's farm at another place. The min-
ister had had to bring a cook but instead of bringing
the man's wife he had brought this other woman. The
pastor of an Alabama church had two families of
slaves, one pair of whom had been married bv a negro
preacher. The wife's owner robbed the man of his
wife. The other pair lived in concubinage. Both
were church-members. Some ministers added a farci-
cal clause to the marriage formula when used on slaves.
The reverend Mr. Smith of Sumter County, Alabama,
added to "death" "some other cause beyond your
control. ." One Baptist association formally de-

cided that a slave might lawful! v have several wives -
that if a slave were sold off a plantation ten, twenty, or
thirty miles or more, and took another woman, it wouiil
not injure his standing in the Baptist church. An Ala-
bama gentleman, c]uestioneii regarding the chastity of
the so-called pious slaves, admitted that four negro wo-

256 lilt' .1 nit ru (iti Itiniily

men had borne children in his own house though all
were church-incnibcrs in good standing and none had a
husband. The onlv negro man in the liouse was also a
church-nicniber but tlie gentleman believed him to be
the father of the four children. He said further that
he dill not know of more than one negro woman whom
he coulil suppose to be chaste, though hosts were mem-
bers of churches. It was common for a female slave to
change husbamis and yet retain her church fellow-
ship. In Missouri "most of the churches admitted that
the removal of either partv sundered the marriage
bond;""

Not all miiiisterial consciences rested easy. The
Synod of Kentucky (a state where slavery had a pre-
carious hold) confessed in 1834 that

The system produces nencral licentiousness amonj; the slaves.
Marriage, as a civil ordinance, thry cannot enjoy. . . Un-
til slavery waxeth old, and tt-ndcth to decay, there cannot Ix- any
lejjal recojjnition of the marrlai^e rite, or the enforcement of its
consequent duties. For, all the rej^ilations on this subject
would limit the master's absolute right of property in the
slaves. In his disposal of them he could no longer he at lib-
erty to consult merely his own interest. . . Their present
quasi marriages are continually . . . voided [at the mas-
ter's pleasure 1. They are, in this way, brought to consider
their matrimonial alliances as things not binding, and they act
accordingly. \W are then assured by the most unquestionable
testimony that licrofJnusncss is the necessary result of our sys-
tem.

In the Lexington LutnitKiry of the same period ap-
peared the following:

Chastity is no virtue among them; its violation neither injures
female characters in their own estimation, nor in that of their

•'•Amcricm Anti-slavery Society. .Imerirnn Slavery as it is, 47, 180;
BlitKhard and Rirc. Debate on Slavery, 61; fJlm»ted. Cotton Kirif^dom, vol.
ii, 227; ,\mrrican ,^nli-SIave^y Society. First Annual Report, 17; Trexler.
Slax'ery in Missouri, 87.

Negro Sex and Family Relations 257

master and mistress. No instruction is ever pvcn, no cen-
sure pronounced. I speak not of the world. I speak of
Christian families generally.

Bishop Polk, strove to preserve the sanctity of family
life among his servants. He christened their babies
and gave them a ceremonial wedding in his own home.
It a couple were guilty of misconduct with each other
they were compelled to marry but without a wedding
feast. A Catholic bishop in i860 wrote: "Marriage
is scarcely known among [the slaves] ; the masters at-
tach no importance to it. We can judge of the disorders
which must result from such a state of things in a race
greatly addicted to the pleasures of the senses." A
Unitarian minister of St. Louis wrote indignantly that
"the sham service which the law scorned to recognize
was rendered by the ministers of the gospel of Christ."
He adds that a religious ceremony was "according to
slavery usage in well regulated Christian families."
The Catholic church in Missouri regularly married
slaves and held the tie to be as sacred as any other mar-
riage. One priest stated that Catholics never sold their
slaves and thus avoided the severing of church mar-
riages. Record shows, however, that Catholic fam-
ilies bought and sold many slaves.

At an annual Methodist Conference in Georgia about
1850 resolutions were passed in substance as follows:

Tlic preachers are instructeii to require the colored nienihers
under their charjje, who may hereafter take a husband or a
wife, to be married in due form by an ordained preacher or au-
thorized officer of law. provided the master do not object.
When church-meml>ers have heretofore agreed to be man and
wife, or may hereafter be married, thes are not to be allowed,
voluntarily, to separate, except for Scriptural causes.

In North Carolina "the marriage of slaves, whatever
the law might say. was held [by the Baptists! to be

258 The Anurican Family

binding before God, and not to be broken if it could be
avoided." Of course it would have been too much to
expect the church to attack the system effectively at the
potent end.

Apologists for slavery tried to put the best face for-
ward. An article of 1844 said:

It is in the memory of many persons, that [the nej^roes] con-
sidered clothes as an inconvenient encumbrance, that they were
often almost at the a^c of puberty, seen in a state of perfect
nakedness. A feeling of self-respect has been inspired,

and this has brought with it pride of character, modesty, chas-
tity. . . The proportion of females of irreproachable virtue
is perhaps not greater in the lowest class in any form of so-
ciety; while those who put away shame and give themselves up
to licentious practices are as effectually put out of better society
among them as among us. Many are still betrayed into youth-
ful indiscretion, but the connubial tie is now commonly held
sacred. There is an increasing disposition to consecrate it by
solemnities, and to strengthen it by the obligations of religion.
The Kpiscopal minister of the village in which I live, cele-
brates the rites of matrimony between as many blacks as whites ;
the white members of the family, with their most intimate
friends, sometimes witness the ceremony. . . Even admit-
ting, that, in the essoritial quality of female purity, the slave
may come short of the class which fills the same place in
society where slavery is not known ; yet it is . . . with
the negro, in his primitive state of wild frcrdoni, that the com-
parison is to be made. The improvement in this respect is
moreover progressive. At intervals of ten or a dozen years a
change may be distinctly seen to have taken place, and but little
further progress is wanting to place the once degraded and
brutish race on a level in this respect with the lower classes of
society in the most moral country under the sun.""

Negro slaves married earlv and sometimes often.
There were no costly preparations to be considered and
no ambition of the bride for a mansion. One reminis-

^'^ Effrci of the Relation belv.'een thr Cnuraiian Master and the Ajr'ican
Slave, 336.

Negro Sex and Family Relations 259

cent gentleman remembered "but two negro bachelors.
I believe they only remained [so] for a season." A
Mississippi planter said: "They don't very often get
married for good . . . without trying each other,
as they say, for two or three weeks, to see how they are
going to like each other."

Demand for slaves put a premium on fecundity, es-
pecially after the African trade was outlawed. Fannie
Kemble wrote:

It seems to me that there is not a ^\r\ of sixteen on the planta-
tions but has children, nor a woman of thirty but has grand-
children. . . Whereas tlic increase of this ill-fated race is
frequently adduced as a proof of their jjood treatment and well
being, it really and truly is no such thing. . . It is more
than recklessness, for there arc certain indirect premiums held
out to obey the early commandment of replenishing the earth
which do not fail to have their full effect. In the first place,
none of the cares - those noble cares, that holy thoughtfulness
which lifts the human above the brute parent, are ever in-
curred here by either father or mother. The relation indeed
resembles, as far as circumstances can possibly make it . . .
the short-lived connection between the animal and its young. . .
It becomes mere breeding, bearing, suckling, and there is an
end. But . . . they enjoy, by means of numerous chil-
dren, certain positive advantages. In the first place, every
woman who is pregnant, as s(H)n as she chooses to make the fact
known to the overseer, is relieved of a certain portion of her
work in the field. On the birth of a child certain addi-

tions of clothing anti an additional weekly ration are bestowed
on the family; and these matters, small as they may seem, act
as powerful inducements to creatures who have none of the
restraining influences actuating them which belong to the paren-
tal relation among all (tther people. Moreover, they
have all of them a most distinct and perfect knowledge of their
value to their owners as property; and a woman thinks, and
not much amiss, that the more frequently she adds to the num-
ber of lier master's live stock . . the more claims she
will have upon his consideratiim .ukI uood will. 'V\wi was per-

260 Till' AinLruan Juniily

fcctly evident to mc from the meritorious air with which the
women always made hastr to inform me of the number of chil-
dren they had borne, and the frequent occasions on which the
older slaves would direct my attention to their childrefi, ex-
claiming, "I^)ok. missis! little ni^^ers for you and massa ; plenty
little niggers for you and little missis!"

An overseer said that women constantly shammed them-
selves pregnant in order to obtain diminution of labor.
J. B. Lamar speaks of ne^^roes increasing like rabbits.
Charles Lyell thought that "the rapidity with which
they increase bevoiui the white shows that

they are not in a state of discomfort, oppression, and
misery." A manai^er said that slave "women, from
their labor in the field, were not subject to the difliculty,
danger, and pain which attended women of tlie better
classes in giving birth to their offspring."

One influence retartling fecundity was the promis-
cuity of girls. Said a manager: "They'd have them
younger than they do, if they would marrv or live with
one man sooner than they do. They often do not have
chihlrcn till thcv arc tuentv-five years old." This phe-
nomenon was perhaps accentuated in case of mulatto
girls by reason of their superior attractiveness.

Prolific increase of slave population furnishes solace
to apologists for exploitation. It is taken as a sign of
well being and contentment and

Never did a race increase faster than the slaves of the South.
They multiplied rapidly, in many cases the parents living to sec
more than a hundred descendants. One case in Carolina is
well authenticated where the female ancestor lived to be one
hundred and four years old, and had, when she died, one thou-
sand descendants. She became a mother at fifteen, had twenty-
two children when forty-five, and two hundred grandchildren
and great grandchildren when seventy-five.

Hildreth maintained that slave population did not
increase so fast as the white (even leaving out immigra-

Negro Sex and Family Relations 261

tion). In spite of the absence of prudential checks, he
said, and the stimulation of child-bearing, increase was
retarded. This fact he attributed to disease and death
due to excessive labor and privation. Kven in the days
of the Confederation, Schoepf had remarked that "the
negroes do not multiply in the same proportion as the
white inhabitants. Their numbers must be continually
kept up by fresh importations." 'I'his necessity violated
law up to the start of the Civil War.

Henry Clay mistrusted estimates as to increase of
slave population in the far Southwest. In the thirties
he believed that the births among the slaves in that
quarter were not equal to the deaths. The owner of a
Louisiana plantation declared that his overseer worked
his hands so closely that a woman bore a child while at
work in the field; also that he was at a brick-yard at
New Orleans where among the hands were twenty to
thirty young women in prime of life. He was told by
the proprietor that not a child was born to them for
two or three years though all had husbands. Catalogs
of slave sales on estates would tcinl to show that fe-
cundity suffered diminution. An agricultural society
of Baton Rouge in a report of 1829 estimates the annual
net loss of slaves in excess of propagation at two and
one-half per cent. An estimate by a congressman from
Louisiana made in 1830 agrees. One man tells of a
case in Virginia where a woman in travail was neglected
by her master, whose custom it was to be thus negligent
unless previously notified and asked for aid. A min-
ister who lived in Georgia for some years said that
"when women are confined they have no physician, but
are committed to the care of slave mi(iwives." Of
course any respite from labor or other relief afforded
in such cases was a business proposition. In some in-

262 The American Fiunily

Stances women were whippeii till they miscarried at the
post. The son of an Alabama pastor says that an over-
seer beat a pregnant woman so that soon she was de-
livered of a ilcad child In Louisiana, when prej^nant
women were Hogged a hole was dug under them in the
ground so as not to kill the babe. Women were so mal-
treated that few children were raised on the sugar-cot-
ton plantations.

Fanny Kemble wrote of a miserable dilapidated in-
firmary:

Hrrr lay wonirn expecting rvcr\ hour the terrors and aponics
of chililhirth. others who had just brou^jht their doomed off-
sprinR into the world, others who were ^roaninn over the
ani^ish and hitter disappointment of miscarriatjes. [Miser-
able neglect \\ as in evidence ; yet] this is the hospital of an
estate where the owners are supposed to be humane, the over-
seer efficient and kind, and the negroes remarkably well cared
for and comfortable.

The reverend .Mr. Long says that no respect was paid
to se.\: women worked in the field, cut wood, drove the
o.\-cart, made fences. "Indeed, I have often seen them
in situations, where, if the pecuniary value of their off-
spring haci been consulted, they would have been re-
moved to the 'quarters' till after a certain time."
A Georgia overseer wrote in 1855:

Now as regards the wimin loosing children, Treaty lost one it
is true. I never heard of her being in that way until she lost
it. She was at the house all the time. I never made her do
any work at all. She said to me in the last month that she
did not know she was in that way herself untill she lost the
child. As regards I^uisine she was in the field it is true but
she was workt as she please. I never said a word to her in
any way at all untill she com to me in the field and said she
was sick. I told her to go home. She started an on the way
she miscarried. She was about five months gone.

On one rice estate rules required that special care

Negro Sex and Family Relations 263

should be taken to prevent indecency in punishing

women.

Lying-in women arc to be attended by the midwife as long as
is necessary, and by a woman put to nurse them for a fort-
night. Thi-y will remain at the negro houses for four weclcs,
and then will work two weeks on the highland. In some cases,
however, it is necessary to allow them to lie up longer. ITic
health of many women has been entirely ruined by want of
care in this particular. Women are sometimes in such a state
as to render it unfit for them to work in water ; the overseer
should take care of them at these times. The pregnant women
are always to do some work up to the time of their confinement,
if it is only walking into the field and staying there. If they
are sick, they are to go to the hospital, and stay there until
it is pretty certain their time is near.

Weston, in the Progress of Slavery in the United
States^ said that free negroes multiplied slowly and
cited Tucker of Virginia as saying: "Since the eman-
cipated class are found to increase more slowly than
either the slaves or the whites [the legislature] t)ught
to encourage, rather than check, private manumis-
sion.'""''

Some light on the characteristics of the slave family
may perhaps be gathered from points alleged in exten-
uation of the current disregard of family ties contracted
by chattels. For instance it was said that relatives ex-
cept husband and wife often preferred being sold to
different masters in the same neighborhood, as they
found thus excuse for their roving propensity. The
reverend Doctor Mallard says: "In our county [Lib-
erty County, Georgia] they were permitted to marry
wherever they chose; and their almost universal choice
was of husbands and wives at a distance from one to

'■'"On slave infcciiiulity, etc. see HiKireth, Dfjpotism in .Imrriia, 60-61;
Schoepf, Trax'ris In the ConffJfrntion, vol. ii, 221; American .•\nii-slaven-
Socict>-, /Imeriran Slavery as it is, J7-38, 45-46; Tower, Slavery unmaskrJ,
31X-312, 331; Weston, Progress of Slavery in the United States, I3q-i3a

264 The American Fattiily

fifteen miles. [The negro on his w ay to liis family was
a good telegraph]." More than one lady told Olm-
sted she was sure her nurse loved the mistress's children
twice as well as her own. It was maintained also that
"cases of violent separation of husband and wife are not
so many as the voluntary and criminal separations by
the parties themselves." In \'ir^inia the slaves were
accused of being "without natural affection toward their
offspring." The cruel cynicism that could develop un-
der the chattel system is illustrated in the remark of a
ladv u ho said: "^'ou know mv theory, that one race
must be subservient. . I do not care which ; and if

the blacks should ever have the upper hand, 1 should
not mind standing on that table, and being sold with
two of my children."

One factor in lessening family love was the separa-
tion of relatives living on different plantations. A visit
over Sunday or even twice a week was not sufficient
guarantee of the marital bond. Another unwholesome
clement was the bosses' jurisdiction over marriage. An
excursionist of 1H16 remarks that a dealer "married"
all the men and women he bought -ordered them to
sleep together; as they sold better thus. Fanny Kemble
blamed the negroes' small regard for marriage on the
fact that the overseer, if he heard of disagreement,
would redistribute the persons concerned to other part-
ners. Negroes sometimes had to flog their own rela-
tives. Parents, moreover, did not possess that claim to
their children ami their children's obedience and re-
spect that is essential to ideal relations. A North Caro-
lina planter defended the practice of bringing up the
children of the estate in common, as it was far more
humane not to cherish domestic tics amf)ng the chattels.
If maternal attachments in slave-mf)thcrs were some-

Negro Sex and Family Relations 265

times too short-lived, was not the fault attributable to
the fact that from the moment of conception the idea of
chatteldom overshadowed maternal solicitude? A
slave-mother in one of the "best Christian families" dep-
recated the possibility of being a mother again : "Vou
feel when your child is born that you can't have the
bringing of it up." Kannic Kemble added:

The father having neither authority, power, responsibility, or
charge in his children, is of course, as anionjj; brutes, the least
attached to his of^sprin^;; the mother by the natural law which
renders the infant dependent on her for its first year's nourish-
ment, is more so; but as neither of them is bound to educate
or support their children, all the unspeakable tenderness and
solemnity', all the rational, and all the spiritual jjrace and fjlory
of the connection, is lf>st.

In a large colored Sabbath school the superintendent
exhorted the children to be good -"what a comfort it
will be to your masters and mistresses!" An eminent
southern divine, Dr. R. I. Breckenbridge, said:

Slavery, as it exists among us, sets up between parents and
their children an authority higher than the impulse of nature
and the laws of God ; breaks up the authority of the father
over his own offspring, and at pleasure separates the mother at
a returnless distance from her child, thus outraging all de-
cency and justice.

According to the laws of Maryland a white man could
seize a free colored man's children, take them to a mag-
istrate, and have them bound out against their parents'
will. A lawyer stated to the court in such a case "that
the laws of Maryland tiid not recognize the parental
relation among negroes any more than among

brutes."

There was abundant evidence nevertheless that under
proper conditions a sound home life was capable of de-
velopment among the negroes. Familv devotion was

266 I hf ^Imcru (III iHinily

often touching. A traveller secretly gave a piece of
nicat to the liungry-looking waiter. He took it to his
sick mother who could not eat herring. A negro wo-
man freed by her mistress refuseel to go to a place of
f reetiom "as she had a husband belonging to C'apt. W'm.
II. Hoe in King (ieorge County, from whom the bene-
fits and privileges to be derived from freedom, dear and
flattering as thev are, could not iniluec her to be sep-
arated." Many advertisements for runaway slaves in-
dicate the negroes proclivity for seeking to be with their
relatives. Thus: "His wife belongs to a Mr. Henry
Bridges . . who started with her .to

South Carolina, Georgia, or Tennessee. It is supposed
he will attempt to follow her." At Baltimore a negro
was placed in the penitentiary for stealing his wife.
Negr<jes often made great sacrifices in behalf of the
emancipation of their relatives. A free black was try-
ing to buy his wife. Her master kept her till seven
children were born. The wife and children were all
the while maintained by her husband yet he received no
allowance on that account. Another negro worked six-
teen years in order to be able to buy himself and family,
paying his master one hundred twenty dollars a year
and supporting the family himself. He contrived \o
give his children a good eilucation. Then he gave
twelve hundred dollars for himself and family. A
(juadroon paid fourteen hundred dollars to his own
father for his wife and three children born in slavery.
Sometimes slaves were allowed to purchase themselves
and families at cut prices. Again we find such a case
as that of a free negro in Kentucky with a slave wife
whose master saddled the man with the cost of main-
taining the children and let him pay the poll tax.
When the children became valuable the master would
take them.

Negro Sex and Family Relations 267

In 1853 Forrest, writing on Norfolk, said:
Often families of slaves "hire their own time," occupy a home,
and dwell together in peace; pay a conimendablc re^^ard to their
marriage vows (though sometimes impertectly soii-mnizcd) ,
rear children, perform their family devotions. They are

generally attentive to one another in sickness, and appear to
pay great respect to their dead.

A free woman, in order to save her children, who
were in danger of slavery by her being apprehended as
a slave, jumped from a housetop and was so mangled
as to be unfit for sale. "She knew a whole family of
young slaves was too valuable . . not to turn the

scale against her."

Family ties among the negroes were close enough to
cause alarm to the master race. A memorial of the
citizens of Charleston to the South Carolina legislature
of 1822 read thus: ''Many of the free negroes have
parents, brothers, sisters, and children, who are slaves;
should an insurrection occur, they would have every in-
ducement to join it."

The precise tendency of evolution in the treatment
of the slave family is not perfectly clear. Exhaustion
of border-state soil gave an impetus to the sale of ne-
groes southward. "Oh," said Charles Hammond on
his death-bed; "Oh! slavery is not the thing it was
when I first knew it in Virginia. Then the slaves were
treated like servants -called in to family worship, and
considered members of the family. lUit men have
grown sordid now; and God knows where things will
end." Helper said: "The diabolical institution sub-
sists on its own fiesh. At one time children are sold to
procure food for the parents, at another, parents arc sohl
to procure food for the children." Such is the expe-
dient of Virginia planters when crops are short. .More-
over the prospect of abolition in northerly slave states

268 Thd American Family

led to sales south. A Washington correspondent says:
"Scarcely a day passes which does not witness dreadful
heartrendini; cases of the sale of a human heing from all
his associates and familv relations to the far South never
to see them again."

On the other {:\\^\ there was a noticeahle development
toward conservation of the slave family. In iSoi the
Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals declared that

An niual division of slaves in numbiT and value is not al-
ways possible and is sometimes improper when it cannot he
exactly done without separating; infant children from their
mothers, which humanity forbids and will not he countenanced
in a court of equity, so that comix'nsation for the excess must
in such cases he made and received in money.

The right to separate husband and wife and larger chil-
dren still remained, jutlge Bushrod Washington in
1 82 1 told of having bought a number of negroes to pre-
vent separation of families. A South Carolina planter
said :

In my neighborhood, every planter has a^jreed that, if he has
a ncfjro married to a ncjjro woman belonKinjj to another, and lie
wishes to j;et rid of the nej^ro or quit the vicinity, he will either
offer the slave to the proprietor of the ne).;ro woman, or will
himself purchase the latter: in this case the price is rcpulatcd
by other planters.

(This was prior to 1H35). A Louisiana law forbade
masters to sell parents and children separately before
the- hitter were twelve vears of age.

Progress was, however, shainefullv slow. A ineniher
of the Cicorgia legislature tried to pass a bill prohibit-
ing the removal of slaves from the estate where they
were born. He was a slaveholder but wished to coun-
teract the separation of families. The hill met with no
favor from his fellow citizens. About 1855 the govern-
or of Alabama rccf)mmcnded a law bv which children

Negro Sex and Family Relations 269

under a certain age, say five years, sIkjuIcI n<Jt be sold
from parents. The Richmond Enquinr called the pro-
posal unwise and impolitic, a concession to fanaticism.
Nothing came of the recommendation. Wives and
daughters oi free negroes might be insulted by rowdies
but their men must hold their tongues.

The growth of finer feelings was not dependent on
the slow march of law. A British writer of 1851 noted
that feeling was growing up against separation of hus-
band and wife. ''The very religious people [said my
friend] won't sell the one without the other." Miss
Bremer wrote: "The moral feeling, it is said, is be-
coming more and more opposed to separation of fam-
ilies and of little children from their mothers by
sale; and that it now no longer takes place at the pub-
lic slave auctions." Still, the best slaveholders can not
always prevent heart-breaking separations. . . Even
though Miss Bremer's statement probablv includes
some exaggeration it indicates the trend of shame.

A recent historian of Georgia says that:

As a rule families were kept together, ami wlien their master
died and division had to be made amonti the children. the\- were
divided by families. If they were sold by the administrator to
pay debts, they were sold by families, and in most cases they
had chosen their masters before the sale. Separation of families
was the exception and rare occurrence.

Quite to the contrary however is the testimony of Doc-
tor Caruthers of North Carolina:

I have known some instances in which [the slave family] have
been permitted to live on in fjreat harmony and afiFection to an
advanced age, but such instances, so far as my observations
have jjone [were] "few arul f.nr between." (Gen-

erally in a few weeks at most, they have been separated, sold
off under the hammer like other stock, and borne away to a
returnless distance.

270 I Iw Auuricati Family

So negroes had too light views of marriage. "A few
ChristiaFi owners liid what tlicy could to prevent the
separation ot tlicir married slaves, but after their death,
if not before, the slaves were sold for debt or to satisfy
less scrupulous heirs." In one place the master of an
excellent slave couple died in debt. The children
were sold and the heartbroken parents succumbed. "1
couKl till a volume," says Caruthcrs, "with similar in-
stances." Another North Carolina gentleman olfers
contrary testimony: "The separations of husband and
wife, parent and young child, were not common. My
family never did it, nor did any of the families known
to mc, and I am sure that llie great majority of fam-
ilies in North Carolina would not allow it."

Some families arranged for gradual emancipation,
a fixed percentage being freed by each generation. Hy
will and otherwise they provided against division of
families. Dr. Mallard writing on Plantation Life be-
fore Emancipation says that marriage was not often vol-
untarily broken by the master, but was frequently sev-
ered by his death or bankruptcy. This divine had
known cases of greatest sacrifice by masters in order to
keep husband and wife together. His father sacrificed
half the value of a slave in order to send him to Liberia
to join his family emancipated by their master, and
neighboring slaveholders made up the rest. "I have
known planters ... to hire hands thev did not
need, in order to keep husband and wife together."
The appeal to public interest in cases of prospective
separation is illustrated by the publication in the New
York Tribune of a copy of a paper circulated in Wash-
ington to the effect that "the wife of Sam. Marshal, a
Wf)man of excellent character" is in the slave pen and
will be sold from husband and children unless pur-
chased from the trader for eight hundred dollars. An

1

Negro Sex and Family Relations 271

appeal is made for a ransom. Negroes were glad when
the master married and had children; for thus there
was prospect that the estate would be kept together.

Negro home and family relations, even when the ne-
groes were free, did not avoid censorship. According
to a North Carolina law of 1787 no free negro was to
entertain a slave at his house at night or on Sunday on
penalty of fine. A free negro was forbidden to marry
or cohabit with a slave without written consent of the
master. In 1830 the prohibition was e.xtended to cases
where the master consented -penalty thirty-nine lashes.
In 1826 the courts received authority to bind out chil-
dren of free negroes under certain conditions. In
1 840- a free negro charged with the support of a
bastard might be bound out for a sum in order to main-
tain the child.

Under favorable conditions, however, something of
normal home life became possible even for ordinary
slaves. In 1800 Sir William Dunbar wrote to David
Ross that the slaves "are often allowed to raise hogs for
themselves, and every thrifty slave has his pigpen and
henhouse. They have as much bread, and usually as
much milk and vegetables as they wish, and each family
is allowed a lot of ground, and the use of a horse for
raising melons, potatoes, etc." A writer on *'01d Vir-
ginia" said :

They have no anxiety about their families. They have

pround . . . for . . . gardens and patch of corn.
They . raise a hofj and fowls. The latter they sell

to their master or others. . . Provision was made for
those . . . ttx) younp; or t«>o old to labor.

One Georgia budget found makes a specific allowance
"for every grown negro however old and good for
nothing."

272 rill' ,1 nitfu an idviilx

Charles Lyell in his Second Visit to the United
States \vrt)te of coiuiitions at Tuscaloosa:

Thf colorrd domestic servants arc treated with ^:^t•at itniul-
Kence. . One day some of them j:avc a supper to a lar^e

party of their friends in the house of a family which we visited,
and they feasted their jju^ts "" roast turkeys, ice-cream, jellies,
and cakes. . It is usual not to exact the whole of their

time for domestic duties. I found a footman work-

ing on his own account as a hocjtmaker at spare hours, and
another nettintj perquisites by blacking the students' shoes.

The writer of an Essay on Sea Coast Crops said that the
negroes "arc well fed and clothed, well sheltered and
cared for in sickness and during the infirmities and
helplessness of old age." A Georgia master allowed
all to draw shoes save the children and their nurses.
*'My negroes are not allowed to plant cotton for them-
selves. Kvervthing else they may plant." Olmsted
described a farm on which slave-quarters

Lined an approach to the mansion, and were well-made and
comfortable lojj cabins, about thirty feet lonj; by twenty wide,
and eight foot wall, with a high loft and shingle roof. Kach
divided in the middle, and having a brick chimney outside the
wall at each end, was intended to be occupied by two families.
There were square windows, closed by wooden ports, having
a single pane of glass in the center. . . [The planter's]
manner towards them was paternal, familiar and kind; and
they came to him like children who have been given some task,
and constantly are wanting to be encouraged and guided, sim-
ply and confidently.

One planter had on high grcjund "a negro house for my
negro children to reside in summer" bv reasf)n of the
"bad summer climate of our rice fields for children."

The reverend John D. Long, whose observations
were mainly in Maryland and Delaware where slavery
was mildest, said :

The "quarters" of the large slave-holders are generally mere
shells; very icw arc plastered; and no arrangement is made for

Negro Sex and Family Relations 273

the separation of male and female . . [Slaves of small

farmers] live in the kitchen, mingle with the master's family,
eat the same kind of food as the other members of the family,
are not generally overworked . . . and are attended to
when sick. Iheir children are raised with their master's chil-
dren, play with them, and nurse them. . . A strong attach-
ment frequently exists between them and their masters and
mistresses.

A North Carolina physician and planter thought that
the slave usually fared as well relatively as a child.
One not unusual fault was the putting of more than
one family in a room.

Booker Washington could not remember a single in-
stance during childhood or early boyhood when his en-
tire family sat down at table together and ate a meal in
a civilized way. "My old master had many boys and
girls, but not one, so far as I know, ever mastered a
single trade or special line of productive industry.
The girls were not taught to cook, sew, or to take care
of the home." Washington's mother snatched a few
moments in early morning and at night for the care of
her children. A man that lived in Mississippi for a
time reported that

On all the plantations where I was acquainted the slaves were
kept in the field till dark; afti-r which, those who had to grind
their own corn, had that to attend to, get their supper, attend
to other family affairs of their own and of their master .
and be in the field as soon as it was sutVicientiy light to com-
mence work in the morning.

The slave home could not, of course, be considered

in any sense independent. A Mississippi planter gave
the following instructions to overseers:

At least once a week (especially during summer) inspect their
houses and stx" that they have been swept clean, examine their
bedding and see that they are occasionally well aired; their

274 Tht' /I nil- run n idinily

clothes mended and everything attended to that conduces to
their health, comfort and liappiness. . 1 want all of my

people . . . punished for inhumanity to their chil-
dren. . . All hands shouKl he required to retire to rest
and sleep at a suitahle hour and permitted to remain there
until such time as it will be necessary to ^ct out in time to
reach their work by the time they can see well how to
work. Allow such as may desire it a suitable piece of

ground to raise potatoes, tobacco. Tiu'v nia) raise chickens
also with privileges of marketin^J the same at suitable leisure
times.

A South Carolina rice plainer directed that

The overseer is every now and then to ^;o round at ni^;ht
and call at the houses, so as to ascertain whether their inmates
are at home. . . The hands are to be encourajjed to finish
their tasks as early as possible, so as to have time for workinn
for themselves. Kvery nej^ro, except the sickly ones and those
with sucklinjj children (who arc to be allowed half an hour)
are to be on board the flat by sunrise. . . Fi^htini;, par-
ticularly amon^ women, and obscene or abusive lanpuaj^e, is
to be always rigorously punished.

Under such a system wives and children were protected
to some extent from brutality. This was one advantage
that they enjoycil in comparison with tiie coarser work-
ing population in other regions.

It is almost impossible to generalize about slave-life
on the plantations. On some there was grinding of
children anci neglect or sale of the oKl. On others the
children were well cared for, the sick were nursed and
the old protected. Similar contrasts appear in the
matter of regard for motherhood.

Persons unduly considerate of family welfare among
the servile population were likely to encounter legal
f)bstaclcs. A North Carolina case of 1849 is in point.
A man conveyed to certain persons a slave married to a
freeman and gave a house with land, presumably for

Negro Sex and Family Rclati'.ris 275

her use. The parties to whom the conveyance was
made asserted ownership, the family having been con-
veyed to them in order to avoid a break. I'hev al-
lowed the husband to occupy, for a rental, the house
with his wife, and agreed to look after her. The court
voided the arrangement as being only qualified slavery
and gave her and the children to the heirs of the donor.
The donees were held liable "with just deductions" for
the profits due from her services and for costs.'"

Slave children received, as we have seen, very inaiie-
quate care. A traveller wrote in 1784 of Virginia that
"even when female slaves breed, which is generally
every two or three years, they seldom lose more than a
week's work thereby, either in the deliverv, or suckling
the child.'' Abdy, who was in the United States in
1833-1834, said that on Louisiana cotton plantations "no
exemption from toil is granted to the females, many of
whom, while suckling their infants are prohibited from
seeing them till their return at night.'' At about the
same time the following report was made of facts from
North Carolina:

Women are generally shown some little indulgence for three
or four weeks previous to childbirth ; they are at such times
not often punished if they do not finish the task assijjned to
them. . . They are generally allowed four weeks after the
birth of a child, before they are compelled to go into the field,
they then take the child with them, attended sometimes by a
little p'rl or boy, from the age of four to six. . When

no child . . can be spared . . . the moth-

er after nursing, lays it under a tree, or by the side of a fence,
and goes to her task, returning at stated intervals to nurse it.
While I was on the plantation, a little negro girl destroyed the
hfe of a child about two months old, which was left in her care.
[She tired of carrying it home at night - the mother had to
work as long as she couKI see.]

Hassftf. Slavery in the Slate of Sorth Carolina, JJ-34.

276 The American Family

A minister who livcil in ( Icort^ia from 1S17 to 1H24
saiil :

Women arc st-cn brint^in^j their infants into the ticld to their
work, and leadinj^ others who arc not old cnouj^h to stay at the
cabin with safety. Others are left at home shut up in

their huts. . Some who have very young ones, fix a little

sack, and place the infants on their backs and work.
Master jji^cs each of his slaves one peck of corn per week
( twelve and a half cents), . , It cost me upon an average,
when at the South one dollar per day for board. . . Think
of the little, almost naked and half starved children, nibbling
upon a piece of cold Indian cake, or a potato! Think of the
poor female, just ready to be confined, without anything tiuit
can be called convenient or comfortable!

A former slave-driver tells likewise of women working
in the fields with infants strapt to them -when the chihi
was three weeks old, the mother was put to work.

Some plantations provided nurseries. Emily Burke
in Riniiniscinrrs of Gi'onria (1850) said:

Talcs are often circulated at the North about the infant chil- ,
dren of slaves being left unprotected in the field while the
mother is obliged to continue at her task. . I never saw or

heard of any such incident. . . On all plantations of much
extent there are always nurseries where all the children from in-
fants a week old, up to ages of four or five arc cradled and
nursed as well as the aged women to whose care they arc en-
trusted while their mothers are in the field, are capable of do-
ing. . . I doubt not from the cries I have heard from those
nurseries, that those helpless little ones often suffer from want
of that nourishment nature has provided for infancy.

Miss Bremer noted that on southern plantations every-
where negro children were herded by one or two old
women. She saw si.xty or seventy or more together
under their rods of iron like a herd of cattle.

The amount of care bestowed on negro childhood
varied of course witli the profit in slave-breeding and
with the master's economic insight as well as with hu-

Negro Sex and Family Relations 277

mane considerations. The property sense was funda-
mental. Thus a negro woman condemned to death for
killing her child (in order to set it free) was reprieved
owing to her pregnancy and the owner's interest in the
prospective child. But when slaves in Virginia were
too cheap, "the damage to service in child-bearing and
the cost of rearing the infant was viewed as involving
a net loss." Harshness of conditions in chatteldom en-
larged the mortality rate of infants. Fanny Remble
speaking of pregnant women who begged for a month's
respite after child-bearing instead of three weeks says
that all had had large families and all had lost half of
their children and some, more. Fanny had had six
children; five were dead. Of Nanny's three two were
dead. Leah had had six; three were dead. Sophy
had had ten, of whom five were dead. Sally had had
two miscarriages and three children born, one of whom
was dead. Charlotte had had two miscarriages. Sarah
had had four miscarriages and borne five dead chil-
dren and two living ones. She was again with child.
Sukey had had four miscarriages and borne eleven
children; five were dead. Of Molly's nine children
six were alive -the best account received. "There was
hardly one of these women who might not

have been a candidate for hospital, and they

had to come to me after working all day in the fields."
One woman haci had fifteen children and two miscar-
riages. Nine children had died. Die had had sixteen
children and four miscarriages. Fourteen of the chil-
dren were dead. Venus -eleven children and two
miscarriages; five children had died. Molly -nine chil-
dren and two miscarriages; six children (iead. Anoth-
er Molly had had eight chihlren and two iiiisr;irri.ii'es.
Seven of the children had died.

2/8 Tht' .1 tuttimn Family

A slave-master writing to a New York paper in order
to prove slaves better off than tree laborers said ot his
own plantation: "Our [ne^ro] chihiren are as hearty
and as saucy boys and girls as can be show n anvwhcre/'
\N'onien with young children come to the cook-house
thrice daily besides noon in order to nurse their chil-
dren. Another planter wrote: "The child's cook
cooks tor the childrt-n at the negro-houses; she ought
to be particularly looked attcr, so that the ciiildren
should not eat anvthing unwholesome." One criterion
of the usefulness of the overseer was excess of births
over deaths and the health of the children. On this
estate uonien with six children alive at anv one time
were allowed all Saturday to themselves.

It was hard to secure from the negroes proper care
(jf the children. Miss Martineau observes that the
mistress is "obliged to stand by and see Diana put clean
linen upon her infant, and to compel Bet to get her sick
husband some breakfast." Fanny Kemble found that
"the fiegro-women seemed incapable of drving or dress-
ing their own babies." Negro mothers were often so
ignt)rant, so indolent, or so exhausted that thev could
not be trusted to keep awake and administer medicine
to their own children. The mistress often had to sit
up all night with a sick negro child. One mistress had
to dress daily a negro child's broken arm. because the
mother was too indolent. If ''it was rare to see a puny,
sickly negro child" as a writer on Georgia alleges, the
fact may perhaps be due to the high casualty rate.

Slave parents were not model educators : They were
too much given to blows and too much encompassed
bv the conditions of exploitation. Manv child rcFi went
naked in summer. The little ones learned from their
parents to regard the white people with fear and to

Negro Sex and Family Relations 279

deceive them. Nor was the master's end of paternal
responsibility always duly administered. Children
were cruelly whipped for small offences, and that in the
presence of their mothers. Olmsted reports that
I'ntil the negro is big enough for his labor to be plainly
profitable to his master, he has no training to application or
method. . . Before the children arrive at a working age,
they hardly come under the notice of their owner. An inven-
tory is . . . taken on the plantation at Christmas, and a
planter told me that sf)metinies they escaped the attention of
the overseer and were not returned at all, till twelve or thirteen
years old. The only whipping of slaves I have seen in \'ir-
ginia, has been of these wild, lazy children, as they are being
broke in to work.

On some well-regulated plantations, however, special
cfTfort was made to teach the slave children their duty
and **the way of salvation." The young Africans often
shared, also, much of the life of the white children.

XII. RACIAL ASSOCIATION IX IHK (JLU

SOUTH

A considerable proportion of the southern slaves
were in effect members of their masters' families; and
negro children were playmates of the future masters
and mistresses. A Virginian born in 1828 writes that
until nine he lived on his father's plantation the life of
a Virginia boy "always fcjllowed by tw(j or three negro
boys of about the same age, my satellites and compan-
ions, partners in any mischief and with whom 1 cheer-
fully divided any good fortune which came to me in
the way of cakes, fruit, or other edibles." Miss Mar-
tineau saw "little ones . . . lounging about the
court, with their arms around the necks of blacks of
their own age."

On the best plantations, especially when the slaves
had been inherited, the position of the master was
patriarchal. A historian of Mississippi pictures "old
massa" as the head of a family of which the blacks
considered themselves members; "old missis" as head
nurse and stewardess of the plantation "seeing to the
sick and the children and distributing clothing and
comforts all around, '^'oung Missis' spruced up the
colored 'gals,' taught them the fashions, and 'Young
Marster' stood between the slaves and the overseer, got
them out of trouble, and took the boys witli him to hunt
and fish."

The negroes often manifested great devotion to the
white family. Mansion doors often stood open at

282 rill' AtntriCiUi Idnnly

night; for while a negro might now and then sequester
a tOwl or a pig "the planter knew that, hardly more
than his own children, would his own slaves be tempted
to rob him or otherwise molest his repose." There
does, indeed, seem to have been a good deal of haunting
fear in the slave states, perhaps without much real
foundation. \at I'urner refused to murder his own
master and mistress; they "had been loo kind to hini,"
he said. (Jne of jiis lieutenants took a similar stand.
At one place the slaves withstood hrmly Turner's gang
and ileclared that they would "lose every drop of blood
in defence of their master and his family." Especially
in the regions where slavery was milder was such fond-
ness developed. In the N'alley of Virginia, where
slaves were relatively few and the masters more indul-
gent, the negroes were much attached to their homes
and to the white children.

In some respects the whites admitted negroes to
great intimacy. Fanny Kemble observed that the dis-
agreeableness of negroes "does not prevent Southern
women from hanging their infants at the breasts of
negresses, nor almost every planter's wife and daugh-
ter from having one or more little pet blacks sleeping
like puppy-dogs in their very bed-chamber, nor almost
every planter from admitting one or several of his
female slaves to the still closer intimacy of his bed."
In manv southern houses it was customary to have the
slaves in at family prayers. Olmsted tells of a master
who at dinner fre(]uently addressed the slave "familiar-
ly, and drew him into our conversation as if he were a
family friend, better informed on some local and do-
mestic points, than himself." A minister with twenty-
one years' southern e.xperience related that if a son
brought home a bride he introduced her to the servants
in their (|uarter<;, particularly to his old nurse.

Racial Association in the ()l,l South 283

Many slaves were taught in their owner's family.
in Virginia in the days before the war, "the old gray
headed servants are addressed by almost every member
of the white family as 'uncles' and 'aunts.' The others
are treated with as much respectful familiarity as if
they were white laborers. They never hesitate to ap-
ply to their masters or mistresses in every difficultv."
On large farms the doctor for the slaves was paid by
the year. In sickness the white folks acted as nurses
for the negroes. Many Virginia families in the agri-
cultural depression toward the middle of the nineteenth
century were reduced to bankruptcy by their unwill-
ingness or inability to sell their slaves. A distinguished
professor of William and Mary testified, also, that
"there are hundreds of slaves who will desert parents,
wives or husbands, brothers and sisters to follow a kind
master."

The negro race to-day owes much to the fact that
where the slaves were adopted into the household thev
soon learned the ways of the master's familv. Such
servants largely identified their interests with those of
the white family. It was common to see negroes be-
longing to different masters refrain from relations with
each other by reason of the difference of rank of the
two families that they considered their own. Social
assimilation of the negro field hands on large planta-
tions was naturally less complete than that of such
slaves as enjoyed more personal contacts with the mas-
ter race. Kspecially on the South C^irolina islantis
where the white folks were likelv to be no more than
winter visitors was the transforming process retarded.
The idealization of slaverv builded rather on personal
relationships.

The "Mammy" was one of the most important mem-

284 I hi' Anuruan lauiily

bers of the master's family. She often slept in the
n)t)m with the white children. All family secrets were
in her keeping";; she was ilefendcr of the family honor.
The tic of affection hctwccn her and her charges was
never out-grown. Olten she was the contidentlal ad-
viser of the older memhers of the household. I'o young
mothers she was an authoritv on hrst bahies. Both
white anil colored esteemed her liighly. "llow (juiet-
Iv peach-tree switches dropped from parental IkuuIs
when Mammy beggeii for us. .Mammy's cabin was
the white children's paradise." Ihomas Nelson Page
says that in all that related to the children

Hrr authorit)' w.is rcco};ni/i'(i . . . second only to that of
the Mistress and Master. She temlcd them, rejjulated them,
disciplined them: having authority indeed in cases to administer
correction. Her regime extended frequently through two

generations, occasionally through three. . . She may have
been harsh to [her own offspring] ; she was never anything but
tender with [her white children. When the young masters and
mistresses grew up, they were still her children]. When they
parted from her or met with her again after separation, they
embraced her with the same affection as . . . in child-
hood. . Hrr influence was always for good.

Miss Bremer tells of a wedding at which

A fnt old negro woman sat, like a horrid specter, black and si-
lent by the altar. This was the nurse and foster mcjther of the
bride, and u lio could not bear the thought of parting with
her. . . Iliesc black nurses are cared for with great tender-
ness as long as they live in white families, and, generally speak-
ing, they deserve it. from their affection and fidelity.

Next to Mammy ranked the butler and the carriage-
driver. They hail a share in the training of the chil-
dren. The butler was awesome. "Grandma," said
the white child, "are you 'fraid of Unc' Tom?" The
driver was the boys' ally and the girls' devotee; conse-
c]uently he "had an ally in their mother, the mistress."

Racial Association in the Old South 285

Slaves frequently looked after orphan chiliircn of their
mistress.

Close attention should be given in tlic liglit of nioii-
ern psychology to the consequences upon white chil-
dren of constant association with nicmbers of the other
race. The subject can be merely toucheil here. The
more subtle effects in the realm of the unconscious will
suggest themselves. White babes, for instance, com-
monly had negro wet nurses, and it may be wondered
whether in view of the psychic importance of the suck-
ling process there may not have been implanted in the
minds of the southern whites certain peculiar attitudes
toward negro women and whether this possibility may
not be a partial explanation of the sc.\ tastes of the
men of the old South.

Jefferson in his Notes on Virginia noted the
Unhappy influence on the manners of our people, produced by
the existence of slavery among us. The whole commerce be-
tween master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most bois-
terous passions - the most unremitting despotism on the one
part, and degrading submissions on the other, (^ur children sec
this, and learn to imitate it. The parent storms, the

child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the
same airs in the circle of smnller slaves, gives a loose rein to the
worst passions; and, thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised
in r\Tanny, cannot but be stamped by it with (xllous pecul-
iarities.

Other writers commented on this tendency of child de-
velopment. Miss iMartineau asked "what is to be e.\-
pected of little girls who boast of having got a negro
flogged for being impertinent to them?" Fanny Kem-
ble exclaimed: "Think of learning to rule despotical-
ly your fellow creatures before tlic first lesson of self-
government has been well spelt over!" A \''irginia
judge, a slaveholder, said in iH^z: "A slave popula-

286 I III- .Itucru (in Idnnly

tion exercises the most pernicious inHuence upon the
manners, habits and character, of tliose among whom
it exists. Lisping infancy learns the vocabulary of
abusive epithets and struts tlie embryo tyrant of its little
domain. " A minister, who lived in South Carolina at
about the same date, tells of a slave woman mercilessly
beaten before the familv for pouring too much molasses
for one of the children. A traveller on an Ohio River
steamer saw a hve vear old white bov go up to a slave
child "and deliberately hit him a blow on the face with
his fist and then kick him without anv provocation.
The poor little negro did not resent this." Dickens re-
ported that "the ilelicate maFiima . . . quiets her
youngest child by promising the boy 'a whip

to beat the little niggers with'." Helper exclaimed ve-
hemently: "The challenger to almost every duel has
been an abandoned wretch, who, on manv occasions
during infancy, sucked in the corrupt milk of slavery
from the breasts of his father's sable concubines." Of
course some parents trieil to save their children from
the psychology of arrogance but mere pedagogy can
rarely ofTset the pressure of an economic system.

The Synod of South Carolina and Georgia on one
occasion said: "Our children arc corrupted from their
infancy, nor can we prevent it." Association with the
slaves was a prolific source of low ideas and of vitiated
manners and morals. Miss Martineau said:

I he pcncraliry of slaves arc as j;r<>ss as the total absence of do-
mestic sanctity mi^ht be expected to render them. They do not
dream of any reserve with children. The consequences are in-
evitable. T he woes of mothers from this cause are such that,
if this "peculiar domestic institution" were confided to their
charge, I believe the>' would accomplish its overthrow. . .
Amonp the incalculable forces in nature is the Rrief of mothers
weeping fnr flu- . <.rrnpt;..n of their children.

Racial Association in tlic Old South 287

Slaves often gloried in corruptint; the chihircn of their

owners.

A gentleman from Kentucky reportcti the matter

thus:

I shall not speak of the far South, whose sons arc fast mchin^
away under the unblushinj; profligacy which prevails. I allude
to the slave-holding West. It is well known that the slave
lodgings- I refer now to village slaves -are exposed to the en-
trance of strangers every hour of the night, and that the sleep-
ing apartments of both sexes are common. . . There is no
allowed intercourse between the families and servants after the
work of the day is over. . . Should one of the younger
members of the family, led by curiosity, steal out into the filthy
kitchen, the child is speedily called back, thinking itself happy if
it escapes an angry rebuke. . The slaves . . . roam

over the village streets, shcK-king the ear with their vulgar jest-
ings and voluptuous songs. . . [There is] indiscriminate de-
bauchery ... in the kitchens of church-members and
elders. [In spite of all care the] domestics influence very
materially the early education of . . . children, jictwet-n
the female slaves and the nurses there is an unrestraincil com-
munication. As they come in contact through the day, the
courtesan feats of the past night are whispered into the car of
the unsuspecting girl to poison her youthful mind. . . 1 he
slave states are Sodoms, and almost every village family is a
brothel. (In this I refer to the inmates of the kitchen and not
to the whites.) . . This pollution . . . springs not
from the character of the negro but from the condition of the
slave.

Olmsted reports an obscene (juarrcl of neu;ro nurses
occurring on a South Carolina train while the white
children listened. Tlu' Soutlurn (Uiltirator of June,
1855, contained tlie following:

Children are fond of the company of negroes, not only because
the deference shown makes them feel perfectly at case, but tin-
subjects of conversation are on a level with their capacity; while
the simple tales, and the witch and ghost stories, so common
among negroes, excite the young imagination and enlist the

288 riif AnuriidH Family

fctlinRS. If, in the association, the child becomes familiar with
indelicate, vulvar, and lascivious maniurs and conversation an
iniprcvsiun is made upon the mind anil heart, which lasts for
years - perhaps for life. Could we, in all cases, trace effects to
their real causes, I doubt not but many youn^ men and women,
of respectable parrnta^je and bri^ht prospects, who have made
shipwreck of all their earthly hopes, have been led to the fatal
step by the seeds of corruption which, in the days of childhood
and youth, were sown in their hearts by the indelicate and
Lascivious manners and conversation of their father's negroes.

Chancellor Marpcr saici: "A greater severity of (Ic-
coriiin than is rcijiiircd elsewhere, is nccessarv aiiiDM^
us."

An Alabaman opposed to slavery, amoni; other rea-
sons gave this: "I've got a family of children antl I
don't like to have such degraded beings round mv home
while they are growing up. I know the

conseijuences." A southern merchant on his annual
visit to New York said:

When on my brother's plantation just beftjrc I came North, I
was informed that each of his family servants were sufiFcring
from [a venereal disease], and I ascertained that each of my
brother's children, girls and boys, had been informed of it, and
knew how and from whom it had been acquired. The negroes
being their familiar companions, I tried to get my brother to
send them North with me to school. I told him he might as
well have them educated in a brothel at once.

Olmsted says:

I never conversed with a cultivated Southerner on the eflPects of
slavery, that he did not express a wish or intention to have his
own children educated where they should be free from demoral-
izing assfxriation with slaves. 'Iliat the association is almost
inevitably corrupting and dangerous, is very generally (I may
say, excepting by the extremest fanatics of South Carolina, uni-
versally) admitted. The children of a few wealthy men may,
for a limited period, be preserved from this danger, [but] the
children of the million can not be.

Racial Association in tlie Old South 289

A southern college president says that "contaminat-
ing and degrading contact" of white children "with
negro associates . . . was universal in the best
families in ante-bellum times." Vet some attempt was
occasionally made to segregate the two races in chiKi-
hood. On one plantation, white and black children
were both punished if found playing together. 15ut
until emancipation, white and black children could
hardly be kept apart. Nor were the black children
lacking in initiative and capacity for leadership.

Personal relations had. too, their saving features. A
nurse girl that struck a child that would not go to sleep
was told by her mistress that she could never touch the
child again -she was free. After pining for weeks, she
was allowed to nurse the child again and always resent-
ed any reproof or criticism of the chihi .McOonald's
Life in Old Virginia draws this picture:

The slaves are generally affectionate particularly to

the children of the family, which lays the foundation of . . .
attachments . . . continuing through life. The white
children - if they had the desire - are not permitted to tyranni/c
over the slaves young or old. The children play together on
terms of great equalit\, and it the white child givi-s a blow, he
is apt to have it returned with interest. At the tables you will
find the white children rising from them, with their little hands
full of the best of everything to carry to their nurses or play-
mates, and I have often known them to deny themselves for
the sake of their favoriti-s. When the young mxster (or

mistress) is installed into his full rights of pr()p<Tty, he finds
around him no alien hirelings, ready to quit his s<'rvice upon
the slightest provocation, but attached and faithful friends,
known to him from his infancy, and willing to share his for-
tunes.

There is some tcstinmnv, also, in (]ualilication of the
deleterious influence allegeil of the associati«)n with
slaves. A minister who came from Libertv Countv,

290 The American Family

Georgia, says that he pla\cd with negroes ami that liis
phiymates were never prDtane aiul rarelv vulgar. A
Tennessee hidy says: "1 do not tliink. as some do, that
white chihiren were contaminated by association with
negroes." A minister writing on "Ohi Kentucky"
says: "After long experience and careful thought on
the matter, 1 am satisrieil that the intluences of oKl-time
Kentucky negroes upon the white chikiren were gooil."
The riiost serious risk in the rearing of children
among the happenings of chatteld(jm befell the boys.
An e\-mayor of Iluntsville, Alabama, once said that
"as a general rule, every young man in his state became
addicted to fornication at an early age." A distin-
guished lawyer, ekler in a church in a southern city,
remarked: "It is impossible to bring up a family of
children virtuous! v in a slaveholding community." A
Tennessee slaveholder ventured

To say, tli.nt in thr slavi-lioldinn settlements of Middle and
Southern Missi.>;sippi, where I have lived for several years, there
is not a virtuous younjj male of twenty years of ajje. . . To
send a lad to a male academy in Mississippi is moral murder.
.Now I have four children, three of them boys. I confess I
shall never raise them in a slave state willinKly.*'*

No system of exploitation ever respects the virtue of

'*'On miscegenation sec: American Ami-Slavery Society, First .Innual
Rff>ort, 27-28, 63; American and Fr>rei>;n .Anti-Slavery Society, Thirlfenth
■tnnual Rrf-ort, i ;o ; Schoepf. Travrli in ihr Conff deration, vol. ii, 92-93;
I.imbert. Travelt through Canada and the I'nitrd States, vol. ii, 173; Janiton.
Stran^fr in .-Imrrica, 383-384; Candler. Summary I'inu of .Imerica, 284,
299-300; AIhIv. Journal of a Residence and Tour in the United Stales, vol. i,
J$'-JSi: Martineau. Society in America, vol. ii, 320-329, 335, 339; Martineau.
Retrospect of H'estern Travel, vol. i, 268-270; Marryat. Diary in America,
vol. ii, 107-109; Kembie. Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation,
14, 1$, 141, 162. 194, 199; Lyell. Second f'isit to the I'nitrd States, vol. i, 271-
273. vol. ii, 94-9S, 215-216; Elliott. Sinfulness of American Slavery, vol. i,
I5i-i$8, vol. ii, 60-66; Pickett. History of Alabama, 213, 299-303; Tower.
SloK-rry unmasked, 316-330; I-onjj. Pictures of Slavery, 231, 261-263; Olrrwted.
Cotton Kingdom, vol. i, 83, 306, vol. ii, 94, 227, 230; Noel. Freedom and
Slavery in the I'nifed States, 87-90.

Racial Association in the Old South 291

women of the subject class. American slavery almost
universally debauched slave-women. A minister in
the convention held at Danville for the forming of a
constitution for Kentucky said that a number of female
slaves "have been remarkable for their chastitv and
modesty. If their master attempts their chastitv they
dare neither resist nor complain. I f another man should
make the attempt, though resistance may not be so dan-
gerous, complaints are equally vain." An Englishman
who visited the United States prior to 1824 noted that

At present the seduction of a colored ^\x\ is rcjjarded as a venial
offence. . . [The colored girls of the South] are not tauj^ht
to respect themselves and value modesty. [White women seem
regardless of their Auty to influence them.] A tradesman at
Fredericksburg told me, that the seduction of a colored girl was
the almost invariable result of her settling in that town.

Early in the nineteenth century, the North Carolina
Supreme Court decided that a white man could not be
convicted of fornication and adultery with a slave-
woman, because she had no standing in court. A speak-
er in the North Carolina constitutional convention of
1835 said: "A white man may go to the house of a
free black, maltreat and abuse him, and commit any
outrage upon his family, for all of which the law can-
not reach him, unless some white person saw the act."
A traveler of 1832- 1834, said of New Orleans:

The unfortunate quarteroon girls, many of whom have received
an education which would he an ornament to any lady, imbibe
a belief from infancy, that the Creator has made them subordi-
nate beings, belonging to a race inferior to the whites, and that
therefore they are not fit to go through the crrrm«)ny of mar-
riage.

At the same period it was reported that it there were
any good-looking mulatto girls in a slave gang on its
way South the drivers wf)uld grant a rebate on their
charge. In the business of prostituting mulatto girls,

292 V//'' .1 uitrii (in iiiifiily

threats and the lash were used where blandishments
and gifts tailed. In tuikr to secure inulaiio youui;,
masters eoinpellcd colored women to submit to im-
prei;naiion bv whites and punished barbarously any
that resented the liuly. Slaves eould not bear testi-
mony ai^ainst whites, hence the way was open for vio-
lence and seduction b\ anv white. Women of color
were compelled to endure every sort of insult.

Negro men were exasperated by being depriveil of
their wives supplanteil by their masters. A man in
New Orleans was stabbed by a slave under such cir-
cumstance. Negroes cherishing revenge were danger-
ous persons liable to a cruel fate. An overseer took a
negro's wife from him and had a child by her. Later
she was allowed to return to her husband. A planter
had a female slave witii whom he desired intercourse.
On refusing, she was tlogged. Refusing again, she was
whipped once more. Finally she yielded. A master
tried to seduce a (]uadroon of irreproachable character
and threatened to send her to the rice swamps if she
refused. I'inallv he managed to make her his mistress.
Such episodes are but samples of the working of the
"peculiar institution."

\\'hen the persistence of African mores is coupled
with the pressure imposed by slavery, it is not to be
wondered at that a large proportion of women of color
were of easy virtue. Lambert, who travelled thrf)ugh
America in 1806-1808, remarked that "Many of the
mulatto girls are handsome and good figures. They
are fond of dress, full of vanity, and generally dispense
their favors verv liberally to the whites." A traveller
of a few years later writes:

A mulatro at Prtcrsbu^^: . . . rrplird to my rnquiry u hy
he did not marry, that no white woman woiihl ... re-
ceive his addresses, and that amongst those of his own color,

Racial ylss^jiuiti'Jti in tlu- Old South 293

there were only three in the town whose chastity was unim-
j>eached. Wlan making enquiry respectinj^ the state of morals
at Norfolk, I receive an account nearly as bad.

A slavc-girl detected in infamous practices put on a
prudish air and declared that she was greatly pained to
be considered immodest- that she had no desire to
have any lover save her master. An Alabama lady had
carefully brought up a colored girl, who grew up moii-
est and well-behaved but finally bore a mulatto child.
The mistress reproached her severely and the girl to(jk
the matter much to heart. Later, however, she said
that her mother, a native African, had assured her that
she had done no wrong and need not be ashamed.
Hildreth wrote in 1854 ^^^^

Amonj^ the slaves, a woman, apart from mere natural bashful-
ness, has no inducement to be chaste; she has many inilucements
the other way. Her person is her only means of purchasioR
favors, indulgences, presents. To be the favorite of the master
or one of his sons, of the overseer, or even of a driver, is an ob-
ject of desire, and a situation of dignity. It is as much esteemed
among the slaves :is an advantageous marriage would be among
the free. . , Among slaves, every carnal union, tho but for
a day, is a marriage. To persons so situated, we cannot justly
apply ideas founded upon totally different circumstance's.

A light colored Louisiana barber w'ho had lived North
said :

I'd never marry in Louisiana . . there are no virtuous

women among the colored people here!

What do you mean ?

There are very few, sir.

What, among the free?

Very few, sir. There are some very rich colored iH*ople,
planters, some of them worth four or five hun<lred thou«>and
tiollars. Among them I suppose there are virtuous wonien :
but they are very few. ^ Ou see, sir, it's no disgrace to a col-
ored girl to placer. It's considered hardly anything different
from marr>ing.

294 T^^ American Family

1 he master's rii^ht ol rape wipcil out female honor.
Slave-women were taught that it was their duly to
have a child once a year, and it mattered little who
was the father. Probably few negresses were like one
quadroon girl who maintained her virtue in face of
brutal whippings and other urgings. Long wrote:
"Many of the female servants are brought up virtuous-
ly, sleeping in the same room with their young mis-
tresses. The females bring the highest prices in
the South. I'or them there is no virtue after a certain
age, unless they die the martyr's death."

It is amusing to find "the white man's burden" shift-
ed to the shoulders of the subject race. Thus in a book
on Dixit- we are informed that "The heaviest part of
the white racial burden [in slavery] was the African
woman, of strong sex instincts and devoid of a sexual
conscience at the white man's door, in the white man's
dwelling." A historian of Alabama writes:

Under the institution of slaver}', the attack against the intejjrity
of u hitc civilization was made by the insidious influence of the
lascivious hybrid uonian at the jM)int of weakest resistance. In
the uncompromisinj^ opp>osition of the white mother and wife of
the upper classes lay the one assurance of the future purity of
the race.

The indecent remarks and jests that attended the sale
of female slaves constitute a sidelight on southern man-
hood quite in keeping with the wholesale profligacy
already more than hinted. Small wonder that boys
were carried away by the lasciviousness of the times!
Respectable young men lived in constant intercourse
with colored females. A clergyman who left the South
in consequence of slavery "believed there was scarcely
a young man in the South but what was more or less
contaminated with this sin." A large planter sent his
boys Nortli to be educated on the ground that they

Racial dissociation in the Old South 295

could not be brought up in decency at home; the evil
practice was universal. A traveller said: "Twice it
happened to come to my knowledge that the sons of a
planter, by whom I was lodged on this journey, lads of
fourteen or sixteen, who were supposed to have slept
in the same room with me, spent the night in the negro
cabins." A southern merchant visiting New ^'ork
said: "I have personal knowledge that there are but
two lads sixteen years old in our town (a small market
town of Alabama) who have not already had occasion
to resort to remedies for the penalty of licentiousness."
Space fails for the comprehensive citation of the
distressing record of the universal debauchery of
southern manhood. Such southern men as remained
pure must have been paragons of conscience and
strength. Often the greater number of the master's
children were born of the wives and daughters of his
slaves. "In slave states where the colored people are
few and the whites numerous, very few slave children
can claim persons of color for their fathers." The
reverend J. D. Long, a Maryland man, wrote in 1857:
If Joe Smith had been born and brouKht up in the Slave States,
he would never have thouj^ht of beinj; the founder of a sect.
Among the million of female chattels in the South, the supply
would have been equal to the demand. \'ou never hear of free-
love associations in the South. P'rom the very structure of
slave society there is no necessity for them. . Amalpama-

tion is increasing at a horrible rate throughout the slave state> ;
and will continue to increase while wealth and luxury prevail
in one class of the community, and degradation in the other.
There are many pure and virtuous men in the South, who are,
and who have been so, even from their childhood ; but
they labor under a temptation twofold greater than pi-rsons w ho
occupy the same s<K-ial position in the free states. It is admit-
ted, by truthful men in the South, that slavery is a .source of
unbounded licentiousness. It is with pain that I express

296 The Aniiruan Family

the conviction that one of the reasons why wicked men in the
South uphold slavery is the facility which it affords for a licen-
tious lite. Netjroes tell no tales in courts of law of the viola-
tion hy white men of colored females.

Olnistcii incntioiicil a sinall tarnur who had broken
up all vices aiiii had piactues anioiii!; Iiis slaves save
that "hahits ot ainalganiation I cannot stop." A Vir-
ginia planter using tree labor because of dislike for
slavery "did not think more than half [the slaves] were
tull-bloodeii .Africans. . The owners

felt a family attachment to their slaves. . ." A
South Carolina planter was asked why he stayed on
his plantation liuring the unhealthy season. Me re-
plied that half a dozen girls could no longer be trusted
without a husband and that lie thought it to liis in-
terest and that of the plantation that he should be the
first husband. A large planter said: "There is not a
likely-looking black girl in the state that is not the con-
cubine of a white man. There is not an old plantation
in which the grandchildren of the owner are not
whipped in the Held by the overseer." A Sabbath
school in Jackson after the war had in it many unrec-
ognizeil children of ''first citizens of Mississippi"-
children of governors, United States senators, congress-
men, members of the High Court of Errors and Ap-
peals, legislators, sheriffs, justices of the peace, doctors,
lawyers, ministers, merchants, planters, teachers, black-
smiths, carpenters, and general laborers attending to-
gether. .\ post-belluFTi legislature legitimized on the
father's petition six children bv various mothers, some
of them negro.

Kspccially notable was the situation, already men-
tioned, among the (]uadroons, particularly in Louis-
iana. Some of the boys were sent abroad, others were
placed on farms, «till others sold into slavery. The

Racial Association in the Old South 297

girls were brought up by their mothers for the career
of concubine. Free quadroons "elevated" themselves
by such prostitution to whites, especially if the men
had wealth or standing, whereas marriage to a colored
man would not even protect a woman. The transac-
tions preliminary to the matings were facilitated by
formal balls where white men met colored women;
when a man was smitten he could bargain with the
mother or with the girl. One traveller said of New
Orleans: "In some instances I was informed that
various families of daughters by the same father appear
at the quadroon ball on the very evenings when their
legitimate brother is present for the purpose of follow-
ing the example of his worthy papa." Quadroon con-
cubinage seems to have been normal usage in the cres-
cent city. Numerous men coming to New Orleans on
business adopted it as cheaper than boarding.

The quadroon girls entered upon their anomalous
function with a high degree of education in externals
and with a capacity for the performance of the duties
of wifehood, to which they attended "as becomes re-
spectable females;" for success in the role of mistress
was the only hold that women of this blood could lay
upon the means to the gratification of ambitious in-
terests. Even thus, their tenure was precarious. Ev-
ery woman believed that her partner would prove an
exception to the rule of abandonment (just as every
white lady liked to believe that her husband was im-
mune to quadroon allurements) but often the mistress
heard of her partner's marriage from the newspapers
or from a letter bestowing upon her the house and prop-
erty. Miss Martineau reported that "the quadroon la-
dies . rarelv or ever form a second
connexion. Many commit suicide; more die broken-
hearted." Of course a man's marriage did not neccs-

298 I III .1 nil til (in Fdtnily

sarily mean separation from his paramour. Some con-
nections grew into real marital attachment. Often af-
ter breaking with his wDinan in order to marry, the
man's attachment to her ct)ntinueii; sometimes on ac-
count of their nuiiiial affection he had to have her sold
away.

One can with ditllcultN appraise a civilization in
which such an institution was accepted, in which count-
less "respectable" men lived thus in stamlardized illicit
love to which societv was too supercilious to accord
legal recognition, and in which all the virtues of wo-
manhood were not sufficient to procure a career of re-
spectabilitv. It was a common boast of the South that
there was less vice in their cities than in those of the
North; New Orleans could even plume herself on su-
perior morality by reason "of the decent quietness of
the streets and theatres." There was room for the
ostrich policv M.uiy children of the shadowy unions
were sent to 1 ranee or the Xorth, were educated, and
won social standing where their lineage was unknown.
Many assumed the names of their white fathers. Such
ijuadroon men as remained in the South were likelv
to have to marry darker women.

There was in the South a considerable traffic in
women for prostitution. When asked the price of a
beautiful (]ua<iroon on sale at Alexandria, the dealers
said: "We ean't afford to sell the girl Emily for less
than eighteen hundrecl dollars. Wc have two or

three offers for luiiily from gentlemen from the South.
She is said to be the finest looking Wf)man in this coun-
try." (.\ woman of thirtv who had borne five chil-
dren was selling for si.\ huntlred and fiftv dollars.)
Large numbers of mulatto girls were carried to the
cities and <;nl(| nf ermrmou': prices into private prostitu-

Racial Association in the Old South 299

tion. A New Hampshire gentleman in Louisiana took
a quadroon mistress, amiable and well educated, and
lived happily with her for twenty years. Tho she
warned him that she was not free, he neglected to see
to her manumission. When he died insolvent the cred-
itor reckoned his three daughters (pure white) among
the assets, and in spite of their uncle's willingness to
redeem them at the price of all his property (an e.\-
cessive valuation from the standpoint of their labor)
they were sold as prostitutes. "A Southern lady of
fair reputation for refinement and cultivation'' told
with naivete that "she had ... a very pretty mu-
latto girl, of whom she declared herself fond." A
young man fell in love with the girl. "She came to me
for protection," said the lady, "which I gave her."
The young man left but returned later saying that his
love for the girl was such that he could not live without
her. "I pitied the young man, so I sold the girl to
him for fifteen hundred dollars."

A planter had two beautiful daughters by a slave.
They were educated in P>ngland and introduced as his
daughters but he failed to emancipate them; so that on
his death they were snatched away by the creditors and
sold to a purchaser who was to reap his gain from their
prostitution.

The charms of concubinage accounted in large meas-
ure for the prevalence of bachelors in the South. A
book of Letters from the South and If^est (1824) noted
that it was very common for rich planters in Virginia to
remain bachelors. A work of iSqo referred to the sale
of mulatto girls "in the far South to the abandoned
white bachelors who abound in this country."

A Virginia slaveholder remarked that "the best blood
in Virginia flows in the veins of slaves. "W'S. even the

300 The .1 nuriidti I'dmilx

blood of a Jefferson." It was well known that a con-
siderable proportion ot jdlerson's slaves were his own
childrcMi. It ;inv dI ihciii made oil he would smile as
if to imply that he would not he very urgent in pursuit.
He beiiueathed freedom to five of his children and the
Assembly passed a law allowing them to remain in the
state.'"

So ingrained heeame the usage of miscegenation
that shame dwindled. .Men "of worth, politeness and
humanity" could listen with composure to their dinner
guests facetiously tracing the paternal features in the
faces of slave sons waiting at table. Mulatto offspring
constituted no harrier to high position in affairs or to
the societv of "virtuous women of the Hrst rank;" illicit
relations with black women were a part of the order of
the day and constituted a distinction for the women,
who might therehv improve their own position and in
negro eves elevate the social level of their ollspring.
Vet all over the slave states might be found outcast
mistresses working as field hands or domestics having
been sold by their fickle paramours. Ministers had not
much to sav about the regime of adultery; indeed Xoel
says: "If a pastor has offspring by a woman not his
wife, the church liismisses him if she is a white woman,
but if she is colored, it does not hinder his continuing
to be their shepherd." It was often asserted as an
advantage of slavery (for instance, by Chancellor Har-
per) that its facilities protected the chastity of white
women.

I-"anny Kemble cited a lady as saying "that, as far
as her observation went, the lower class of white men in
the South lived with colored women preciselv as they

'** Grimkc. Lettrrs to Catherine E. lieerher, lo; Marryat. Dinry in .Amer-
ica, vol. ii, io8; Abdy. Journal ni n Residence and Tour in the United Slates,
vol. iii, 232.

Racial Association in tlw OIJ South 301

would at the North with women of their own race.''
Ohnsted heard that poor whites associated constantly
in a licentious way with negroes.

Under the reign of degeneracy so far detailed it was
perfectly natural for men to sell their own flesh and
blood, or indeed to beget offspring for profit. A Geor-
gia congressman reared a fine family by a slave woman,
for years acknowledged them as his children, and per-
mitted them to call him "papa." Eventually they
were all sold at auction during his life. Parents placed
their own children under the whip of the overseer; men
were masters of their own brothers and sisters. Some
of the mixed offspring were well treated during the life
time of their fathers, but such leniency might only in-
crease the tragedy, as when girls tenderly reared, well
educated, and in ignorance of their servile status were
claimed by their father's heirs. Many slaveholders
abhorred the practices associated with race mixture.
Legislation had, indeed, to be passed in order to fore-
stall the normal operation of human feeling. In
North Carolina, most of the prosperous free negroes
were mulattoes, often liberated by their fathers. In
that state there also were frequent emancipations of
slave mistresses till the law of 1831 interposed a check.
Miss Martineau wrote:

A gentleman of the hitiliest character, a southern planter, ob-
served . . . that httle was known out of bounds, of the
reasons . . . emancipation was made so difficult.
The very general connexion of white gentlemen with their fe-
male slaves introduced a mulatto race whose numbers would
become dangerous, if the affections of their white parents were
permitted to render them free. . . There are persons who
weakly trust to the force of parental affection for putting an
end to slavery, when the amalgamation of the races shall have
gone so far as to involve a sufficient number! I actually heard
this from the lips of a clergyman in the South.

302 rill Anurican i'atmly

At Baton Rouge a man that wished to free his children
bv a mulatto woman complained of the hardship of
the law that prevented such emancipation unless the
freed persons were sent out of the state. If it had not
been for such legislation, many parents would doubtless
have provided for their children "from a sense of moral
duty" which Grund found operative even in cases
where "there was no tilial or parental affection visible."

Cases of tragedy occurred in marriages that unwit-
tingly crossed the race line. One man on discovering
that a beautiful Cuban girl, his father's ward whom he
had treated as an eijual, was a slave, managed to marry
her to a friend on whom he tlesired revenge. When
the husband leariied the truth he sold his wife to a
slave-dealer. In another instance, a wife was unable
to prove, when claimed by a slave-dealer, that she had
not negro blood; so in spite of her pleas her husband
abandoned her; she died heartbroken. A young man
happilv married to his mother's seamstress found pres-
ently that she was a slave. "Separation was thought so
much a matter of course that [the young man's gener-
osity was commended] because he had purchased her
freedom after the discovery and given her the means
of setting up as a dressmaker."

\N'hen a master left property to his children of color
their economic charm sometimes won them white
mates; thus the strain of African blood was ultimately
diluted and many white families in the South have to-
day traces of negro blood. One Louisiana vouth who
fell in love with a beautiful (and wealthy) quadroon so
light as to be scarcely distinguishable let some of her
blood into his veins in order to swear that he had negro
blood so that he could marry her legally. How po-
tent property is in spite of sentiment is illustrated in the

Racial Association in the Old South 303

case of a mulatto woman who died in South Carolina
in 1820. She had associated on terms of social equality
with her neighbors, though many people refused to as-
sociate with her. This was a case of "compromise of
feeling for interest," for her moral character was not
above suspicion, but she had property to dispose of by
will. Her brother was excluded from the white so-
ciety of his sister. One man hired a young Northern-
er to marry his beautiful quadroon daughter, well edu-
cated and accomplishcd-gave him a large sum.
Money would not always serve, however. A Scotch
resident of Virginia married a mulatto and reared a
family of children whom strangers would have taken
for white. Yet tho he gave them a liberal education
and left them large property no white families would
associate with them.

Southern sentiment could wink at miscegenation
but would not legitimize it. A heavy penalty was im-
posed on mixed marriages. Great resentment was
aroused by the appearance of tracts advocating mis-
cegenation as a solution of the race problem. Croly's
Miscegenation which appeared during the War was
endorsed by prominent Northerners. It predicted that
the physically superior black would absorb the physi-
cally and morally inferior white and hailed this as a
consummation to be desired, and "committed [in
southern eyes] the one unforgivable blasphemy, that
against the purity of the southern women.'' A planter
who sold all his property and moved to Maine taking
a young quadroon woman whom he intended to marry
was thought by a crowd discussing the matter to de-
serve lynching.

Loyal Southerners were prone to compare their sys-
tem with that of the North to the disadvantage of the

304 Till' .Imiruciti Idtmly

latter. One rtntls a recurrent debate. Candler's Sum-
itiar\ ricu of Anurua niaiiitains that "in the nortliern
states . . tlic seduction ot a colored girl is as rare

as that of a wliite, ami prostitution in general is less
conspicuous tiuui in sonic parts ot Maryland and Vir-
ginia." Chancellor Walworth of New York said he
believeel there were not nortli of the Potomac half a
dozen virtuous uonien who would willingly allow their
children tt) niarry colored persons. A New York news-
paper bitterly attacked a Mr. May of Connecticut for
saying that he saw no impropriety in intermarriage. A
negro of Boston wrote a pamphlet speaking in scorn
and contempt of the negro that would marry a white
woman; but an Ohio justice married four white men
to colored women one winter; a physician in Cincinnati
marrieil a negress. Elliott wrote in 1850: "In the
free states there is very little mixture of color. The
colored people principally marry among themselves."
The reverend j. D. Long speaking of the contention
that the white women of the S(juth were more chaste
than the same class in the North said:

This I deny. TIk- poor white \i\r\ at the South h.xs no more
protection against the rich seducer than the poor ^\r\ at the
North. She has not the same chance, enjoyed by the latter, of
Rcttinjj an honest living. The licentiousness produced by slavery
is a clear addition to be set down to a sum-total of wickedness
in the slave States which of itself fully equals that e.xisting in
the free States.

()lnisied found it asserted bv people who had lived
both North and South

That although the facilities for licentiousness are much greater
at the South, the evil of licentiousness is much greater at the
North. Not because the average standard of "respectable posi-
tion" requires a less expenditure at the South, for the contrary
is the case. But it is said licentiousness at the North is far

Racial Association in the Old South 305

more captivating, irresistible and ruinous. . . Its very in-
trigues, cloaks, hazards, and exp>enses, instead of repressing the
passions of young men, exasperate them, and increase its degrad-
ing efifect upon their character, producing hypocrisy, interfering
with high ambitions, destroying selt-respcct, causing the worst
possible results to their health, and giving them habits .
inimical to future domestic contentment and virtue. Possibly
there is some ground for this assertion with regard to young
men in towns, though in rural lite the advantage of the North,
I believe, is incomparable.

On the other hand we find in Dabncy's Defence of Vir-
ginia the amusing assertion that southern society "has
never engendered any of those loathsome issues, which
northern soil breeds, as rankly as the slime of Egypt
its spawn of frogs" -the Mormons, communists, free
lovers, etc.

Southerners maintained heatedly that at all events
the virtue of southern women was unspotted. Doubt-
less their contention was largely warranted but it could
not be maintained absolutely. Neilson, who spent six
years in the United States prior to 1830, wrote:

Although many white men evince a wonderful inclination for
black women, I never could . . learn of but one instance,

wherein a white woman was captivated by a Negro, and this
was said to have taken place in Virginia ; a planter's daughter
having fallen in love with one of her father's slaves, had actually
seduced him ; the result . . . was the sudden mysterious
disappearance of the young lady.

In North Carolina there was a pretty well authenti-
cated story of a white woman who drank some of her
negro's blood in order to swear she had negro blood
in her and marry him. They reared a family. The
reverend Mr. Rankin who was in Kentucky prior to
1835 said: "I could refer you to several instances of
slaves actually seducing the daughters of their masters!
Such seductions sometimes happen even in the most

306 riw .Ifucrii an bamily

respectable slave-holdinji; families." Pickett's His-
tory of Alahinna is, however, probably warranted in its
generalization that the white women even to the low-
est in social position inaintaineil racial purity. Ben-
well's insinuation that perhaps the ladies are not im-
maculate "as may be interred from the occasional quad-
roon aspect of their progeny" may be a mistaken infer-
ence reallv due to strains of ne^ro blood in white fam-
ilies. A Southerner remarked, however: "It is im-
possible that we should not always have a class of free
colored people, because of the fundamental law, par-
tus sequitur I'rntrtin. There must always be women
among the lower class of whites, so poor that their
favors can be purchased by slaves." The Richmond
Enquirer of iHqq contains the news of a woman's win-
ninu[ freedom for herself and five children by proving
that her mother was a white woman. '■^* Lyell said:
"I here are scarcely any instances of mulattoes born of
a black father and a white mother." One of Olmsted's
informants said that while white men sometimes marry
a rich colored girl he never knew a colored man to
marry a white girl. Olmsted subsequently heard of
one such case.

It is pretty clear that the crime of rape of white
women by negroes was not, as some assert, initiated by
the suggestions of ^'ankee soldiers. As early as 18 13
occurs the news that a woman near Richmond has
killed a negro that wanted to ravish her while her hus-
band was away in the army. Even earlier a negro in
North Carolina was burned for rape of his master's
daughter. She had previously received improper lan-

>*♦ NciUun. Rffollrctions of a Six Yrars' Residencr in the United Slates of
America, 297; B.i<i>(ctf. Slavery in the State of North Carolina, 43; Abdy.
Journal of a Residence and Tour in the United States, vol. iii, 29; Olmsted.
Journey in the Seahoard Slave States, 509.

Racial Association in the Old South 307

guage from him but had not reported him for fear of
the dreadful punishment her father would give him.
One slave made attempts on the chastity of white wo-
men and had been heard to boast "that he never would
cohabit with those of his own color, if he could, by any
means, possess a white woman." The owner had him
castrated and informed as to the reason. Three months
later the negro said: "Tank ye, massa doctor, you did
me much great good; white or blackie woman, 1 care
not for." In 1822 negroes at Charleston had a plot
to kill all white men and black women, reserving the
choice young w^hite ladies for themselves. They had
lists containing names of many of the most accom-
plished young ladies. A coachman had his master's
daughter designed as his wife. The New Orleans Bee
of 1842 mentions a horrible outrage "by a negro on the
person of a young orphan girl, fourteen years old. She
was seized by the [negro] while paying a visit to one
of her relations, dragged into the woods, beaten most
unmercifully, and then treated -in the most infamous
manner." In 1854 ^^ Missouri a slave condemned for
raping a white girl was pardoned."^

Rape was practically unknown in war days when
negroes were left as guardians of white women and
children. If early laws against it indicate anything
more than the white man's fear, the evil tendency must
have been largely eliminated. It probably was a
source of less distress to white women than was their
male relatives' proclivity for miscegenation.^" Mixed

^'•^•' Nilfs' H'erkly Retrister, vol. v, 279; Janson. Slrangrr in Amrrica, 379-
380; Neilson. Recollections of a six years Resilience in the United States of
America, 295; Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vol. ii,
121; Trexler. Slavery in Missouri, 89.

'^"Abdy. Journal of a Residence and Tour in the United States, vol. ii,
93-94; American Anti-Slavrry Society. American Sla<i'ery as it is, i6; Elliott.
Sinfulness of American Slavery, vol. i, 152, 154, vol. ii, 69; Lycll. Second

3o8 The A nut ic (in lunnily

offspring: of white lust became a "source of jealousy to
the lawtul wile, ami ot shame ami vexation to legiti-
;iiate children." Southern women felt intensely on
the subject. A sister of President Madison said: "We
southern ladies are complimented with the name of
wives; but we are only tiie mistresses of seraglios." A
Virginia woman wrote deploring amalgamation as the
one great evil in the South:

The white niuthiTs ami dau^ihters of the South have suffered
under it tor years - have seen their dearest affections trampled
upon - their hopes of domestic happiness destroyed, and their
future lives embittered, even to agony, by those who should be
all in all to them, as husband, sons, and brothers. 1 cannot use
too stron^J lanpuage in reference to this subject.

One planter's wife declared in the bitterness of her
heart that a planter's wife was only "the chief slave of
the harem"

Lyell's Travels in the United States records that "the
anxiety of parents for their sons, and a constant fear of
their lieentious intercourse with slaves is painfully
great. Here it is accompanied with a publicity

which is keenly felt as a disgrace by the more refined
t)f the white women." A Methodist clergyman long a
pastor in Kentucky and Tennessee talked with a lady
in low a formerly of Kentucky. She lamented the
lack of domestics in Iowa.

The preacher remarked to her that times had very much
chanjjed in Kentucky since they left there - now over twenty
years ago -that in consequence of "illicit" connections of white
husbands with the slaves, the lives of the slaveholders' wives
were embittered; and confusion reij^ned in the families.

yiiit to the I'nxtfA States, vol. i, 271; Tower. Slavery unmasked, 322-323;
Brnwell. F.nf^lishman's Travels in America, 95, 204-205; Olmsted. Cotton
KinifJom, vol. i, 307-308; American Anti-Slavery Society. T<ujrnty-srventh
.Iniual Report, 31, 34-35; Suhiiued Southern Nobility, 16; Noel. Freedom and
Slavery in the United States, 88; MorRan. Yazoo, 320; Dubois. Negro Amer-
ican Family, 25.

Racial Association in the Old South 309

The lady could hardly credit the narrative. [On a visit to
Kentucky she made inquiry and found it true.] She joyously
thanked God for her deliverance from the domestic evils of
slavery, and very contentedly bore the inconveniences of her
situation in a new free state.

The jealousy of white women was sometimes visited
on their dusky rivals. One mistress, out of unground-
ed jealousy, had slaves hold a negro girl down while
she cut off the forepart of the victim's feet. The girl
was then thrown into the woods to perish. A man
saved her and her master freed her in order to get her
away from the resentment of his wife who did her best
to get the poor creature into her power again. An
English traveller reported that it was by no means un-
common for men

To inflict chastisement on negresses with whom they are in
habitual illicit intercourse, and I was credibly informed that
this cruelty was often resorted to, to disabuse the mind of a de-
ceived and injured wife who suspects [her husband]. I appre-
hend . . . that they are [influenced to cruelty by their
wives] who are notoriously jealous of their sable rivals.

A negress condemned to death in Alabama for the
murder of her child said that her owner was the father
and that her mistress, aware of the fact, treated the
little one so cruelly that she had killed it in order to
save it from further suffering and also in order to re-
move a provocation to ill treatment of herself. A con-
gressman who had a child by a mulatto woman not be-
longing to him would have bought the chiUl, he said,
were it not for his wife. The little girl ''is the innocent
proof of his own faithlessness to solemn vows, and must
be removed to a safe distance." In one instance a
planter came home and patted a beautiful mulatto wo-
man under the chin. His wife rushed down, caught
the woman by the hair, anci punimeleci her face. Then

3IO The Amcriiati Family

the slave-holder was summoned and the husband had
to sell the \vt)man.

A New ( )rleans hnwer, a native of New York, had
as mistress tor seven years a beautiful mulatto girl
while courting an accomplished young lady. When
he married, his new mistress required him to discard
her black colleague and the girl became a maniac. A
man wlio by many years' slave-trading from Virginia
to Mississippi and Louisiana had made enough money
for good social staniling decided to marry. He had
for years kept a beautiful mulatto woman in a richly
furnished house with servants to wait on her and her
babies rocked in a mahogany craille; she believing that
they were all free and would inherit their father's
wealth. One dark night they were surprised in their
slumbers, gagged, put aboard a steamboat, carried to
New Orleans and sold. The bride knew all this.

The fact that Southern women endured the personal
affront thrust upon them by the slave system and did
not rise in mass opposition is perhaps the best con-
demnation of the institution. Thus an English gentle-
man at Charleston said: "Few girls would refuse a
man who possessed a goodly number of slaves, though
they were sure his affections would be shared by the
best-looking of the females . . and his conduct

towards the remainder that of a very demon." A trav-
eller remarked:

These .';cntimcnrs I vcr>' soon ascertained to be in no way libel-
lous. A Southern wife, if she is pro<lip:ally furnished with dol-
lars to "fjo shopping." apparently considers it no drawback to
her happiness if some brilliant mulatto or quadroon woman en-
snares her husband. Of course there are exceptions, but the
patriarchal usage is so engrafted in society there, that it elicits
little or no comment.

But how could women raise effective opposition in view
of their utter economic dependence?

XIII. THE WHITE FAMILY IN THE OLD

SOUTH

Courtship, among the southern aristocrats was remi-
niscent of the age of chivalric gallantry. Schoepf said
of the Virginia youth:

At fifteen, his father j2;ives him a horse and a neg;ro, with which
he riots about the country, attending every fox hunt, horse-
race, and cock-fight, and does nothing else whatever; a wife is
his next and only care.

Thomas Nelson Page says that white "men were lovers
almost from their boyhood."

The maidens in whom their interest centered were
exquisite products of the class-system-"languid, deli-
cate, saucy; now imperious, now willing; always be-
witching," says Page of the girls of ante-bellum Vir-
ginia. The girl of his idealizations grew up apart
from the great world yet was not provincial. As a
child she was self-possessed and able to entertain her
mother's callers in proper fashion. She began to have
beaux in girlhood and exacted a protracted devotion of
her lovers. Her chief attraction was not her beauty,
though that was often dazzling, but an indefinable com-
posite of many attractions. Living in an atmosphere
created for her, "she was indeed a strange creature,
that delicate, dainty, mischievous, tender. God-fearing,
inexplicable southern girl" with her deep foundation
of "innate virtue, piety and womanliness." Hodgson
wrote from Charleston, 1820, of the patrician damsels
as "delicate, refined, and intelligent, rather distant and
reserved to strangers, but frank and affable to those

The Amtrican Family

who are familiarly introduced to them by their fathers
and brothers."

Girls ucrc kept and cherished in ri^ht romantic fash-
ion. Ivxirerne rnodcstv was assiiluously cultivated; self-
hel[i was not expected. John I'\ Watson, who arrived
in \ew Orleans in 1804. said of that region:

(fcntlrmcn cannot visit vouhk ladies often unlrss they declare
themselves as intended suitors. . ^'oun^J ladies do not dare

to ride out or appear abroad with younj; jientlenien.
(jirU are never forward or j^rrulous in conversation ; they are
all retired and mcnlest in their deportment, and very mild and
amiable. I have never seen a presumptuous, talkative rattle-
cap or ho>den here. The ladies seldom appear abroad before
the evening; then they sit at their dix>rs or walk on the levee.

A woman recalling her girlhood of 1840 in New Or-
leans says:

It wxs not cornmr il faut tor a young lady to be seen too fre-
quently on the street or to make calls alone. . . The miscel-
laneous education we ),Mrls of seventy years aj;o in New Orleans
had access to culminated by fittinjj us for housewives and
motlKTs, instead of writers and platform speakers, dcxrtors and
lawyers - sufiFragettes.

Another writer says:

No set (»f ixirls in Christendom w ere watched w ith more vij^ilant
eyes ... in all ways more surely girdled about, as W'ith
a wall »»t hre, from the sensual temptations of society, at home
and elsewhere, than the Southern young women of the more fa-
vored sort in these early days.

\N'e of to-day shouKl consider that surveillance and
custody went to extremes. In ante-bellum Washing-
ton the chaperon was omnipresent. Gifts from young
men were restricted.

As for a bugg>' alone, perish tlu* thouulit! Nor was it consid-
ered at all the thing for the escort to furnish the conveyance to
a ball. If the family coach wxs non-existent, the harmless,
necessary hack was provided by the mother of his belle, while
he sought her shrine on foot, or in the horse-car.

The IF /lite Family in the Old South 313

A northern governess remarked on the fact that

In the North the young lady is left alone with her beaux and
pa and ma retire. In the South it is deemed indecorous for
them to be left alone . . . and the mother or some mem-
ber of the family is always in the room ; and if none of these,
a female slave is seated on the rug at the door. . . "^'oung
girls are^kept in very strict bounds by mammas in this respect ;
and I was told by a married gentleman, a few days since, that
his wife never took his arm till she took it to be led to church
on her wedding day; and that he never had an opportunity of
kissing her but twice while he was addressing her (they were
si.x months engaged!) and in both cases by means of a strata-
gem he resorted to of drugging a peach with laudanum which
he gave to the attending servant, and thereby put her into a
sound sleep. ^^^

Flirtation was in order. The Letters from rinrinin
refer to a Virginia coquette who drove poor wit^hts
crazy. Page says that the Virginia girl was generally
a coquette, often an (jutrageous flirt, not from heartless-
ness but as a normal expression of her life. "She
played upon every chord of the heart. Perhaps it was
because, when she grew up, the surrender was to be
absolute." It was said that the worst flirts made the
most devoted wives. We find, moreover, an early com-
plaint from the Alabaman that woman is often doomed
by man's inconstancy to a desohate life.

There were runaway matches. Greensboro, North
Carolina, served as a Gretna Green for Virginians.
Excessive restriction upon sex acquaintance furthered
such clandestine matches. "The lover is piqued and
begins to regard the whole matter as a fair field tor
strategy." The girl's mother is an enemy to be circum-
vented. Thinking the same, the daughter flees with
her sweetheart.

"'' Mayo. Soutlifrn H'omrn in the rrrent F.Jurdlionnl Movrmertt in tftf
South, 46; Dc Leon. BrlUs, llniux, and Hrains of the Sixties, 136-137; In-
graham. Sunny South, 224-225.

314 Tilt' .1 nitttnin Fininl\

In other cases, circumstances resulted in diffidence
or relative coolness in the ways of love. Buckingham
in his Slave Stati-s of .Itticrica said:

We never knew or even heard, thus far at least of any romantic
attachment, accompanieil by acts of such self-devotion as is
often seen in England : and neither in the social intercourse
which we have enjoyed anionic; the young, nor in the domestic
conversations of the middle-aged, have we ever witnessed that
ardent attachment, and reciprocal sacrifice of all selfish consider-
ations, which characterize the communion of passionate lovers
everywhere else. All is decorous, orderly, and irreproachable :
but everything is also formal, indifferent, and cold. . Hoth

physical and mental causes may contribute. . The youth

of America have not that vigorous and robust health, and that
full How of blood, which characterize the youth of England,
and which forms a large element in the capacity to feel intense
and passionate love. [They have less leisure for courtsliip.]
When they meet the other sex it is either at a public dinner
table, w ith fifty or a hundred other guests, where none remain
more than a quarter of an hour, and where there is no time for
conversation; or at balls and crowded parties, where the oppor-
tunities of indulging an interchange of sentiment and feeling
are too broken and interrupted, to feed the passions of fervent
feeling, or to suit the gravity of sentimental love. Social even-
ing visits, without invitation or preparation, are rare indeed in
any part of America; and to morning visits to ladies, gentlemen
are rarely admitted. [They rarely sing together.]

In South Carolina about 1815 a young lawyer pro-
posed at a wedding a marriage scheme. He asked each
young man and woman to write his or her name on a
slip of paper with the name of the person preferred as
spouse, reciprocal choices to be made known to the pair,
other preferences to be kept secret. There were twelve
reciprocal choices and eleven weddings followed soon.
Eight of the eleven men said they were so diffident that
"they certainly would not have addressed their respec-
tive wives if the above scheme had not been intro-
duced."

The White Family in the Old South 315

The reverend J. D. Long wrote that courtship and
marriage were especially important and exciting ques-
tions in the slave states.

Among a sparse population, where there are comparatively few-
social topics to enlist attention, many long winter eveninjjs and
summer days are spent in discussing the minutest incidents of a
courtship. If a marriage is to come off, the bride's lace or her
nightcap is a subject of criticism. Colored people take a deep
interest in the marriage of their owners. Courtships are fre-
quently conducted through them. They carry the mail and the
letters are not always sealed. Many a young man has borne
ofT a beautiful and wealthy bride, in spite of opposition from rel-
atives, through the good offices of Uncle Toby and Aunt Dinah.
Many a man has lost a fair lady by incurring the displeasure of
servants. Reader, did you ever hear the servants in the kitchen
criticizing Miss Julia's beau? One mimics his voice; another
his language. Bill shows how he walks. Aunt Sucky, in
tracing his genealogy, relates how his grandfather killed a ne-
gro, and how his father sold one to Georgia, If Miss Julia gets
him, Tom expects to be sold to the Georgia trader.
Uncle Lester says that Mr. Willard's slave girl, Nell, is his
half-sister and that he is too intimate with Mr. Sturgeon's yel-
low girl, and hopes Miss Julia won't have him.

Especially was the old mammy often a great aid to the
young folks during courtship.'''^

It might have been supposed that southern girls edu-
cated in the North would have a great influence over
their young men but, said an observer at Charleston in
the thirties,

They are brought out before either their judgment or knowl-
edge of the world arc sufficiently matured to make them aware
of the existence of certain abuses or of their own power of re-
forming them. Then again, marrying very young, they com-
monly quit society, in a great measure, at the moment the influ-
ence of their example might Ix* of the greatest service to it.

Marriage occurred at a suflicicntly early age. ^^''hcn
the daughter of the old southern household came home

^''''LonK. Picfures of Slavery, 269; McDon.iId. I.ifr in Ohi I'irginla, 93.

i}i6 riw .hiiiruiiti htumly

from school, after a short run in society she ahiiost al-
ways "succunihcd to the coininon fate of an early mar-
riage and joiiieii the procession ot haril-working, heavy-
laden wives aiui mothers who were the heart and soul
of her dear Southland." Old maids were rare. Kv-
cry girl, so to speak, married. Strange combinations
occurred. TIr- Savannah I.tt</iis' Magazine of iSig,
for instance, reported the marriage of a man of seventy-
five to a girl of twelve, the liaughter of his former wife.
At the same time the girl's brother married the old
mans ilaughter. Also a man of seventv-four had mar-
ried a girl of eighteen. In a lami where marriage was
woman's one career, no wonder that women sometimes
sought to make the most of it.

in New Orleans in the fifties "onlv Catholics went
to the sanctuarv for a wedding ceremonv. Protestant
weddings were . . . confincil to familv and near-
est friends." Wdgar notorietv was not sought nor were
wedding presents made. Page says of Old Virginia:
"There were no long journeys for the young married
folks in those times; the travelling was usually done
before marriage. \\'hen a wedding took place, how-
ever, the entire neighborhood entertaineil the young
people."

Southerners have alwavs been proud of the status of
women under the old system. She Hgures as the soul
and grace of old southern life. Ihe reverend Dr.
Ross of Alabama spoke before the Presbyterian (jcn-
eral Assembly at lUiftalo in iH:;^ congratulating the
South on its freedom from bloomer girls, women's
rights conventions, and tlie like. "Oh. sir," he de-
claimed, "if slavery tends in any way to give the honor
of chivalrv to southern young gentlemen toward ladies,
and the e.\(]uisite delicacy and heavenly integrity and
love to southern maid and matron, it has then a gh)ri-

The White Family in the Old South 317

ous blessing with its curse." Chancellor Harper said:
"It is related as a matter of tradition, not unmingled
with wonder, that a Carolinian woman of education
and family proved false to her conjugal faith."

But it is particularly in the romanticism of the new
southern literature that the woman of the old South
shines as queen and saint, a being of rare social gifts
and sensibility to exalted sentiments and embodying in
her person the quintessence of all that was lovely in the
civilization of an effulgent people. Modesty, refine-
ment, and sweet gentility grace the memories of her
that linger in the thoughts of her children. Her
"highest ambition was to be president of home."

To some extent the status and functions of the middle
and upper class women of the old South merited the
encomiums that are bestowed. The southern women
of the middle class were modest, virtuous, industrious
housekeepers, devoted wives and mothers. They were
frequently gullible, knowing little of the world, and
aloof from public diversions. Having to look after
the wants of the few slaves -the making of their gar-
ments and the like -the labors of these ladies were
onerous. They lived "only to make home happy."

In general there could be no complaint of lack of
domesticity in southern wives. Marriages prefaced a
life-time of self-devotion; sprightly girls became so-
ber, retired wives, bent on making home a man's de-
light, and devoted to family welfare; their husbands'
relatives and connections became their own. The mar-
ried woman was not a figure in societv; romance is built
about the young girl; the social functions of the little
cities consisted chiefly of balls and dances that brought
the young of the two sexes together. After marriage
women lived in plantation isolation; onlv the few that
maintained town houses and spent part of the year in

3l8 Thi- .Inurudti ianiily

Richmond. Charleston, or New Orleans retained their
social connections "anil tor them a staid and modified
social lite was deemed littin^;. I'Or them the dance
was over." De Leon says that in Richmond

The male clement at all functions ranj,'ecl from the passe hcau
to the boy with the down still on his cheek; ancient husbands
and young bachelors alike had the open sesame! But if a mar-
ried woman, however youn^ in years of wifehood, passed the
forbidden limits by intent or chance . . . she was prompt-
ly and severely maile to feel that the sphere of the mated was
pantry or nursery, not the ballroom.

The matron of old Virginia became timid and depend-
ent as her daughters came on and found new ways;
yet wheFi need was she could assert her deeper wisdom
and ovcrtower them all.

Dr. (k'orge Bagby who visited in Virginia families
before the War said of the Virginia mother:

Her delicacy, tenderness, freshness, gentleness; the absolute
purity of her life and th()u;,'ht, typeficd in the spotless neatness
of her apparel and her every surrounding, it is quite impossible
to convey. Withal, there was about her a naivete mingled
• with sadness, that gave her a surpassing charm.

It is easy to fancy the women of the southern aris-
tocracy as pampered idlers; hut this conception is in
need of grave (jualification. A northern governess of
ante-bellum days wrote: "The southern girls . .

never do anything themselves, being always attended by
a shadow of a little negress or an ancient mammy;"
and it is true that girls "were, generally in the towns
and invariably in the slave crowded plantations, scarce-
ly permitted to lace their own slippers or stays." But
Mrs. Ravenel in her work on Charleston says of the old
South:

(lirls were carefully brought up. .Mothers studied Mrs.
Montague's and Mrs. Morc's books on female training. So

I

The White Family in the Old South 319

the girls became good housekeepers and good managers - mis-
tresses of many servants; generally mothers of many children.

In Ramsay's ///j/or;' of South CaroHiui occurs the state-
ment

The women are generally well educated. . . The name of
the family always depends on the sons; but its respectability,
comfort, and domestic happiness, often on the daughters,
[Their youthful] vivacity is in general so well tempered by
sweetness of disposition, and discretion, as leaves little room
for anxiety to parents. . . No pursuit of pleasure interferes
with duty to a father, or affectionate attention to a brother ; so
that the happiness as well as cheerfulness of a family is in-
creased in proportion to the number of daughters. . . Nor
are there wanting examples of those who, remaining single,
perform admirably well the duties of daughters, sisters and
friends, and have been eminently useful in assisting to train up
and educate their younger connexions.

The Letters from the South and JVest reported that
"the matrons, in the upper classes, are industrious, affa-
ble, and accomplished in a high degree." Perhaps the
southern lady contributed less in labor (at least in
manual labor) to the maintenance of the household
than women of like rank elsewhere; but the mistress
of many slaves needed to be competent in strenuous
supervision and the crudities of servile labor left many
a burden for the lady.

Mrs. Ripley's recollections of New Orleans in the
forties record :

Though we had ever so many servants, our family being a large
one, my semi-invalid mother, who rarely left her home ant!
never made visits, did a thousand little household duties that
are now, even in families where only one or two servants are
kept, entirely ignored by the ladies of the house. . . Ever)-
woman had to sew.

The duties of a plantation mistress were often truly
formidable. Many a plantation was a crude indus-

'?20 7 //«■ .hriit'iidn taniily

trial plant comparable as to household comfort with a
mining canip. On sucli estates many a lady lived. It
slavery released ilic Iad\ lioin nuiiuial ilrudi^ciy. it
overworked her in other ways; she was typically de-
ficient in viialilv. otten nervous and sensitive, yet she
often had to contend with an aggravated form of the
servant problem, for slaveholders did not always man-
age to get rid of trving ami unprofitable servants. Ex-
cept perhaps a butler and a head housemaid the help
was often idle, incompetent, and in need of constant
supervision. Olmsted wrote of Virginia:

Really well-trained, accompiislu-d. and docile house servants
arc seldom to be purchased or hired at the South, though they
are found in old wealthy families rather oftener than first rate
Knu'lish or French servants are at the North. [One must
pay] to get a certain amount of work done, three or four times
as much, to the owner of the best sort of hired slaves, as they
do to the commonest, stupidest Irish domestic drudges at the
North, though the nominal wages . . . are but little more
than in New ^'ork. The number of servants

in a Southern family of ;iny pretension, always amazes a North-
ern lady. Id one that I have visited, tiuTf are exactly three
[house] negroes to each white.
A southern ladv of an old and wealthy family visit-
ing in New '^'ork said: "Your two servants accom-
plish a great deal more, and do their work a great deal
better than our twelve."

Kvery household operation had to be under scrutiny.
Hvery consumable thing had to be kept locked up,
hence the mistress carried a huge bunch of keys and
doled out "on incessant requests" whatever was wanted
for the household. Continuallv she was being called
upon to attend to some want of one of her many de-
pendents. The plantation nurse brought a list of the
sick and the serious cases had to be visited. The wagons
came with the carcass of a beef or sheep and the mis-

The ir/iite Family in t/w OU South 321

tress saw to the cutting up. The makers of garments
had to receive attention and "it often fell to her lot to
go down on her knees on the floor and cut out garments
for hours at a time." A scared motlicr would ask her
to "just run up to de cjuarter to sec little \ancy who
is fall into a ht;" or perhaps a man and wife had de-
cided to part and a lesson in ethics had to be instilled.

The sovereignty alhnted to the matron by the divi-
sion of jurisdiction between her and the master was
real enough, but it was a realm of contrasts. Wailed
on at everv turn, "unhabituated often even to putting
on her dainty slippers or combing her soft hair she
possessed a reserve force which was astounding." Miss
Martineau declared:

Some few of these ladies are among the strongcst-mindcd and
most remarkable women I have ever known. [The barbarous
society over which they rule demands strength. At the other
extreme are] perhaps the weakest women I have anywhere
seen - selfishly timid, humbly dependent, languid in body and
with minds of no reach at all.

Underwood says in his IVouun of the Conftilcracy that

The busiest women the world has ever seen were the wives
and daughters of the Southern planters during the days of
slavery. . : It is no wonder that a Cieorgia woman, when
she heard the negroes were really free, gave a sigh of relief and
exclaimed: "Thank heaven! I shall have to work for them
no more!"

She was but one of the southern ladies that exultcil in
their own emancipation.

The sterling quality of the women of the South was
manifested in times of emergency and stress (as will be
evidenced further in a stuily of war days). Revolu-
tionary women had borne like privation. Ramsay
said in his History of South ClnrolitKi ( i8()(^) :

When the war was ended and their husbantls and fathers were
by its ravages reduced in their circumstances, they aided b\

322

1 hi' .1 tutrtiiin Fiitmh'

their economy and retirement from the world to repair the
losses. . In Carolina, where sickness and health, poverty

and riches, frequently alternate in rapid succession, wives and
daughters hear incrrdihie fati^;ut*s and privations with exem-
plary tortitudr.

He tcstiticil ti) the cllkiciuv ot widows left with insol-
vent estates:

in such evtrcniitics the female character in Carolina has shone
with ptviiliar luster. Two ohvious and common resources are
open ... to kct-p a lodging- hou.se or open a school. In
these or .some other modi's of making a "living" widows en-
gage, and often with surprising success. . . By their ju-
dicious management, estates have been retrieved - families
reared - sons and daughters, know ing that their prospects of
paternal fortune are cut ofiP, arc educated strictly and early
taught to depend on their own exertions, . . Speculating,
intemperate, mismanaging husbands advance their families by
dying and leaving to their widows the sole management of their
embarrassed fortunes. In the lower grades of life, where there
are no fortunes to repair, the industry and economy of the wife
proiluces similar results eminently conducive to the advancement
of the common interest.

A chief indictment against the system of the South
is that it afTordcd no proper sphere for the largest use-
fulness of the potentialities of woman; in fact it is
probable that her opportunities progressively dietl
away as the chattel system plunged toward its fall.
There was no saving grace in serving as a pinnacle to
the precarious structure of slavery. Mrs. 1 loustoun in
lltspcrns remarks of New Orleans:

'Hie Frcfich Creole ladies arc remarkably indolent and arc apt
to grow extremely corpulent, when early youth is past: they
are ver>' slightly educated, and beyond the subject of dress, I
doubt their ideas extending with anything like distinctness.
Love-making sometimes occupies them violently for. a time, but
it requires tfx) much thought and exertion to b(? a very popular
amusement with them - "II parlc si bien toilette," seems to be
the highest praise they can bestow on a male acquaintance.

The White Family in the Old South 323

Benvvell noted that the Charleston ladies were inert.
Active women, he said, were seldom to he met with, the
wives of affluent men being in general like pampered
children and suffering dreadfully from ennui. Kspc-
cially astonishing is the news item from Fairfax Coun-
ty, Virginia, in 1834, where a young lady was lawfully
qualified as a selectman; a situation held hv her moth-
er for many years before her.'^"

The necessity of self-support rarely if ever befell the
woman of "good family." Brothers and other male
relatives never allowed such women to toil. A young
woman writes:

Before the war, self-support was the last resort with respectable
women in the South, and such a thou^^ht was never entertained
so lonK as there was any male relative to look to for support,
and men felt responsible for the support of even remote female
relatives. . . I have heard of instances where refined and
able-bodied women would allow themselves to be supported by
the charity of their friends rather than resort to work for self-
support - and this not because they had any reluctance to work,
but because charity seemed to them the more respectable.

The other course would compromise self and family.*"
Gallantry to w^oman was the gallantry of the harem.
Nowhere in the world were women shown more sur-
face respect than in the South, yet degradation of the
sex was obvious. Women of the oligarchy were ex-
empt from menial cares but licentious secrets (or dis-
closures) smothered wholesome comradeship and wo-
man became the chief ornament of the house or merely
its keeper. Miss Martincau wrote:

I have seen, with heart sorrow, the kind p<ilitencss, the gal-
lantry, so insufficient to the loving heart, with which the wives
of the South are treated by their husbands. I have seen the
horror of a woman's having to work the eagerness to

•s^A/an, March 8, 1834.

'♦"Tillett. Southern H'omanhood as affectrd by the H'nr, 13.

324 ^^''' Atncruiin lamily

ensure her unearned ease and rest; the deepest insult which can
be offered to an intellit^ent and conscientious woman.
One i;entleman who declares himself interested in the whole
subject, expresses his horror of the employment of women in
the northern states, for useful purpt>ses. He tolil me that the
same force of circumstances which, in the ret^ion he inhabits,
makes men independent, increases the deprtulence of women,
and will j^o on to increase it. ScxMety is there, he declared "al-
wa)"s advancing towards orientalism."

Softness, gentleness, and i;race disguised a chattel.
Ladies of the old South nii^ht stitch and make nuisic,
but even to teach sch(jol was to risk social standing.

An Hnglish farmer who visited America a little be-
fore Miss .Martincaus coniini; comments pointedly on
the appearance of divinity that sat upon woman in the
South. As alwavs under Parasitism, woman was cruel
to woman and ignorance aboundeil. Mxtreme proprie-
t\ in the presence of ladies was sufficient compensation
for infidelities. Here, if ever, the sable sisterhood of
shame were the vicarious guardians of the forma! pur-
ity of their more favorcii rivals.

It is scarcely necessary to say that southern chivalry
did nnt include within its purview the wretched women
of the "poor whites." Men that would almost jump
out of their boots to wait on a wealthy dame would
treat with contempt a poor woman. "These are the
men generally," says Long, "who contend that there
are no virtuous women in the world."'*'

It nui-^t not be supposed that the southern theory on
woman's sphere was essentially different from the phil-
osophy of the North. The following citation from the
North Carolina University Ma^^azinc of 1859- 1860
might well have appeared in the North:

[Woman's sphere is the household.] Wherever she is found

to have placed the bf)undaries of her position at defiance, and to

'♦• L.ong. Pictures of Slavery, 272.

The IVliite Family in t/w Old South 325

have made innovations upon the {^rounds of lordly man's estate,
she is divested of that halo of female beauty and conlidin^j love
that is the natural accompaniment to her proper sphere, and
presents a spectacle of horrid deformity and misshapen beau-
ty. . . She seems to have been created as a repository of
man's troubles, in w horn he is sure to find a sympathizing and
noble friend, who S(K)thes his harassed and weary mind, and in
turn leans upon his strong arm for protection, to be j^uarded
from the rude breath of adversity, and shielded from the demor-
alizing influence that a contact with the world is apt to gen-
erate. . . She should always be found occupying a position
of equality. . . Wherever she is found occupying a menial
position, and regarded as an inferior, barbarism and ignorance,
superstition and irreligion, is an invariable concomitant.

Unfortunately, fine words were of small advantage to
the essentially degraded womanhood that so universally
characterized the South."'

Angelina Grimke nobly assailed the perverted con-
ception of womanhood regnant in her day. She denied
the need of romantic chivalry and contended that hu-
man rights arc not founded on sex; what is right for
man to do is right for woman.

This regulation of duty by the mere circumstance of sex
has led to [a] multifarious train of evils. . . Man has been
converted into the warrior, and clothed with sternness, and
those other kindred qualities, which in common estimation be-
long to his character as a man; whilst woman has been taught
to lean upon an arm of flesh, to sit as a doll arrayed in "g»'J
and pearls and costly array," to be admired for her personal
charms, caressed and humored like a spoiled child, or converted
into a mere drudge to suit the convenience of her lord and
master. Thus have all the diversified relations of life been
filled with "confusions and every evil work." [Man is free to
he despotic, selfish, proud, arrogant, lustful, brutal. Woman
is reduced to the status of tool.]'*^

'*- An excellent treatment of "Tlie I..icly of i\\e Slave States" i* foiinJ io
Putnam, Thf LaJy, 282-323.

'*'* Grimke. Lrttrrs to ('iitfifrinr E. liffchrr, 107, 115-116.

326 The Anurii an Fatnily

Unfortunately there was not much chance for a pro-
gressive movement among southern women. A very
interesting Lad its' Magazine begun at Savannah in
1 8 19 was forced to suspend at the end of six months
for hick of patronage. The huiy of the archaic South
left little written record. As in the North, woman rc-
ceivetl no worthy education. An actor remarked in
1842 upon the rarity of daughters of the far South
among the vast number of women magazine writers.
Gentlemen of the old regime in the South would say,
"A woman's name should appear in print but twice -
when she marries and whtii she ilies.""* There was
no economic opportunity for women outsiile the home.
If there hail been, social status would have debarred
woman from acceptance of it. Miss Martineau found
that mantua-making was "almost the only employment
in which a uliite southern woman can earn a subsist-
ence." Abdy remarked upon the dishonor shown to
industry in Washington and the consequent danger to
female virtue in that center of gay idleness and prof-
ligacy.

In a blind way, southern ladies were intense in their
political sentiments. Politicians could count on un-
studied backing. A northern woman who spent hve
years in the South wrote: "The Tennessee ladies are
all politicians, I believe the most zealous to be found
anywhere, ami I have caught their spirit." The at-
mosphere that surrounded southern ladies adapted them
admirably to the blind loyalty so much in demand
among the followers of the standard-bearers of exploita-
tion.

The snuff-dipping propensities of ante-bellum ladies
seem incongruous with the famed gentility. The
practice was supposed to brighten the eyes and im-

'♦* Aviry. Dixie after the H'ar, 23 footnote.

The White Family in the Old South 327

prove the complexion of the young, hence rose (in
theory) above the level of mere self-indulgence. But
it was detrimental to health and character. Long said :
"It is blasting the health of many a young mother, while
a broken hearted husband stands by and can render no
relief. No wonder that Southern men are irritable,
passionate, and headstrong, if born of such mothers."
Other causes contributed to ill health. Long further
remarked :

I have no doubt that the white ladii's of the South have worse
health than any class of females in any enlij^htened nation.
It is the result of slavery, which exempts them from all labor
of a domestic character. . . It is considered a mark of Kd"
tility to be feeble, effeminate, dyspeptic, and nervous.
Some resort to acids to reduce their bulk, and thus ruin their
teeth, their breath, and their health. . . We . . . fear
that many bosoms that appear natural, are but cotton after
all. Southern ladies die early, and bequeath multitudes

of motherless children to step-mothers. It is no uncommon
thing to find men w ho have been married two, three, and four
times.

Even the chastity of the southern women (a monop-
olized excellence) was scarcely a virtue, but rather a
matter of course. Men sedulously shielded their fe-
male perquisites of white blood. A young lady of
South Carolina got a verdict of one thousand dollars
against a man (of moderate means) for imputation of
unchastity. Education and public opinion were strain-
ed to the preservation of the purity of free women,
or rather of such as belonged to the master race.
Somewhat of the spirit of the regnant male may be
glimpsed in the remark of a Natchez gentleman about
1808: "The ladies in general are extremely delicate,
which never fails to please, and excite the warmest sen-
sations in the beholder. . . Tho chaste as the virgin

328 1 he- ^hturu (in I'd mil \

cjucen before the Gordian knot is tied, yet indulgent as
tlu- C'vprian goddess for ever after."

\\ c iRcd not he surprised at unworthy traits in some
of the women of the South. They were the product
of six or seven generations ot an execrable economic
system and could not altogether escape its taint. If
women attended negro sales and were not always en-
tirely refined in their manipulations; if, as Miss Grimkc
reported, a woman that conducted daily family wor-
ship showed extreme brutality to slaves; if a Baltimore
lady "richly and fashionably dressed, and apparently
moving in the best society" derived her income from
the sale of children of negro women whose husbands
belonged to other masters there is no occasion for won-
derment. .Miss Martineau mentioned the case of a
young man full of the southern pride who married a
young lady who

Soon after her marriapc showed an imperious and cruel temper
towards her slaves. Her hushand gently remonstrated. She
did not mend. He warned her . . that, if she compelled

him to it, lie would deprive her of the power she misused.
Still she did not mend. He one day came and told her that he
had sold all his domestic slaves for their own sakes. It

rarely happens that free service can be hired ; and this proud
gentleman assists his wife's labors with his own hands.

A Virginian was quoted in 1853 as saying:

I must remark . . . that Southern ladies are not always
"amiable and domestic." Some . . . arc real viragos, and
make no more of giving a negro man nine-and-thirty with a
cowhide than they do of taking a chew of tobacco. Some of
them are indolent, fashionable, and fond of pleasure, and care-
less alike of husbands, children, or slaves.'*'

Almira Lincoln Phelps, a southern woman, after

'♦* NciUon. Recoltfctions of a six Yrars Res'uiencf in thr Vnitrd States,
aSj; American An»i-SIavePk- Societ>'. .Imrriran Sla^'fry as it is, 22; Mar-
tinrau. Sotirty in /Imrrira, vol. ii, 315; American and foreign Anti-Slavery
Society. Thirlrmth Annual Rr/>orl, 152.

The White Family in the Old South 329

telling of good housekeeping by New England ladies,
said :

Most of you young ladies from the Southern States are not
under the necessity of performing household labors. It would
be a mistaken kindness in you to do the labor and let the menials
live in idleness. But yet it is well for you to know what labor
is. . . No family can be well ordered or even comfortable,
where the care, as well as the labor, is thrown upon servants.

Housekeeping is more important, she said, than merely
ornamental living; accomplishments should be valued
chiefly as an aid to refinement and cheer of the domestic
circle, whereas most young ladies thought they were
means to gain admiration in society, that it is a waste
of time to practise them on their families.

In a young man's letter from Richmond a few vears
before the middle of the century was the assertion that
an alarming deterioration was affecting woman's ways.

I look upon these changes that are now occurring among the
young women of our cities in their language, habits, and man-
ners, as more important than cjuestions in government; for they
exist among those who rule and direct the men who carry out
the government. . . Woman can alter the dialect, change
the manners, dictate the dress and habits of life, anil control the
morals of every communits. . . \'oung ladies who have re-
ceived education in northern schools, or who have gone to
northern cities for the purpose of obtaining "an air" (airs, not
graces, are thus received) [have adopted plebeian prounciation.]

A mid-century writer on Richmond lamented that such
works as the Lady's Book are more popular than the
Southern Literary Mcsscn^rcr though thcv arc full of
garbage, sickly sentimentality, ami "romantic tales
adapted to the capacity and the unripe minds of boanl-
ing-school young ladies."'^"

Death and widowhood in the olil South complicated
the problem of keeping intact the family name ami

'*" Little. Rlilimond, 73-74, 84.

330 I he Atucru tin Idniily

dignin,'. Schocpf reported of Confederation days in

South Carolina that

Under this zone, the male sex is exposed to more and more
dan^jerous diseases than the female, or rather the men expose
theniselves to disease, because they permit themselves vastly
more extravagances of all sorts and j^ive a freer rein to their
passions. Men therefore die frequently in the bl(M)m of their
years and lea\e hehiml for others youn^' and rich widows.

In the tirst halt of tlie nineteenth century Tennessee
e.xpcrienccil. like \'irginia in colonial days, a belleship
of widows. In old eastern V^irginia it was not expected
that a widow would remarry and usually she did not.
It was almost a matter of course for a husband to make
enjoyment of the estate conditional on non-marriage;
the chief gospel was the preservation of family name
and these restrictions were not considered cruel.'*'

Conservatism retarded the introduction of divorce.
In New Orleans of the forties divorces were practically
unknown in polite circles. In some cases men sent err-
ing wives abroad and made them stay there. There
was no need of divorce in such a case, or of open scan-
dal.'*' South Carolina was already wedded to her
present conservatism. Hecke heard, indeed, in Mary-
land anil \'irginia that various men had deserted as
manv as four wives, many with four or five children,

I'^imily affection was a stront^ asset in the prosperous
circles of the South. The isolation of families con-
stituted each into a community bound together by clos-
est ties of affection, dependence, and interest. Every
economic and social force contributed to family soli-
darity. Joel C. Harris says:

The home life of the plantation was larger, ampler,

and more perfect than that which exists in the republic today,

'♦^ Wirntr. StuJifs in t/ir South and H'est, 23.
'♦•Ripley. Social Lift in old Srw OrUans, 91.

The White Family in the Old South 331

not because it was more leisurely and freer from care, but be-
cause the aims and purposes of the various members of the fam-
ily were more concentrated.

Home was the center of all life. In the sparsely peo-
pled rural districts public diversions of a commercial
sort did not exist to lure young folks away from paren-
tal supervision. Relations between parents and chil-
dren were ordinarily spontaneous and affectionate.
Dyer asserts that

It was this rural home of? to itself, fixing its own policies, and
directing its own activities, more than any other institution,
more than all other institutions, that gave to the South its dis-
tinctive type of civilization. . . Such life and influence can
never come from a city home.

Cook remarks that **the Kentucky children were taught
that character was everything . . . that home was
a sacred retreat, and that he who invaded its sacred
purity might expect death." Hale and Merritt in
their History of Tennessee recall that "the home was
a home in the best sense -a domestic center of absolute
family order and discipline, rather free from distract-
ing cares, and refined. The women were ladies in the
old high sense of the word." Aged Southerners still

Remember the genteclness, the industry, the kindness of rule
and deportment, that were general in planters' families before
the War; how they often breakfasted with the sun-rise, and
how they and their sons, in the day, laid out and superintended
work in the fields, and their wives and daughters did the like in
the house and the cabinyard, how the early evening was given
to reading and family discussion.

Religion had a profounil influence on southern fam-
ily life. The Scotch-Irish reared tlie family altar. The
house of worship, whether high church or low, was a
family institution in the South. Among the earlv set-
tlers of Kentucky, "whatever cnher books were wanting,

-^^2 The .huirii an Itnni/y

each faniilv had its Hihle. ami this being ahiiost tlie
onlv book in the hDUSchohl, it was highly prized, and
its lessons instilled iiitn the minds of the little ones,"
Michaux. however, who tia\elled in the West in 1S02,
sail! ot Kentucky :

Whenever tlu-rc is an alliaiuc In-twiH-n families, the ihffcreiKe
of reliRion is never considered as an obstacle; the hushaiui ami
wife pursue whatever kind of worship they like Ix-st, and their
children, when they urow up, do just the same, without the
interference of their parents.

In SO far as city life developed, the simplicity of the
familv life tended to disappear. At Richmond in i8(x:)
"the higher circle consisted of the families of the neigh-
boring planters, who left their estates to the manage-
ment of overseers, and spent the larger part of the year
in Riehnioiul because of its social advantages." At
New Orleans the perpetual shifting on account of fever
was a serious evil to sober families and very injurious
to the minils and habits of children. King says how-
ever of I'reneh New Orleans in ante-helluni days:
"There were no suninier trips then beyond the atmos-
phere of Louisiana, none of the periodical separations,
which, year after year . . . break through the
union of families and friends." But in New Orleans
even as earlv as iS;^i; there were bachelor apartments.
The first tendency of the spirit of Revolutionary
ilavs was to do away with artificial social distinctions.
Primogeniture was abolished in Virginia and Mary-
land; so that only by will could estates be maintained
intact (as was in fact done in some notable cases for the
sake of prestige). In Maryland, following the Revo-
lution there was an open contempt for anything savor-
ing of caste and nobilitv. "Coats of arms were de-
stroyed and even erased from family silver in some
cases, antl all evidences of pride of lineage frr)wned

The IV kite Family in tlw Old South 333

down by the American patriots and their descendants,
so that not to know one's grandmother was not rare." '*"'
After the Revolution, soil exhaustion in the older
states and competition in tobacco reduced (jld families
to poverty and oblivion. Jefferson made a pathetic
attempt to keep up the old hospitality; Mrs. Madison
received charily. As early as 1820 "the absence of the
privilege of primogeniture, and the consequent repeat-
ed subdivision of property are gradually effecting a
change in the structure of society in South Carolina,
and will shortly efface its most interesting and charac-
teristic features." By the early thirties at Charleston
abolition of primogeniture had undermined old fam-
ilies. "Comparatively few of the (jld families now re-
main who are wealthy. . . Therefore, the sons of
the best men of the South are wisely placed in counting-
houses in the great trading cities, or . . . bred U)
some useful calling." (But there were many showy
idlers.) The South Carolina planter no longer inher-
ited enough to send his sons to English universities.
Division of propertv was killing patrician notions. At
the same period Abdy

Asked a very shrewd man, ulio looked like a farmer, how lonj;
estates remained in the same family in Virginia. "The longest
period," he replied, "may he three or four generations. I do
not think I could point out one in possession of an estate that
belonged to it at the revolution. The poor and industrious
soon succeed to the rich and extravagant; and a perpetual inter-
change is going on hetween them."

By 1845, the once numerous large estates had in many
instances gradually clwindled, the descendants retain-
ing the pride without the means. Many preferred to
subsist on the bounty of friends rather than work.
Olmsted remarked in iS^i that a large percentage of

1** Richardson. SiJeti^hlt on MurylunJ History, vol. i, 178-179.

334 riw Anwrn an Family

families composini^ the Virs^inia and South Carolina
gentry before the RevDJution iiad passed througli dis-
mantling poverty very dissipating; to hereditary breed-
ing. \'ery lew were the real "old families" that re-
mained at all "well-bred."

The Revolution itself luul divided families and the
political divisions that followed had somewhat of a
similar effect. I'edcralist fathers had Republican sons.
A young man objectionable on account of his party
eloped with a young huly and had to fight a duel with
an irate brother-in-law before he could get into the
family affections. \\\ another case months of interces-
sion were recjuired.

The democratic disposition to deal with individuals,
not families, bore fruit in a Maryland statute of 1818
to the effect that

No children shall be answerable for the passage money of their
parents, dead or alive, nor parents for their deceased children,
nor a husband for his deceased wife, nor a wife for her deceased
husband, any pretence of custom in contract, promise or ajjree-
ment made beyond sea, to the contrary notwithstanding.

In spite, however, of all contrary tendencies, the
family in the Stjuth was a much more potent institu-
tion than elsewhere in the republic. Old families held
the day. In Kentucky, family feuds cost sundry lives.
The eldest son of the old \''irginia families was regard-
ed as representative of the kin. In old east Virginia,
family was a fetich. Instates were entailed to the limit
of the law -one generation, and the heir commonly re-
newed religiously the entail. The tidewater owner of
large estates would have been insulted by the idea of
selling his home. The ancestral abode was the one
spot on earth. A writer (jf 1837 protesting against soil
wastage and abandonment too common (in Florida)

The White Family in the Old South 335

said: "It is something to preserve the fruits that we
have planted, and the improvements that we have made
in early life, or those which we have received from our
ancestors."

Relationship was traced by Southerners to a remote
degree. The bond of fellowship stretched to include
all that were worthy, even tho they had removed to
distant places. A post-bellum writer on North Carolina
said: "In the many political canvasses which I have
made, from East to West, I have never, to my best rec-
ollection, visited a county however distant, without
being asked by some one about his kinsmen living in
my county." It would be hard to overestimate the
power of a great and strongly entrenched southern fam-
ily connected with a dozen like families all holding a
common point of view and action. Marriage and in-
termarriage and the tangle of consanguinity welded the
slave power. Intercourse consequent to intermarriage
made Virginians clannish. A traveller prior to 1825
found an old couple in Mississippi "who had settled
nine children in their neighborhood . . . giving
each . about one thousand acres . . . and

a stock of negroes, and retaining for themselves only
just sufficient for their wants and to supply a little oc-
cupation." By 184^ the rich lands bordering the Alta-
maha (in Georgia), with adjacent islands had been
acquired by a few families.

Christmas was the time for reunions. "It was not
uncommon to see from twenty-five to si.xty relatives
seated at the bounteous board." In Old Virginia some
relations were always present on a visit. There was a
great deal of visiting between Kentucky families. A
historian of Mississippi recalls the early custom of
going "with one's familv to the home of a 'neighbor' a

336 rill .1 niitii an Fiittiily

few miles distant to remain from Saturday until Mon-
day or even longer. " A writer on CJeorgia says:

Am iiunt of mine h;i5 said to iiu- that, u lu-n a younj: lad\ in lu-r
father's house, she scarcely rtnuiubereil sittin^: liown to tlic
dinner table with less than twenty-four. And I have often
been told of the gentleman and his wife, who, bein^ asked to
dine at a residence on St. Simon, found that during the meal a
bt)at had been sent to Darien. fifteen miles distant for their luy;-
tpiKe, and that so much pleased were host, hostess, and guests
with one another, that the stay was prolonged until two chil-
dren had been born to the visiting couple.

Hospitality in the old South prevented the estab-
lishment of good hotels, yet one finds many instances
showing lack of hospitality. Hence we are inclined
to doubt the universal receptivity of the southern home.
It seems probable that kindred or other social ties or
interests drew rather narrow lines.

Outbreeding in so far as it occurred had significant
social results. Mixture with the l-'rench tended to a
lessening of austerity. .Marriage of Creoles with law-
yers and merchants from the North helped to cement
the sections. The children of many southern families
even prior to i K2;; were

Educated, the young men at colleges in the northern and eastern
States, and the young ladies at hoarding-schools in Philadel-
phia ; and some of them have formeil matrimonial connections
with northern families. . . One happy consequence is a de-
gree of repugnance to the slave-system on the part of some of
the younger members of the community.

A northern governess remarket! that ninety-nine per
cent of the governesses, tutors, professional men, and
others who Hock to the South (ten thousand yearly)
in order to improve their fortunes remain (the voung
ladies, if they can find southern husbands).

On the whole, the South was probably more con-
servative th.in the Xorth in its treatment of the young.

The IV kite Family in the Old South 337

In New Orleans of 1840 "children were neither seen
nor heard. . They led the simple life, ^oin^ and

coming in their own unobstrusive way." In Old Ken-
tucky, "children were taught to love and venerate their
parents, and were always ready to help them an.l vin-
dicate them, and a boy would fight quicker for his
father's or his mother's honor than for his own." A
southern man that had lived north wrote in i860:

The parental discipline is more rip^d [in the South] and Youn^
America is rarely mt-t with, save in tlu- lart^e towns and vil-
lages. • . The better portion of southern boys arc tauj^ht to
consider themselves boys so \on\^ as they remain in their teens,
and the valuable advice of Hebrew Solomon is followed to the
letter, in case they seek to imitate the vices or to ape the man-
ners of their elders before the down has ripened on their boyish
cheeks.

Page says of old Virginia:

There was somcthinji in seeinj:; the master and mistress obeyed
by the plantation and looked up to by the neij^hborhood which
inspired the children with a reverence akin to awe which is not
known at this present time. It was not till the younjx people
were grown that the reverence lost the awe and became based
only upon affection and admiration.

The customary subduction of girlhood was not sutli- .
cient to quench normal exuberance. Letters frotti t he-
South and It'est noted that "when out on the green ter-
races, or in the parterres, and orchards, the young girls
run wild as the boys." Page says of Virginia:

^^herc were the little girls in their great sun-bonnets, often
sewed on to preserve the wonderful peach-blossom complexions,
with their small female companions playing about the yard or
garden, running with and wishing they were boys, and getting
half scoldings from mammy for being tomboys and tearing
their aprons and dresses.

The South had certain pathologies of child behavior
and child control. In iS:;^ a manual school was urged

338 Tilt' Anwrican Family

for Norfolk orphan boys. "A number of subjects are
daily runninq; wild throiii;h our streets, exempt from
all control or protection, engaging in every kind of
mischief and vice, ami treading that path which must
inevitably lead them to crime and infamy." There
was also in the ante-bellum South a type of man with
"^'ankee" characteristics cold and repellant to wile
and children, anxious to keep them from fee simple in-
heritance. While he buried himself in sordid ac(]uisi-
tion his children were free to give themselves to liis-
sipation and senseless love of pleasure or else, unrea-
sonably stinted anil curbed during his life and on his
death coming into possession of wealth which they did
not know how to use wiselv, thev fell into unwise ex-
penditure. I-'rom these southern mammonists, it was
allegeil, sprang "in the main our cotton snobs and rich
southern bullies." The cotton snob went off to col-
lege and bought harlots. When he married, the fam-
ily vaunted its wealth in gaudy display.

Child care was far from scientific. For instance, the
New Orleans Creole beauties were said to be excessive-
ly indulgent mothers. Fanny Remble noted, too, that
their overseer's wife was suckling a baby two and a
half years old an<i remarked that American women
injure themselves thus.

As in colonial days, education in the rural South was
a serious problem. Schoepf remarked of Charleston
in Confederation days: "It has long been nothing ex-
traordinary for the richer inhabitants to send their
children of both sexes to luirope for their education."
People of other states did likewise, at least for the boys.
Northern colleges received many southern boys before
the War in sj^ite of the danger of heretical infection as
to sacred institutions. In the early days free thought

The White Family in the Old South 339

touched the South. It is learned that prior to 1816
"Liberty" and "Infidelity" crept into William and
Mary. "Dissipation followed. Relleciiiii^ par-

ents at last took the alarm, ami silently withdrew their
children from an institution where they couKi no longer
trust them with safety to their morals, and hardly to
their lives." ^^°

The system of tutors and governesses was also em-
ployed. iMany of these pedagogs came from the North.
One recorded that usually the governess holds a place
midway between the lady and the overseer's wife. She
can't get a husband inasmuch as a gentleman will not
court a teacher.

This line of distinction bctwern the j^ovcrncss and the mother
of the young children she teaches is more strongly defined in the
older and more aristocratic families. [The higher the fashion
of the family, the lower the station of the governess.] In j^en-
craJ the planters keep their daughters under governesses till
they are fourteen, and then send them to some celebrated school,
North or South, to remain a year or two to graduate. . .
Since the recent agitation of the slavery question, the Missis-
sippians are disposed to be shy of northern teachers.

Preparatory training at home was likely to be deficient
and to subject the lads to sharp transition when they
went to college.

The public school system of the South was crude. 1 1 .
grew under difficulties, in the face of the individualistic
or aristocratic propensities of the people.

In the latter part of the eighteenth century at h>lli-
cott's Mills, Maryland, the company built a school-
house for the chihlren of the village and of the adjacetit
neighborhood. All of suitable age were admitted ir-
respective of their parents' means. In Rockingham
County, Virginia, the .Methodists started a school in

^^'^ Letters from I'irginia, 130.

340 Tht' Aiuirican Family

1794. "The scholars shall attend at eight oclock in the
summer ami half past eight in the winter, and the
teacher shall regulate the time of attendance in spring
and autumn accoriling to the length ot the ilay." An
hour was allowetl for recreation in winter and two in
summer. Dismissal was at six in summer, four in
winter. "No gaming of any kind, nor instruments of
play shall be tolerated. The scholars shall be e.xamin-
cd in the 'Instructions for Children' once a week except
the children of such parents as disapprove the same."

In 181 I the South Carolina legislature "on petition
of several counties, established what was meant to be a
working svstem of free common schools open to all the
white children of school age," preference to be given
to destitute orphans and children of the poor in case
of shortage of funds. One hundred thirty-three schools
were established at once. This was the first free school
system foundeil in America, and continued with vari-
ous degrees of success down to the Civil War. On the
proposed repeal of the act in 1813 one legislator sjioke
effectively in its defense, showing that the country peo-
ple have no means to educate their children, that genius
may be found buried in lowly cottages, and that the
free schools had been a godsend. "It is contended that
the children should be boarded, as well as educated,
at public expense because" the schools are remote from
their homes! "One gentleman has said that his con-
stituents disdain to be enlightened at public expense."'*'

In 1820 Virginia inaugurated a state system of free
schools for the poor. Marvland established a state
school system in 182-;. In 1839 North Carolina put a
state system in operation. The modern system of free
schools began in New Orleans in 1841. Louisiana es-

'" Dyer. Drmorroi y in the South hrfore the Civil ff'ar, 71-72; Courfenay.
Education in Charlriton, 5.

The White Family in the' 01 J South 341

tablished her public schuol system in 1845. Dyer
maintains that "the idea of a Slate Fund for the edu-
cation of those who were not able to pay their tuition
originated in the South. The idea of the education of
the poor children by the state came from the South."
The school system of the South, however, scarcely could
be called a success. Abdy observed of Virginia in the
early thirties that there were no public schools as in the
North. Commissioners of the poor sent children to
private schools along with those able to pay. "Rather
than expose them to humiliation, many parents keep
their children at home, where they receive little or no
education." He added that there was little provision
for popular education in the South. Page in the "Old
Dominion" mentioned a small free school in his neigh-
borhood established by a bequest of 1844- a farmer left
his estate for the education of children of his poor
neighbors. A physician writing in 1S51 on Richmond
said :

The mass of children are taught in private or in denominational
schools. . . It is better to place education under church in-
fluence than under that of the state. . The government
cannot, itself, educate the community, it can only act by a cloud
of irresponsible and ignorant sch(x)l masters; nor would it be
right for it to exercise the power if it possessed the ability- of im-
parting a good education. It is no more a part of government
to provide education to the people, than it is to provide labor
and wages; nor is it right to tax one section of a community to
educate the other.

In Georgia fear of paternalism retarded adoptinn of a
common school system. There was also lack n\ inter-
est in education.'"

*"* On this paragraph sec: Hycr, Demoiracy in thf South before the Civil
H'ar, 71-77; /\h(ly. Journal of a Rfsidftiie and Tour in the I'nitrJ Slatei,
vol. ii, 238, 254-257; Papc, Olil Dominion, J42-344; Little, Richmond, 81;
Smith, Story of Gforsiia and the C.eors^ia People, 488-489.

342 The Anur'uiin Family

In iSs;! William Grei^^ speaking on manufactures
before the South Carolina Institute saiil :

While ur arc a\\arr that the iiortht-rn aiul i-astcrn states find iii>
difficulty in educating their pt)or, \\c are ready to di"spair of suc-
cess in the matter, for even penal laws aj^ainst the neglect of
education would fail to brin^ many of our country people to
send their children to school. We have collected at

[Graniteville] about ei^jht hundred peuple, and as likely looking];
a set of country ^irls as may be found - industrious and orderly
people, but deplorably ignorant, three-fourths of the adults not
hc'\i\^ able to read or write their names. . . With the aid
of ministers of the CjosfK'l on the spot, to preach to them and
lecture them on the subject, we have obtained but about si\t\
children for our school, of about a hundred which are in the
place. . . The only means of educating:; and Christiani/inj:
our pt)or whites, will be to bring them into such villages, where
they will not only become Intelligent, but a thrifty and useful
class. . . Notwithstanding our rule, that no one can be per-
mitted to occupy our houses who d(K's not send all his children
to school that are between the ages of six and twelve, It was
with some difliciiltv. at first, that we could make up even a sin.ill
school.

*'The Child That 'lOileth Not" was not a twentieth cen-
tury discovery. Charles V. James in De Bow's In-
dustrial Resources of the Soutliuest said that "Boys and
girls, by thousands, destitute both of employment and
the means of education, grow up to ignorance and pov-
erty, and, too many of them to vice and crime. [Man-
ufacturing is the cure.]'"'"'

A writer on Tazewell County, Virginia in 1852 said
that schools were poor and that there was need of con-
veying children to school. In iH;;:; we find at Xorfolk
a free school for the benefit of indigent children. "It
is hoped that this school will become a useful institu-
tion to the community in rescuing many friendless
children from ignorance and vice."

"* Tower. Slavery unmaskfJ, 351-356.

The JVhite Family in the Old South 343

In the country schools and academies of the old
South coeducation was the rule and much benefit came
from this companionship.''^* The South was conserva-
tive in respect to education of women. Some of them
gained intellectual charm from contact with cultured
men or by effective general reading. Fiction did not
have right of way everywhere. It is rather amusing
to think of ladies secretly reading the Vicar of Jfake-
field or Paul and riririnia.^''' From (Georgia came a
plea for more attention to the education of women that
they might be better fitted to train their children. The
Ladies' Magazine of Boston quoted, in 1833, a Georgia
educator as saying that "too much show and too little
solidity has marked the course of girls' education, and
woman has been looked upon rather as a creature to
please, than as a being designed for the exercise of
thought." One could wish that more men had shared
the view of the University of Virginia student who
wrote home in 184Q urging the education of his sister
and alleging that ''if an educated woman does not make
a good wife, it is because the man who received her
hand was unworthy of it, and because it was the harnl
of a slave, and not of a wife and an e(]ual that was the
object of his desire.'"'" Yet Georgia had the first col-
lege in the world to bestow diplomas on women -Wes-
leyan at Macon.'"

Hundley indicated in his Social Relations in our
Southern States that

In most instanct"s the daughters of [a middlc-dajis, modest]
southern matron rcsrmblt* their mother, save that they possess
a little more modern polish and culture, and hanker more ea^jer-
ly after the vanities of the world ; hut even the (Iau^:hters are

*** Curry. Tfir South in the olden Timr, 41.

1*5 Hale and Mcrritt. History of Ttnnrsift and T enntsstfixni, vol ii, 409.

'•'•"Smedes. Southern Planter, 136.

>''^ Rutherford. Georgia Day Programme, 1910, 19, ji.

344 T^^^ American Family

often quite uneducated in the current literature of the times,
and in all thinj^s else evince a simplicity of mind and character
altot;ether refreshing:. Sometimes, 'tis true, they are sent to
boarding schools (which are becoming: more common in the
South of late years), are there exposed to a false and shallow
system of hot-bed culture for a few sessions; and emerj^in^
therefrom in due lime make their debut in life, possessed of
full as much pride and affectation, as well as conceit and van-
ity, as of artificial ^jraces of person and manner ; and boastinj;
a superficial knowledge of twenty different branches of learn-
ing, but in reality having a perfect mastery and comprehension
of none. Southern young ladies of this character, however,
are usually the daughters of tradesmen, village store-keepers,
and the like, who constitute a pretty fair proportion of the
southern middle classes. . [These men frequently educate

their children so senselessly] that they almost invariably grow
up to be nothing better th:in doddling fops and parvenucs.*"

The lot of the girl of the humbler classes of southern
uhites just before the war did not include even the
minimum of schooling allotted to the boy. The only
exception was in the new public schools in a few cities,
in some of which excellent high schools for girls were
established. Fr(jm these sources was developing a large
class of enthusiastic girls, precursors of woman's free
education in the South. Ante-bellum southern girls
were largely dependent on female colleges established
chiefly by churches. Isolation and lack of good local
facilities hindered women's enlightenment. **No-
where was the opportunity for educational and social
development more persistently withholden from the
majority of women of tlic lower orders than in the older
Southern States previous to i860.'""'

\\arious arrangements were made in the old South
for the care of dependent children. A Maryland act

'*• Hundley. Social Relations in our Southern States, loo, iii.
'*• Mayo. Southern If'omen in the recent Educational Movement in the
South i« 41.

The White Family in the Old South 345

of 1818 empowering orphans' courts to bind out free
black children neglected or ncjt usefully employed by
parents provided that courts might require the child to
be taught to read or write, or in lieu thereof that thirty
dollars be given in addition to the ordinarv dues at
freedom. (As with whites, the wishes of parents were
to be consulted in the choice of master.) The code of
i860 stated that it was not necessary, in binding out col-
ored children, to require education.
In Virginia

Prior to 1805 [it was] customary ... to provide in-
struction for slaves . . . servants . . . free negroes.
Church wardens and overseers of the poor upon binding out a
bastard or a pauper child, black or white, specifically required
that he should be taught to "read" and "write" and "calcu-
late," as well as to follow some profitable form of labor.'*"

Various orphan asylums were in operation. In 1797
Dr. De La Howe of South Carolina left his estate to
be used in the education and training in manual and
domestic labor of twelve boys and twelve girls- a per-
manent blessing to homeless, needv orphans. The
South Carolina Huguenot Society looked after many
children. A movement started in Savannah in 1801
for the foundation of a female asylum shows good sense
views on the treatment of orphans:

It is a matter of certainty, that notwithstanding the attentions
paid to the poor in this city, many female orphans suffer for
want of early patronage. . , We are most deeply penetrated
with the sufferings of our own sex. ( )ur design is to

raise funds for the benefit of female orphans and other p<K)r
children, from three to ten years of age, and to board them with
some capable discreet woman, who shall teach them to read,
write, sew, and do all kinds of domestic business, until they are
old enough to be placed in virtuous families. At a suit-

able time they shall be placed in good families, imtil the age of

'"^ Ballagh. History of Slavery in I'irffinia, 109.

eighteen years, except such ... as may be tau^jht mil-
liner^', mantua-making, or some business of a similar kiml.
They have since had the happiness of placing [six persons] all
lately under thr chilling inHurnce of adversity; but now, neatly
attired, well frd, arid xssiduously instructed, [they] inspire
in every benevolent beholder, the most pleasing reflections.

Captain Hall of the British navy, who travelled in
America in the later twenties, considered the orphanage
at Charleston

A most interesting sight, however questionable the policy may
be. which, by holding out artificial means of subsistence to fam-
ilies, gives a hurtful degree of stimulus to the increase of pop-
ulation, already but too apt to run into excess. [His own re-
marks seem to emphasize, however, the need of such an institu-
tion. After speaking of the way in which American families
scatter and members lose sight of one another he said:] It
often happens, that the heads of a househoUl die of?, or wander
away, no one knows where, and leave children, if not quite des-
titute, at least dependent on persons whose connexion and in-
terest in them are so small, that the public eventually is obliged
to take care of them. . At Charleston, Savannah, and

other parts of the country u liere . . yellow fever (Kcurs,

and where that still more dreadful curse of America - spirit-
drinking - prevails, to at least as great an excess as in the other
states, it very often happens that children arc left, at the end
of the sickly season, without any relations or natural protectors
at all. Of course, I speak now of the poorer inhabitants, part
of whom arc made up of emigrants, either from foreign coun-
tries or from other parts of America.

Ab(iy pointed out in 1835 that in New Orleans "a gam-
bler can provi(]e for his family, while he is pursuing
his amusements: the Orphan Asylum in that city being
supported out of the licenses [of gambling dens]."

Poverty abounded in the ante-bcllur7i South and
class cleavage was clear-cut. I'hc slave-holding oli-
garchy was a meager fraction of the population. Many
of the whites were in a position to envy the slave. Mis-
erable housing, scanty subsistence, absence of cduca-

The White Family in the Old South 347

tion, lack of opportunity on account of the degradation
of labor resulting from the slave system, conspired to
depress the moral ttjne and to lower the tjualitv of fam-
ily institutions. Sometimes a very poor family owned
a slave or two and these miserable chattels shared in the
extremities of fortune that fell upon their masters. At
the beginning of the century an observer expresses the
conviction

That in nine cases in ten. the hardships and sufferings of the
colored population of lower V'ir^inia is attributable to the pov-
erty and distress of its owners. In many instances, an estate
scarcely yields enough to feed and clothe the slaves in a com-
fortable manner, without allowing anything for the support of
the master and the family ; but it is obvious that the family
must first be supported, and the slaves must be content with the
surplus; and this on a poor, old, worn out tobacco plantation,
is often very small and wholly inadequate to the comfortable
sustenance of the hands.""

A dealer gave the ifitormatiori that in some instances
masters were obliged to sell slaves in order to save their
families from ruin.'""

The Augusta ChronicU' in 18 19 gave a glimpse of the
depths of poverty that were possible even for whites.
"Passed through from Greenville District

bound for Chatahouchee, a man and his wife, his son
and his wife, with a cart but no horse. [The men were
harnessed to the vehicle], the son's wife rotle
and the old woman was walking, carrying a ritle ami
driving a cow."""

Candler observed of Virginia (in his work published
in 1824) that

The log houses of the pfK)r whites atnl free colcjurrd people
were little adapted to exclude cold and wet. .All seemed dor-

'•" Documrnttiry History of .t mrrittin In./uftrijl Soriety, vol. ii, 63-64.
xm — Idetn, 67.
^^^ — Idftn, 196.

348 Tilt' .lull III (in J-tiniily

manr. . . The small occupier of land in the free states is
an independent, industrious man with children industrious as
himself. In the slave states, he is pixjr and lazy, and his chil-
dren are brou^jht up without havinjj their powers either mental
or corpjoreal properly develoj>ed. The house of the former is
comfortable, that of the latter miserable.

A writer in \ilts' R,-}risttr prior to 1835 said of Mary-
land :

The character of the white laboring population in Maryland,
as well as their numbers, and efficiency, is declining in all the
chief slave holdinjj counties. . Hundreds of landholders

whose fathers lived in affluence are reduced almost to poverty,
without any personal act of indiscretion to cause it.'"*

Buckingham's book of 1842 calls attention to the fact
that in Cicorgia back country clearings all, voung and
old, must work.

We saw many boys and ktIs, of not more than six or seven
years of ane, some using small axes, others carrying wood, and
others assisting in domestic duties. In general they were very
dirty , . . the mother being too weary to wash them.
[Parents and childreti looked pale, haggard, overworked.]

V Smith says that in ante-bclluni (ieorgia "the toilers did
not often mate with the aristocrats nor intrude upon
them socially." In the mountains and pines common
folks had settled in advance of the schoolmaster; so the
children's only chance for learning was from mothers'
love. The women would teach all that they remem-
bered. The father was too busy or tired. "Before
the war there were in north Georgia at least two gen-
erations that had grown up with but a limited educa-
tion-in fact, with none to speak of, for it was rare to
find a man among them who could read or write."""'
Buckingham said of North Carolina that at every

'•♦Candler. Summary Vinu of America, 251, 254.; Abdy. Journal of a
ReiiJence and Tour in the Vnited States, vol. i, 383.

'"* Buckingham. Slave States of America, vol. i, 231-232; Smith. School
History of Georgia, 136.

The IFIiite Family in the Old South 349

farmhouse they saw eight or ten lazy men and boys
hanging around. The women seemed equally lazy;
niggers did the work. A southern-born gentleman, long
a resident of South Canjlina, said of poor whites on the
banks of the Congaree in that state that thev

Are the (Jcsccndants of the former proprietors ot nearly all the
land of the region ; but for generations, their fathers have Ix-cn
gradually selling off to t!ie richer planters moving in among
them, and living on the purchase money of their lands, and
their children have been brought up in listless, aimless, and
idle independence.

This remark is but one evidence of the deterioration
that befell the po(3r whites. IVIr. Tarver of Missouri
in 1847 published a paper containing the following
observation :

I lament to say that I have observed of late years that an evi-
dent deterioration is taking place in this part of the population,
the younger portion of it being less educated, less industrious,
and in every point of view less respectable than their ancestors.

Soil exhaustion was in part to blame but doubtless the
hookworm played his usual role. Stirling's Letters
from the Slave States mention "hamisome dwellings
here and there" and also "p(jor, mean-looking h(jme-
steads" but note the lack of "the neat farm-houses that
dot the landscape of New England, and speak of com-
fort, equality, and intelligence.'""

Slavery was in part responsible for racial decay
among the whites. The slavery of whites with all its
atrocities had gradually come to an end but negro slav-
ery reacted on the white race. Olmsted was told in
Virginia that

Poor white girls never hired out to do s<*rvant's work, but thry

'""On this paragraph sec: Buckingham. .V/atv States of .Imericn, vol. ii,
198-199; Olmsted, Journey in the Seaboard Slaxe States, 505-$o6; Tower,
Slavery unmasked, 346; Stirlinfj, Letters from the Slave States, 4$.

350 77/ c' .1 nil rii tin iiitnily

would come and help another white woman about her sewinj^
and quilting and take wages for it. Hut these girls wen- not
very respectable generally, and it was not agreeable to have
them in your house, though then* were some very respectable
ladies that would go out to sew.

He found iIku iIr- puor whites of Xorih Carolina iivcil
wrctchcilly. A ^cnllcnian said that he had several
times appraised on oath the whole household property
of such people at less than twenty dollars. The travel-
ling agent of a relii^ious tract society read in a church
in Charleston trorn his diarv:

Visited families, numbering two hundred twenty-one souls over
ten years of age; only twenty-three could read, and seventeen
write. Forty-one families destitute of the Bible. . . All of
one family rushed away when I knelt to pray, to a neighbor's,
begging them to tell what I meant by it. Other families fell
on their faces instead of kneeling.

Hundreds of southern families lived ifi loi; cahins
ten or twelve feet square "where the cliildren run
around nakeii and a hecisteatl or

chair was not in the house, and never will be" said a
farmer living in Illinois."'^

Hundley (a southern man who had lived North)
said that the sand-hillers were quite prolific, every
house haviiiL^ half-a-dozen children. In the main, the
entire family occupied one room; "but it is a rare cir-
cumstance to find several families huddletl into one
poor shanty, as is more ofleti the case than otherwise
with those unfortunates in cities, who arc constrained
to herd together promiscuouslv in tenant houses and in
underground cellars." ""''

Poor white folks were unwilling to have their cliil-
dren taught manual trades inasmuch as ncgrf)es gave to

'"^ On ihi» paraKrapli set: Olmsted, Cotton Kint/Jom, vf>I. i, 82, 188, vol.
ii, 285, 293, 308-309.

••• Hundley. Serial Rflations in our Soiit/irrn Stairs, 265.

I

The IFliitt: Family in the Old South 35 1

such occupation the servile taint. Charles T. James,
in De Bow's Industrial Resources of the South and
IVest, said that the southern "poor white man will en-
dure . pinching poverty, rather than cnj^agc in
servile labor under the existing state of things, even
were employment offered him, which is not general."
The white girl was not wanted at service and if she
were she could not condescend to such degradation;
hence she was subjected to want and misery.

So long as the newness of pioneer country lasteil, the
class lines were indistinct. In Mississippi prior to
1830 there was little contrast between rich and poor;
the wealthy often preferrcil to live on a level with their
less fortunate neighbors. "A failure to ask a neighbor
to a house-raising, a clearing, or chopping frolic, or
his family to a quilting was considered a great insult-
such a one too as had to be answered for at the next
muster or county court." But prcsentlv the chattel
system developed a class of wealthy planters who be-
came sharply distinguished from the lower class of poor
white laborers. Exhaustion of the fertility of the
southern soil by ''mining methods" of plantation agri-
culture made it hard for the small farmer to compete
save by the same methods that ended in ruin.
In 1850 De Bow said that poor whites
Are fast IcarniriK that there is ahnost an indiiitc world of in-
dustry opening before them, by which they can elevate them-
selves and their familii's from wretchedness and ii^orance to
competence and intelligence. It is this j;reat upbearing of our
masses that we are to fear so far as our institutions are con-
cerned.

The Southern Banner of Athens, (Georgia, voiced in
1859 the aspirations of the working class: "\N*e want
to see labor high. In every country the honest

faithful laborer ought to be able to supply himself aiui

j^2 The A till ru nil iiiniily

family bv his labor, not only with the necessaries, but

the comforts of life." Ohiistcd reported"'" tliat at
Columbus, Geori^ia, a j;reat inaiuitacturiiiLi; town, "I'he
operatives in the cotton-mills are said to be mainly
'cracker girls' (poor uliites from the country), who
earn, in ^nod times, by piece work, from eight to twelve
dollars a month." Cireat numbers of the laborers in
industries there were on the boniers of destitution.

Some persons objected to the industrial movement
of the South on the ground that manufacturing estab-
lishments would be hotbeds of crime; the retort was to
point to existing conditions and the beauties of the sys-
tem that was to supplant the old order. I'>ven before
the Civil War the class struggle among the whites was
gathering bitterness. After 1H50 opposition to slavery
in \orth Carolina was augmenting, in main due to the
small farmer and workingman who saw in slavery a
bar to progress for self and children.'"" It was possible
to combine this resentment with the propaganda for
capitalism, as is done in Helper's book of bitterness,
Thf Ittipirii/iriir (Crisis. He points out that slavery ex-
hausts the soil; small planters move awav; large plant-
ers who can live on smaller profits spread. He quotes
the honorable C. C. Clay as writing of Madison Coun-
ty. Alabama: "One will discover numerous farm-
houses, once the abotle of industrious and intelligent
freeman. Flow occupied by slaves, or tenantless, deserted
and dilapidated. 'one only master grasps the

whole ilomain' that once furnished happy homes for a
dozen white families." Speaking to the slaveholders
Helper said: ""\'ou have absorbed the wealth of our

■"Olmsted. Cotton Kinf(dom, vol. i, 273-274.
'■".N'orth Carolina t'nivcrtiiy, James Spruiit Historical Publications, vol.
X, no. I. Benjamin ShrriLood HeJrick, 5.

The White Family in the Old South 353

communities in sending your own children t<j northern
seminaries and colleges, or in employing Yankee teach-
ers to officiate exclusively in your own families, and
have refused to us the limited privilege of common
schools." He added that the proportion of free white
children from five to twenty who are in school is over
three times as great in the free states as in the slave
states.

To the argument that the South is too hot for white
men, Helper rejoined:

It is not too hot for white women. Time and attain, in differ-
ent counties in North Carolina, \vc have seen the poor white
wife of the poor white husband, following him in the harvest
field from morninp: till nip;ht, binding up the ^rain as it fell
from his cradle. In the immediate neighborhood from which
we hail, there are not less than thirty youni; women, riun-
slaveholdin^j whites, between the a^es of fifteen and rwcnty-
five . . who labor in the fields every summer ; two of

them in particular, near neighbors to our mother, are in the
habit of hiring themselves out durin}^ harvest time, the very
hottest season of the year, to bind wheat and oats - each of them
keepinji up with the reaper; and this for the paltry considera-
tion of twent>'-five cents per day. [Slavery, he says, has en-
tailed on them poverty, ignorance, and liegradation.] We want
to see no more plowing, or hoeing, or raking, or grain-binding,
by white women in the Southern States; employment in cotton-
mills and other factories would be far more profitable and con-
genial to tiiem, and this they shall have within a short period
after slavery shall have been abolished. [He appeals to

non-slaveholders to wipe out slavery.] ^ Our children, now de-
prived of even the meager advantage of common sclux>ls, will
then reap the benefits of a collegiate education.

In answer to a gentleman solicitous for the widows
and orphans that would suffer hy aholition, Helper
says that slavery has "reduced thousands and tens (A
thousands of non-slaveholding widows and orphans to

354 I Iw Auii'tudti Family

the lowest depths of poverty and ignorance." He quotes
W'illiani Cire^^ as savini^ before tlie Soutli Carolina
Institute: "Many a mother . will tell you

that lici chililren are but seaniilv provided with bread,
and much more scantily with meat; and, if they be clad
with comfortable raiment, it is at the expense of these
scaniv allowances of food."

A citi/en of New Orleans, writing in /)»• H(ju's Rr-
view, deplores the scantiness of opportunity for em-
ployment of women and afTirms the danger of demoral-
ization; in a slave state menial female labor is "in the
lowest depths, a lower deep" owin^ to the fact that "by
association it is a reduction of the white servants to the
level of their colored fellow-menials." Helper asserts
that in North Carolina

Industrious, tiily white j^irls, from sixtrcn to t\vcnt>' years of
age, had (Last spring] much difficulty in hiring themselves out
as domestics in private families for forty dollars per annum -
Iward only included; negro wenches, slaves, of corresponding
ages, so ungraceful, stupid and filthy that no decent man would
ever permit one of them to cross the threshold of his dwelling,
were in brisk demand at from sixty-five to seventy dollars per
annum, including victuals, clothes, and medical attendance.

E.xploitation was a severe strain on iTiorals of the
poor whites. Olmsted said that the Sand-Hillers of
South Carolina put very slight value on female virtue.

A Southern physician expressed the opinion to me that if an ac-
curate record could be had of the births of illegitimate chil-
dren ... it would be found to be as great, among the
p<x}r people in the part of the country in which he practised, as
of those born in wedltxk. A planter told me that any white
girl who could be hired to work for wages would certainly he a
girl of easy virtue. [A northern gentleman who had bet-n
.spending a year in South Carolina expressed his conviction
that] real chastity among the young women of the non-slave-
holding class in Sf)uth Carolina was as rare as the want of it

The White Family in the Old South 355

among farmers' daughters at the north. [Olmsted go« on to
say:] It is often asserted as an advantage of slavery
that the ease with which the passions of men of the 8U|k-ii>>i
caste are gratified ... is a security of the chastity of
white women. I can only explain this, consistently with my
impression of the actual state of things, by supposing that these
wTiters ignore entirely, as it is a constant custom for S«)uthern
writers to do, the condition of the poorer class of the white
population.'^'

"> Olmsted. Journt-y in thr SfttloarJ Staff Stain, (o3-t09.

XIV. EFFECTS OF THE CIVIL WAR

The Civil War had a great disturbing influence on
the traditional functions of the sexes. The men were
called to the front leaving even the farm work in some
regions to be done by new machinery ami women. A
missionary writing fri)m Iowa said:

I will mention that I met more women drivinR teams on the
road and saw more at work in the fields than men. They seem
to have said to their husbands in the lanp^age of a favorite son^.

Just take your Run and go;

For Ruth can drive the oxen, John,
And I can use the hoe!

In one township beyond, where I formerly preached,
there are but seven men left, and at Quincy, the county seat of
Adams Co., but five.

I rom Kansas one wrote: "In manv cases the women
must harvest the corn and take care of the stock, in atl-
dition to their ordinary work." Another wrote:

Yesterday I saw the wife of one of our parishioners driving the
team in a reaper; her husband is at Vicksburfj. With what
help she can secure and the assistance of her little children, she
is carrying on the farm. In another field was a little boy of
ten years, similarly employed ; and in another a girl of about
twelve, doing the same. Men cannot be found in sufficient
numbers to secure the harvest; the wives and children, there-
fore, are compelled to go into the fields.

The same conditions were observed in Ohio. New-
York, and other states."" Home life was transformed.

'"'- Fitc. Social unJ injuslrial ConJilioit in the Sorth Jurimg the C.it-il
ff'ar, 8-9.

35^ The .1 nurii (in Fiimil\

Women were keyed above ordinary domestic cares to
the national emergency.

They had to he; inasimuh as the oiilinarv spirit of
profit-seeking and accumuhition did not yield to the
call of patriotism. The promises of \yealthy men in
many communities that wives and families of ahsent
soldiers shouKl he cared for were not always fuUilled.
The followinj^ appeal is extremely significant:

Friends, picasr do not stand idle with your unsoilcd hands
folded and witness these ladies cut and haul their own wood,
day after day and week after week, as you have already done,
after urKinK their husbands to leave them in a state of utter
helplessness, proniising, and that surely, to care for their wants:
and also that you would furnish them with comfortable homes
and wearinjj apparel. Please do your duty at home, if you are
not on the bloj)dy battlefield.

The Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce had to be
browbeaten by a woman into liberality toward war re-
lief.'"

A writer on JJ^ovum's Work in ///<• Civil JJ^ar saici:
'I he Aid SiKTieties and the direct oversight the women sou^^lit to
{jive the men in tiie field very much increased the reason for
correspondence between the homes and the tents. The women
were proud to write what those at the hearthstones were doinfj
for those who tended the campfires, and tlie men were happy
and cheery to acknowledge the support they received for this
home sympathy. The immense correspomience between the
army and the homes, prodigious beyond beh'ef as it was, some
regiments sending home a thousand letters a week, and rcceiv-
ing as many more back ; the constant transmission to the men
of newspapers, full of the records of home work and army news,
produced a homogeneousness of feeling between the soldiers and
the citizens, which kept the men in the field civilians, and made
the people at home, of both sexes, half soldiers.

Frederick Law Olmsted expressed the opinion

Formed through his long and effective service with the Sanitary
Commi-ssion during the Civil War, that the tAVo things that did

'"'Wallach. Patriots of Pioprrty.

Effects of the Civil liar 359

most to keep the soldiers well were music and letters from
home.'^*

The significance of such phenomena as the above is
marked. The conditions in the agricultural section
indicate that in spite of their individualism the Amer-
icans were ready to subordinate the family to what they
conceived to be the social need. The readiness with
which woman did the man's work and kept the family
together would place her in a new liglit, or at least
entitle her to greater esteem and prominence in family
circles. In many cases, the prolonged absence of the
father followed by his return, must have softened and
endeared domestic relations to a notable degree; while
in cases where he did not return the family had ac-
quired a new center of union -a family hero -whose
memory would hallow the family bond. No doubt
many a family received permanent uplift from the
idealization of a lost member who would have been
only a liability had he remained at home.

Females of the si.xties could scarcely have been oth-
erwise than delicate by reason of high heels, long heavy
skirts, crinoline, and diabolical corsets. The shock of
war seems to have awakened American women from
ladylike futility.

Listless youn^ ^jirls and fancied invalids rose from their sofas,
at first to wind handaj^es and pack siipplii's . . . later to
do the household work, which there were no servants to per-
form, or to earn their living in unaccustomed occ\ipations that
there were no men to undertake.'"''

Having yielded their men to the ranks, women proceed-
ed to organize co(")perati()n uith them, not in a spas-
modic and sentimental way

But with a self-controUeil and rational consideration of the

>T*Brockctt and VauRhan. Woman's Work in Ihf ('ivil U'sr, 64; .^i»rtv/,
vol. 39, Oct 6, 1917. P- 3-

•'"Rccit. Ffinalf Delicacy in thr Sixtirs, 857-858. 86j.

360 The .1 nuriiitn luimilx

wisest and best means of accomplishing their purpose, which
showed them to hr in some decree the products and representa-
tives of a new MK-ial era. and a new jH)litical development.

1 he distinctive features in woman's work in the war, were
magnitude, system, thorough cooperativencss w ith the other sex,
distinctness of purixxsr, husiness-like tht)roughness in tietail,
sturdy j>ersistency to the chKe.

M.iii. caui^ht ill the press of urgency, could not alTord
to ni.initest his custoinarv jealousy of expanding; wo-
manhood. rhi)usands of women learned contempt for
frivolity, gossip, fashion, and idleness; iearneil to con-
sider seriously and fairly the capacities of their se.x ;
and thus laid a strong and practical basis for the ad-
vancement of the rights of woman. Women went as
nurses ; many "scandalized their friends at home . .

or they left their families under circumstances which
involve*.! a romantic oblivion of the recognized and
usual duties of domestic life; they forsook tiieir own
chiKlren, to make chiiiiren of a whole army corps;
thev risked their lives.""" It is said, indeed, that the
plan of the stratejj^ic campaiu^n of the Tennessee was
made by a woman Anna Kila Carroll.'"'

The opening of remunerative occupations to women
was another positive advance occasioned partly by the
exigencies of the War. It is estimated that at the
opening of the war women performed one-fourth of
the manufacturing of the country. War times natural-
ly advanced wages; ami in order to resist iticrease, more
employment was given to women. .Men were super-
seded by women; "thus to many men, whose pf)siiions
they usurped, the low wages of women were far from
being a matter of commiseration." Women were do-
ing more work in industrial lines, in teaching, and in

>»• Brockctt and Vaiiphan. H'nman's H'ork in the Civil H'ar, 56-61.
'^T Harper. I.iff and H'ork of Susan li. .Inlhnny, vol. i, 239.

Effects of the Civil War 36 1

clerical work; in the sphere of charity and religion
"their opportunities and achievements seemed bound-
less;" they were forging ahead in the professions, par-
ticularly in medicine; and their educaii<jn advanced.
Ultra-radicals were agitating for woman's rights and
some had adopted short skirts. In 1H64 it was estimat-
ed that there were in the North between two hundred
fifty and three hundred women physicians, regularly
graduated from medical schools. At least five medical
institutions admitted women, tho there was great preju-
dice against such schools and their graduates. Women
supplanted men as teachers to the extent almost of a
revolution. In Illinois the luiiiiber of women teachers
increased by four thousaml and in one year one thou-
sand men quit their positions.'"' By 1864 women bail
come to be employed in the government departments
at Washington; the chief reason assigned was that they
worked better and more cheaply. This circumstance
was assailed as shameful on the score that they could
not live more cheaplv. Consiiicration was in order for
"delicate women and girls K^'ifi^ "'J^ ''"'^'^ ^'^^"

world to do their labor there, and for that very reason
losing often social caste."""

It must not be supposed that the war was the sole
cause of the invasion bv woman oi the irukistries and
professions. The movement was not a new one; aiul
other causes contributed, as for example the ordinary
desire of the capitalists for cheap labor. Moreover the
higher education of woman was bearing fruit. The
whole movement signifies an extension of woman's
economic independence of man. ami the breaking down
of that barrier of inequality that had so long served to

'^* Fite. Social and industrial Conditions in thr Sorth Jurimf the I'lVtl
ff^ar, 188, 244-246.

^'^ Arthur's Home Mai^atinf, vol. xxiii, 314.

362 Tlw .1 nurtiiin I'liniily

keep woman in a subordinate place in the household.
While the Civil War did not start the movement, it did
greatly stimulate it. and thus, together with the other
iiitluences mentioned, helpeii to unsettle the founda-
tions of the "mediaeval" family which was now pass-
im^ out and throui^h a transition of storm and stress
yieldini^ to the new family of equality and comrade-
ship.

It may be observed, also, that woman's experience on
ilie Sanitary Commission, etc., during; the war, seemed
to ^ive an impetus to woman's organizations, clubs, etc.,
in which woman since then so largely functions.'"" It
wniild seem that these are in cases, tho not necessarily
so, rivals of the home, and indicative, if not causes, of
weakened family devotion.

The turbulent times of war gave rise to immoralities
that shocked the people of that day. Thus the Spring-
field Ri-puhlican commented:

It is a sad, a shocking picture of life in Washirif^ton which our
correspondents are givini; us. A bureau of the Treasury De-
partment made a house of seduction and prostitution. The
nixessities of poor and pretty women made the means of their
debauchery by high Kovernment officials. Members of Con-
Rrcss putting their mistresses into clerkships in the departments.
An honorable senator knocked down in the streets by a woman
whom he has outraged. . . "Washington was never quite so
villainously corrupt" [writes our most careful correspondent, a
lun^ resident at the capital].""'

Burn knew of many women that "unwived themselves"
in their husbands' absence, "and profligacv and prod-
igality were the order of the day," How could women
of the industrial classes continue to obtain expensive

>"Hilli». Srriout Solr in the Education of It'omrn, 853; Wells. Womm
in Organizations, 360; Warficld. Moral Inftufmr of It'omrn in American
Society, 112.

"' Rhodcu. History of the I'nitrJ Stales, vol. v, 212.

Effects of the Civil War 363

dresses ''when every article of wearini^ apparel had in-
creased to at least four times the old price?" How
could a young working girl give eighteen shillings
(nine shillings English) for bonnet strings?

The bonnets themselves, such as worn by the working clasiio.,
vary from six to twenty dollars, and mantles or cloaks ca/) not
be had for less than twenty dollars. It is seemingly . . .
of no consequence what people do for a living; they will have
dress, and that too in the first stjlc of fashion.""'

We must make allowance, also, for the profligacy,
sex vice, and venereal disease to which the soldiers in
the field were introduced. Dabney in his Defence of
Fir^iriia, published shortly after the War, said:

1 he mass of letters found upon [the ^ anker J slain, and alxjut
their captured camps, disclosed a shocking prevalence of pruri-
ent and licentious thou^^ht, both \n their armies and at home.
And our unfortunate servants seduced away by their armies,
usually found . . that lust for the African women was

a far more prevalent motive, than their pretended humanity,
for their liberating zeal. Such was the monstrous abuse to
which these poor creatures were subjected, that decent slave
fathers often hid their daughters in the woods, from their pre-
tended liberators, as from beasts of prey.'*'

An immediate effect of the Civil War was to check
the natural increase of population. There was a tem-
porary reduction of the birthrate in consequence of the
withdrawal of hundreds of thousands of men from do-
mestic life. 1 he indirect effect, in increaseof town life in
tall houses without vards, followed bv imitation of for-
eign fashions, was also followed hv decline in natural in-
crease. Moreover the death i>i luuulreds of thousands
of men tended to leave manv women unmarricil. This

''*•' Burn. Threr Years n-nnng the H' orking-Clasttt in the I'niteJ Stttei
during the H'ar, 85.

J*^ Dabney. Defence of lirginia nnj the South, 186-387.

364 riic .Ifiuru an l\nuil\

tendency is less significant as to mere number than would
seem at first sight, Inr in i S^o there was a larger excess
i)t seven luiiulred htt\ thousaihl males. Moreover
between eighteen hundreii and sixty and eighteen hun-
dred and seventy, lour hundred and fifty thousand more
males than females entered the ports oi Boston and New
York; so that in 1870 the excess of males was still some
four hundred and tiftv tliDUsaiul. Kugenics would not
overlook qualitative distinctions, however. It may be
that the loss of the boys of the nation (for the war was
fought largely by boys) meant a loss of germ plasm
that can not be replaceil. It would be worth while,
however. Id be able to extend Crum's Study of the
liirth-ratc in Massachusetts, I S ^O-I SqO, in which he
points out that the excess of males born in that state
was greater liuring the Civil War than in any other of
several (iuiiu]uennial periods."**

Besides the children that were not born owing to the
premature death of possible fathers, thought must be
given to those that were not fathered as they should
have been or when thev needed attention. The C^ivil
War lasted loiig enough to yield a sufficiency of in-
stances. E. S. Martin says:

Of half a dozen boys that I rciiicnibcr in one Civil War fam-
ily when the father was for thrif or four years in the field and
for years before and after in intense political life, only two
came to satisfactory maturity, and they were the older ones
whose boyhood was passed under their father's eye. . . Dis-
aster, moral or mental, befell the others, first or last, thouszh
not until several of them had demonstrated the exceptional
quality of their natural abilities. It has always seemed to ob-
sri^crs who knew that family. :ind the father's extremely valu-
able public services, and how they tore him out of his family
life and monopolized him for fifteen years, that his younger

>*♦ Walker. Our Population in IQOO, 493; Dixon. White Conquest, vol. ii,
311; Crum, Ilirth-ratf in Massm husfUs, 1S50-18QO, 252.

Effects of the Civil II' ar 365

boys were as much sacrificed to their country as though they
had been killed in war.'"

The reader may speculate at will as to the extent <<f
feminization and demoralization liue to this factor.

The negro family suffered in a peculiar way from
the circumstances of war. In the Senate. Wilson said:

The enlistment of colored men causes a vxst deal of suffering;
for a preat wronj2[ is done to their families, and especially is that
so in the state of Missouri. Those wives and children who arc
left behind, may be sold, may be abused; and how can a M)ldier
fight the battles of our country when he receives the intelligence
that the wife he left at home, and the little ones he left around
his hearth, were sold into perpetual slavery - sold where he
would never see them more? Sir, if there be a crime on earth
that should be promptly punished, it is the crime of selling into
slavery, in a distant section of the country, the wives and chil-
dren of the soldiers who are fighting the battles of our bleeding
country. Now wife and children plead to the husband and
father not to enlist -to remain at home for their protection.
Pass this bill [to free wives and children ot soldiers], and the
wife and children will beseech that husband and father to fight
for the country, for his liberty, and for their freedom.

Brown said:

You have the fact before you, that these colored soldiers are go-
ing into the army. . ^'ou have the further fact before
you, that slave-owners are hounding on a persecution in the
Border States, and selling the wives and children of these sol-
diers, making merchandise of their flesh and blotnl, and doing it
as a punishment for their entr>- into our army as volunteers for
our defense. Shall we tolerate that scene? Shall we legislate
here, sending men day after day to sacrifice their lives for our
protection, and >et sit quietly by, with no legislation to pre-
vent, and see others sending the wives and children of tho*e
men day after day into further and harsher bondage bcv'au&e
they have done so?

Clark spoke likewise:

Everywhere in these loyal States are men . .

i«5 Martin. "Use of Fathcrfi," in Harpe->'ii Mttgatint, v-i -f^- " • -^4.

366 The Atturican tatnily

in sympathy with thr rebellion. We know that men in the
loyal states are opposed to the nejjroes ^oinjj into the service.
Many of these men - I will not say all - would be willing to
punish the nejjro if he went in, if they are in sympathy with
the rebellion, by the abuse of his wife and children. They
wish to deter him from ijoin^: into the service if they can; and
they say to him, "Not only shall your wife and children have
no care, no f(Kxl, no protection, but they shall be sold into
slavery; ant! when you return from tinhtinji the battli"s of the
I'nion you shall find your home desolate, your wife ^ont no
<»ne knows where in slavery, and your children all sent away."

One man said tliat the sales in Missouri were more in
view of impending emancipation. The bill in (|uesti()n
did not come to vote in the Senate at that session. *""

The Civil War helped to usher in the new era of
city industrialism so pregnant with menace to the in-
tegrity of the family. By practically cutting off for-
eign intercourse it accelerated immensely the growth
of American industries and thus proved a turning point
in economic development and social life. The trend
was magnified by the increased demand for standard-
ized manufactured products as army supplies. The
rise of prices occasioneci bv excessive issues of legal
tender paper joined with the war tariff to stimulate
business. While the purchasing power of the West
was increased by its development and improved trans-
portation, the long-run outcome favored the cities and
manufacturing at the expense of rural life.'"

I'he southern family had its peculiar trials by reason
of the war. In the border states the struggle some-
times set father against son. brother against brother,
wife against husband. In any case, the demands of the

""• WiI»on. Il'tsfory of the /tnti-jlavrry Measurrs of thr Thirty-sevrnth and
Thirly-righth i'nitrJ States Congresjrj, chapter xvi.

'•'Walker. Great Count of iSqo, 416; Bookwaltcr. Rural vs. Urban, 245-
246, 367-268.

Effects of the Civil ff'ar 367

Confederacy broke up, at least temporarily, well-nij^h
every southern family. In the Union there were many
families that had no near relative uniier arms; in the
Confederacy it was a rare family that had neither hus-
band, father, son, nor brother in service: hardlv a
household escaped bereavement. Many an expectant
bride sadly postponed marriage and sent her lover to
join the colors.

The common notion, however, that the aristocracy
waived its prerogatives is untenable. The sons and
brothers of influential families were to some e.xtent kept
out of danger by an ingenious system of details. The
favored aristocrat would get "detailed" to some "bomb-
proof" position, as the saying went. Men were slipped
into every comfortable berth that the government could
reach; and as the government assumed various kinds
of business, it soon became hard for an old or infirm
person to get light employment. Young men were
detailed from the army to oil car-wheels; others to
carry lanterns for them. After the fall of Fort Donel-
son the Confederate Congress, made up of slave-owners
and their lawyers, passed a series of acts exempting
all owners of over twenty slaves from military service.
The number was later reduced to ten. It was not un-
common for big slave owners to divide their chattels
among their sons in order to exempt them from the war.
Nearly every landed proprietor has piven bonds to furnisli
meal to obtain e.xemption. Over one hundred thousand land-
ed proprietors, and most of the slave-owners, are now out of
the ranks, and soon, I fear, we shall have an army that will not
fight, having nothing to fight for. The higher cla.M is staying
at home making money, the lower is thrust into the trrmhes.
Lee complains that the rich young men are elected magi»fr ifr\
to avoid service in the field.

Old Confederate soldiers who were prisoners at Camp

368 The Anurican Family

Chase in Ohio have said that "thev never saw one
single commissioned eonleilerate otlicer call the roll in
the morning to ascertain the names of the boys that had
died during the night." It is not to be wondered that
the soldiers tlitl not appreciate mere cheers. **Many
a time," said one woman, "1 have heard tliem veil back
at the ladies who cheered them, 'Go to hell! If you care
for us, come out of your line clothes and help us!""*"'

WDmen bore a large part of the burden of the War.
They brought into use oKl spinning-wheels and looms
and thus supplied the scarcity of clothing for family,
slaves, and soldiers; they labored gallantly to cheer,
comfort, and sustain the men at the front. Girls be-
came women in a dav. The intensitv ami heroism of
female loyalty inspired and prolonged the struggle;
they outdid the men, if anything, in the blindness of
patriotism. It was rare to find a disloval woman.
Many reared in ease and luxury had to engage in all
the drudgery of farm and shop. Many toiled in the
tiehis in (jrdcr to raise food for their households. Fe-
male clerks were employed in the government depart-
ments and proved efficient and useful. "By this
means many young men could be sent into the ranks,
and . . . the work . . . was better done." ""
vSchool-teaching now fell to women. At Richmond in-
dustries employed women and girls as well as men and
boys. An English merchant who spent two months in
the Confederacy said:

Southern women have taken to work. At the dinner-hour many
of the streets of Richmond and other cities arc thronged with
thousands of youn^j women hastening to or from the large
clothes, cartridge, or cotton factories.'""

"** Trov%bridef. The South, 190; AmtrinRcr. I.tfr and Drrds of Uncle
Sam, 46, 48 ; Diary of a Rrhrl War Clerk, 290.

'** Underwood. H'omrn of the Confrdrracy, 117.

*•** Engli»h Merchant. T'v.'o months in the Confederate States, 176, 278.

Effects of the Civil War 369

The war demonstrated that the women of the South
were capable of better things than the delicacy in which
so many had been reared.

They proved able to do man's work. [Tho] descended, as
one woman, from the pedestals upon which the Quixotic chiv-
alry had elevated them, and wrought to the hitter ending, and
after it, in wholly unused methods anu places, as though born
to effort and to success. They sewed rough fabrics for rough
men with their delicate hands, cooked wonderful messes for
camp and hospital out of slenderly stocked pantries; Hicy
dressed wounds with never a tremor or a flush of false modes-

Women at home starved in order to send everything
to the front. Their activity as substitutes for husbands
and fathers opened new channels, taught theni new les-
sons, and won them new consideration. Confeileratc
writings are full of gratitude to the women. A com-
pany of girls in Tennessee even formed a cavalry com-
pany and scoured arountl taking help to friends in the
army. They were captured by Unionists.'"

Men in the field denied themselves for the sake of
dear ones at home. The strain on the soldiers at the
front was augmented by their fears for the safety of the
women. Mistrust of the negroes turned out to be un-
founded; but there were ruffians prowling about the
country shirking duty, and the men of the aristocracy
who shirked service were in a position to put pressure
on the unprotected wives and daugiiters of the sol-
diers. Some soldiers early in the war sent home their
revolvers to be used by the women and children. It
was hard for men to remain faithful to discipline under
the terrible pressure of letters and messages disclosing
suffering, starvation, and despair at home. The strain

'»' De Leon. BelUs, Hraux. and Brains of thr Sixliet, 1J6-IJ7.

'"^Mnlc and Mcrritf. History of Trnnrfsff and Temnrsttfrnms, vol. iii. 6<J-

665.

■270 The AiUiruaii Idtnily

¥ — '- ;

was most felt by the husbands of young wives and the

fathers of voung children, whom they had supiportcd
bv hihor. Most of the tlcscrtions from the Confeder-
ate army occurred liuriiii; the hitter part of the war,
many of them by reason of tiie most pitiful letters from
home. I'or instance, a gallant soldier from the lower
South hail enlisted on the assurance of a rich planter
that he wouKi guarantee the support of the young wife
and child. One day a letter came saying that tbe
wealthy neighbor now refused to give or sell her food
unless she would submit to his lust and that unless be
came home she saw only starvation ahead. Unable
to obtain a furlough, he told the general he would go
home even if the result should be death. The officer
said he did not blame him. On reaching home, the
man moved his wife and child to a place of safety and
made provision for their support; then he caught his
treacherous neighbor, tied him to a tree, and admin-
istered a memorable flogging. Returning to the army
on the eve of action he behaved so gallantly as to con-
sign his ofTense to oblivion. In another case the wife
of a soldier who had deserted on account of his family's
dire need sent him back when she found he had no fur-
lough. On trial he said: "I was no longer the Con-
federate soldier, but the father of Lucy and
the husband of Mary, and I would have passed these
lines if every gun in the battery had firetl upon me."'"
Major Robert Stiles tells of a young woman who in
presence of his men sent word to her husband to desert
On being challenged she said :

'ITiLs thin^ is over, and has been for some time. The Kovcrn-
mcnt has now actually run off, ba;; anil baf^tjacc - the Ivord
knows where - and there is no longer any government or any

ivi [-iwUrwrHxl. Women of the Confederacy, i68, 170, 171.

Effects of the Civil H'ar jji

country for my husband to owe allrfjiancc to. He docs owe
allegiance to me and his starving children, and if he doesn't
observe this allegiance now, when I need him, he need not
attempt it hereafter when he wants me.

She was won, however, by an appeal to her husband's
record, her pride in which led her to accjuiesce, and she
said, "Tell him not to come.'""*

In the last days of xhz strugj^le things became desper-
ate. The Federals sent in circulars offering indefinite
paroles and free transportation home - a terrible test
of loyalty.

The conflict of the classes was more in eviiience in
the confines of the Confederacy than is commonly sup-
posed. The diary of a "rebel" war clerk spoke of a

Frightful list of deserters - sixty thousand Virginians. . .
The poor men in the army can get nothing for their families,
and there is prospect of their starving. . . Gen. Early's
cavalry, being mostly men of propcrt>-, were two-thirds of them
on furlough or detail, \\ hen the rnenn ailvanced on Charlottes-
ville, and the infantry, being ix)or. with no means cither to
bribe the authorities, to fee nienibers of congress, or to aid
their suffering families, declined to fight in defence of the
property of the rich and absent neighbors. . . I saw a cap-
tain, a commissary, give his dog a piece of beef for which I
would have paid a dollar. Many little children of soldiers
were standing by with empty baskets. A poor woman yester-
day applied to a merchant in Carey St. to purchase a barrel of
flour. The price he deniantled w:ls seventy dollars. ".My
God!" exclaimed she, "how can I pay such prices? I ha\T
seven children. What shall I do?" "I don't know madam,"
said he, coolly, "unless you eat your children!"""

Many of the poorer white women of the South
worked for others and were paid, frecjuently in provi-
sions. Doubtless charity was bestowed in certain cases.
Thus a poor North Carolina woman told after the war

'"* Underwood. H'omrn of ihf ('oitfrJrnuy, 198-301.
^^^ Diary of a Rebel IVar Clerk, 391-19).

372 The Auurican Family

how a South Carolina planter hail refused to take pay
for corn that she got.

The wonien of the South were to some extent suhject
to indignities at the hands of the invaders. OfHcers in
Shernian's aniu turned rohhers stealing even dai^uerre-
otypes of dear ones. ( )ne huiv of delicacv and refine-
ment was compelleii to strip hefore them that they
might find concealed valuahles under her dress. In
North Carolina Sherman onlered a venerable citizen
with a family of nearly twenty children ami grand-
children, mostly females, to vacate his house on a few
hours' notice. At New Orleans Butler ordered that
when a woman insulted or showed contempt for a sol-
dier she should be liable to the treatment of a prosti-
tute; but none of the soldiers took advantage of this
order. In Kentucky in 1H64 provost marshals began
to arrest and confine women on charge of sympathy
with the rebellion, etc. Women with children were
banished from the state to Canada, under a guard of
negro soldiers, or sent to prison. "Women whose chil-
dren, brothers, and husbands were in the Confederate
army, or dead on its battle-fields, were naturally given
to uttering much treason. ."""'

Many were the homes desolated by the march of the
invader. Of Sherman's march through South Caro-
lina a private wrote:

Thr prrat evil of all is the dt'stitution in which we leave the
p<x>rcr classes of these people. I have often seen them sitting
with rueful faces xs we passed, sometimes weeping. Not a
thinjj has heen left to eat in many cases; not a horse, or an ox,
or a mule to work with. . A woman told me, with her

checks wet with tears, that she drew the plough herself, while
her hushand, old and quite decrepit, held it, to prepare the soil
for the corn thc^- raised last year.

"* Under wocmJ. U'omrn of Ihr Confrderary, 140-141, 172, 175-176; Shailer.
Kentucky, 348.

Effects fjf the Civil liar 373

A private wrote thus of a Virginia incident:

Most of the defiant furniture was It-ft in the house. The rich
carpets remained upon the floor. In three hours time they
were completely covered with mud. . . It made my heart
ache to see [the soldiers] break mahotiaiiy chairs for t*'- f^'-
and split up a rosewood piano for kindling.

Thus the rich could not escape the costs of their war.
A sand-hiller said of one of his rich neighbors:

He swore he could drink all the blood as would be spilled in
the war ; but lon^; b<"fo' Sharman come his oldest ^^l was a
ploughin* corn with the bull, and his wife a bobbin' fur cat-
fish in a cypress swamp.

The war made the soldier an object of worship
Families of soldiers came in tro(jps to see their relatives
in hospital. Their devotion complicated administra-
tion and made trouble; one wife even gave birth to a
baby in the army hospital. Of two Randolph weddings
in war times we are told that at the first the feminine
interest was largely overshadowed by the men; the war
and its heroes were fresh and the uniforms were new.
At the time of the second suitable men were lacking;
attendants at the church were girls; and priest, groom,
and the aged father of the bride were the only males
present. Small wonder if in both cases the masculine
element possessed unwonted importance.

It should not seem strange that in the midst of batik-
men thought of love. When the blood of the race is
seeping awav. procreation is in order. It seems strange
that there were not nmrc war brides that "for four
years the daughters of the South waited for their lovers,
and alas! manv waited in a life wiilowhood of unutter-
able sorrow." At one time there seemed to be "a per-
fect mania for marriage." "Some of the churches may
be seen open and lighted almost every night for bridals.
and wherever 1 turn I hear of marriages in pros-

374 The Auurudii Fiiinih'

pcct. . . My only wonder is that they find time for

lovc-niakiiiL; amid the storms of warfare."'"^

riic attiluilc ot the victors towaril tlic marriage of
"rchcls" was unbclicvahlc. In April of 1865 General
Halleck wrote to Cicncral Stanton: "I forward Gen-
eral Orders No. 4. ^'ou will perceive from par-
agraph \'. that measures have been taken to prevent,
as far as possible, the propagation of legitimate rebels/'
The paragraph read:

No marriajje lici-nst' will Ix' issuril until the parties
take the oath of allt'Kiance to the I'nitfil States; and no clcrg:>-
man, ma^jistrate, or other party authorized by state laws to
perform the marria^;e ceremony will officiate . . . until
himself and the parties . . shall have taken the pre-

scribed oath.

On a personal appeal of a would-be bridegroom the
order was suspended a few days; the news was dis-
seminated as widely as possible and three weddings
took place in Richmond on Sunday. The Tennessee
Senate passed a hill forbidding women to marry till
they took the test oath but the House had sufficient
sense to reject it.'""

Kmancipation, coming bv catastrophe and prema-
turely, effected in the South a revolution in family
life that would ultimately have come about by the grad-
ual weakening of the slave system. The slaves did
not always leave immediately the white family; but the
days of the old association were numbered. The great
estates could not be held together; for the collapse of
the old system gave to the younger generation an im-
petus towartl the city or in some cases toward North
or West and in any case provision had to be made for
cultivation on a new plan. Ancestral estates continued

*"' Underwood. H'omrn of thr Confrdrracy, ii6.
'»*Avar>-. Dixtf after ihr It'ar, 125-126, 128.

Effects fjf the Civil liar 375

to vanish. The housekeepers of the New South were
destined to a new and trying servant problem. Wo-
men were to Hnd a new place in the economic and S(Kial
world, a less protected place; for even chaperonagc wai
weakened by the war, and the old pseutlo-chivalry
would ultimately give way and open personal opportun-
ity to womanhood. The negro family, also, was thrown
on its own resources arul subjected to the strains of
transition to a new era.

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