What's Love Got to Do with It: Courtship in Antebellum
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WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT: COURTSHIP IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA BY TAYLOR M. GARRISON Honors Thesis Muhlenberg History Department Dr. Lynda Yankaskas 6 May 2020 Garrison 2 In June of 1826, Edward Dickinson proposed to Emily Norcross via letter. A month later, Norcross had yet to accept, Dickinson poured out his affections for her across even more pages. He wrote: “I am perfectly satisfied in relation to your character & your virtues—and were you as well satisfied that our union would promote our mutual happiness, I would most cheerfully offer you my heart & hand—will you accept them?”1 No parents had been consulted for input nor had there been any discussion of economic exchange. Instead, Dickinson proposed marital happiness by means of his hand, economic and legal attachment, and his heart, companionship and emotional connection. In offering Norcross his hand and heart, Dickinson forsook the courtship traditions of the past and embraced the spirit of the American Revolution. Young adults in post-Revolutionary America exercised semi-independence from their parents.2 There was greater acceptance of young adult’s independent decisions through society-at-large’s push for democratic equality. Thus, society afforded them the power to make many of their own social choices. The rise of the Industrial Revolution further supported semi-independence by pushing many young adults to work outside the family home. Despite the growing societal support for young adults’ freedom, many courting Americans depended upon their family for essentials, such as economic support and physical housing. While young adults primarily constructed their own beliefs about courtship and marriage, they were cognizant of their continuing dependence on their families and adjusted their behavior accordingly. 1 Edward Dickson “Letter 13.” July 13, 1826 in A Poet’s Parents: The Courtship Letters of Emily Norcross and Edward Dickinson. Edited by Vivian R. Pollack. (Chapel Hill; University of North Carolina Press, 1988,) 32. 2 Ellen K. Rothman, Hands and Hearts: History of Courtship in America (New York: Basic Books Inc, 1984,) 27. Garrison 3 In antebellum America, the pervading social ideology dictated that marriages should be based on romantic love.3 Rooted in the Victorian emphasis on emotion, romantic love suggested that couples enter companionable marriages, or unions based on mutual affection. The ideology of romantic love contradicts the myth that antebellum marriages were economic arrangements between families. A national romantic consciousness grew out of the shared belief in romantic love. Letters served as the primary vehicle for expressions of romantic love as many couples lived too far away for frequent in-person meetings. Many courting Americans viewed letters as a vital part of their lives; some going as far as to claim writing love letters was “a part of [their] being.”4 Famed novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne described love letters as his “heart’s food.”5 Through their courtship letters and diary entries, couples contended with the socially established norms of love and courtship that imposed ideologies regarding gender, race, class, and sexuality. The existing scholarship on courtship over-emphasizes middle- to upper-class, white, heterosexual couples. Some historians reference this gap but make little effort to engage with marginalized couples. Historian Steven Seidman remarks, “Same-sex love—men loving men and women loving women—is all too frequently neglected or relegated to a marginal scholarly place.”6 The same critique could be made for Black love. This research aims to engage with a wider range of couples than previous scholarship to examine the effects of the national romantic consciousness.7 Due to the wider scope, this paper defines courtship as an informal contract 3 Ellen K. Rothman, Hands and Hearts: History of Courtship in America, 7; Steven Seidman, Romantic Longings: Love in America, 1830-1980 (New York: Routledge, 1991,) 7; Karen Lystra, Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992,) 28; John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988,) 42. 4 Karen Lystra, Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-Century America, 12. 5 Leland S. Person, "Hawthorne's Love Letters: Writing and Relationship," American Literature 59, no. 2 (1987): 216. 6 Steven Seidman, Romantic Longings: Love in America, 4. 7 Unfortunately, due to a lack of resources and time as an undergraduate student, lower class couples will not be examined in this paper. I believe it is the next important step in the scholarship on courtship. Garrison 4 between two individuals with the goal of long-term partnership.8 Marriage does not factor into this definition simply because it was not an option for many of the couples discussed. White lawmakers deemed marriages between enslaved individuals illegitimate.9 Free Black couples faced aggressive racism which limited their ability to legally marry. This led to the prevalence of “informal marriage, sacramental marriage, and civil marriage” among free Black couples, especially in the American South.10 Though romantic relationships between two women were colloquially referred to as “Boston marriages,” the United States did not nationally legalize same-sex marriage until 2015.11 Additionally, much of the existing scholarship emphasizes the role of sexual intimacy, especially of same-sex couples, as a means of proving their romantic attraction. My research strives to take historical actors at their word, especially when heterosexual couples are not often placed in such rigorous scrutiny of their romantic pursuits. The romantic consciousness arose around the time of the American Revolution and Industrial Revolution. While the semi-independence of young adults allowed them to pursue their romantic interests, it was not the only cause of the proliferation of romantic love. Women’s domestic work during the American Revolution bolstered their social standing, as did increasing educational opportunities. The rise of moral egalitarianism and women’s rights advocacy situated women as agents of choice, rather than objects of economic trades between father and husband. The Second Great Awakening infused Christianity with the language of emotion and devotion as 8 American society permitted partnerships between two women, even after one or both women married men, under the assumption that she was first and foremost going to remain a wife and mother. Additionally, my research largely focuses on same-sex relationships between two women. For more information on the unique challenges facing male- male relationships, see: Benemann, William. Male-Male Intimacy in Early America: Beyond Romantic Friendships. New York: Harrington Park Press, 2006. 9 Tera K. Hunter, Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017), 67. 10 Ibid, 119. For information on mixed-race couples and mixed-status Black couples, see Hunter’s full text. 11 Leila J. Rupp, A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-Sex Love in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1999), 45. Garrison 5 more and more women filled the pews; these women began “[relegating] Christian devotion to the service of earthly love.”12 A combination of these social and political factors provided women with the basis to seek out romantic courtships and companionable marriages that regarded men’s and women’s emotions equally. Edward Dickinson frequently wrote to Emily Norcross that marriage secured their mutual happiness: “We are, at once, laid under the strongest of earthly obligations to promote the comfort & happiness of each other.”13 Thus, the development of a national romantic consciousness likely furthered women’s social standing even more.14 Romantic love was the key feature of American romantic consciousness. It pervaded the thoughts of all Americans. Violet, an enslaved woman, refused to marry any enslaved man presented to her by her enslaver. Violet informed her enslaver: “I can’t take one ob dem, ‘cause I don’t lub ‘em.”15 While Violet likely had many reasons to refuse a marriage set up by the man who enslaved her, it is striking she described it in the terms of love. Such a comment suggests that the ideology of romantic love was widespread enough for the lack of romantic affections to be used as a valid excuse not to marry, even for enslaved women who were regularly forced to marry for the purpose of increasing profits for the enslaver. Courtship etiquette manuals and newspaper articles of the era aimed to define the term ‘love’ for their readers.16 The definition was two-fold. On one hand, love was a strong emotion between two people. An 1852 etiquette 12 Catherine E. Kelly, “‘Old People Never Believe in Love,’” in In the New England Fashion, Reshaping Women’s Lives in the Nineteenth Century (Cornell University Press, 1999), 143-144. 13 Edward Dickson “Letter 38” April 21, 1827 in A Poet’s Parents: The Courtship Letters of Emily Norcross and Edward Dickinson, 102. 14 Karen Lystra, Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-Century America, 228. 15 We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century, Edited by Dorothy Sterling (W.H. Norton & Company, 1997), 34. 16 Bookseller listings of the era frequently contained courtship etiquette manuals. Additionally, Americans frequently read books published in Great Britain. The etiquette books utilized in this research thus serve as examples of what Americans could have read. Garrison 6 manual described love as “the sweetest, gentlest passion we are capable of…”17 The possibility of love arrived spontaneously, as a “baffling and uncontrollable force.”18 Love was also a process dictated by individual choices. Couples sought to build an intimate relationship distinct from sexual relations. Though physical intimacy was, without a doubt, an important part of courtship and marriage, this research sets that conversation aside as the ideology of romantic love strove to define love as entirely distinct from physical intimacy.