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The Young Lady’s Guide to Spinsterhood
Some thoughts on singlehood in… the 1820's?
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To be clear up front — this article is not advice for young ladies, single women, or spinsters. The title refers to a set of mid-1800s American attitudes toward marriage — roughly, a “guide” for how to think of marriage — that led a notable number of women to choose singlehood and service to their communities instead of marriage and children.
I research singlehood, and as a side effect of that I get to engage with its history, as well as the history of related ideas — natalism, feminism, population growth, evolution, and so on. I plan to keep notes on my historic research and write about it as I go. This article covers a time in the American northeast when singlehood was considered acceptable and sometimes even esteemed, in spite of (and one might argue because of) the highly religious climate, due to interpretations of the meaning and role of marriage in life.
J
On Spinsterhood
There’s a wonderful paper written by Zsuzsa Berend about protestant spinsters in the early 1800’s. When you are conducting historical research on a topic like singlehood you stumble across little gems like this often, which crystallize a moment in time, and when you review it you can see the present reflected in the past, and the past reflected in the present.
Berend’s paper (here’s the index information) draws upon the diaries of some forty or so young protestant women, most born in the first two decades of the 1800s, and their youthful ambivalence over marriage. Eventually they became spinsters — women who, through life, never married or had children.
The common story about this is that spinsterhood was an assertion of independence from men and marriage, but Berend’s conclusion, based on their diaries, is that there’s a simpler, more poignant way to interpret their spinsterhood: They chose to stay single not as a rebellion against marriage, but because they held marriage in high esteem and never found a relationship worthy of it.
Starting in the 1800’s America began to undergo a major shift in its attitudes towards marriage, from a friendship and partnership based ethos to one based in romantic and spiritual love. Another paper I read a few years back, this one by E.J. Finkel, tracks the timeline — roughly speaking, you can split American love into three separate time periods.
The earliest time period, which lasted until approximately 1850, was marked by agrarian practicality. Marriage was not just personal — it was a societal arrangement, and an integral bulwark against the wild of the frontier. Both sexes had unique skillsets and for those who were trying to get established in America, and in the American frontier especially, family mattered. Family sowed the fields with you. Family held down the homestead while you were harvesting. Family had your back if you fell afoul of neighbors, and vouched for you if your character was challenged.
As such, the attitude towards marriage was more practical. Love mattered, but, as Berend noted, people weren’t expected to find an all-consuming love prior to marriage — rather, it was assumed that they would marry someone that they cared about, were congenial with, and could form a deep and lasting friendship with. They could build passion on that foundation, if passion was part of what God intended for them.
In the early 1800s this sentiment began to change. By about 1850 the second stage of American love was ushered in — the age of romantic love (Note: The final age arrived in 1960)¹. The expectation of the romantic era was that men and women would fall in love before marriage, and a premium was put on the nature and quality of that love. Its spontaneity, purity, and intensity mattered for a marriage bond, especially in religious traditions such as those of the American northeast, since the particulars of the emotion indicated whether it was rooted in divine will, rather than the wishes of two horny young adults who were anxious to get the ring on so they could get the clothes off.
To that end many of the spinsters that Berend surveyed had a few things in common. The first is that they were bright, literate young women (though I suppose that we should account for the fact that history has filtered them for us — the illiterate ones wouldn’t have left diaries). The second is that they were very serious about the purity of marriage. Their attitude was this must be divine or it’s not worth pursuing. As such, Berend’s diarists courted suitors but largely found them lacking.
This doesn’t mean that their suitors were bad. In fact many of the women appeared to have men that they genuinely cared for. But for them that affection wasn’t enough; they had expectations of a love that was divinely inspired and all consuming. They expected that marriage would involve two partners working together toward a higher purpose than what they could accomplish apart.
They also had high expectations, not only for their suitors, but for their own emotions. If a man wasn’t worthy then he was clearly out, but also, when one of Berend’s diarists scrutinized her own emotions, if she couldn’t find emotions that matched her expectations, she concluded it was better to stay true to herself.
Notably, at that time societal attitudes towards singles were somewhat relaxed. Notable works of the time, such as Muzzey’s The Young Maiden, argued that women’s femininity did not mean that all of them were meant for motherhood. Here’s a representative quote from Muzzey:
Providence… made all for the sake of character, usefulness, and happiness. Every institution he appointed was to be instrumental to the production of these three grand objects. Hence, woman was not made for marriage; but marriage for woman. If in any instance it shall appear that her improvement will probably be retarded by her entering that state, or her usefulness less extensive, or her happiness evidently sacrificed, then it is manifest that she belongs to the class of exceptions — A.B. Muzzey, The Young Maiden (p. 152)
So, for Berend, the key to understanding spinsters in the mid 1800’s was this: they considered it honorable to be single and useful (if not ideal), and it was reasonable, to them, to forego marriage if they could not find one that would improve their life, faith, and work, more than continuing as a single woman.
My thoughts on the research
I’ve been thinking for a while about what to make of this. Some points come readily to mind:
Having high standards vs. appealing to them
There are a couple ways to interpret the actions and beliefs of Berend’s spinsters. Clearly some were idealists (which is evident from their diaries), but beyond that, if a woman simply did not want marriage, the zeitgeist of the time gave her the perfect thing to say: She could praise marriage as an ideal while lamenting that she couldn’t find one that was divine enough.
One quote from Berend’s research stands out in particular, this from Lucy Stone, in response to one Henry Blackwell, who had been ardently courting her. You can find the text quoted in Berend’s work:
“You are dearest to me… but all that you are to me, does not come near, my ideal of what is necessary, to make a marriage relation… If there were real affinity between us — the elements by which a true marriage could be made, I do not think that I should so instinctively recoil from the thought of it.”
This does not sound like a woman whose puts marriage on so high a pedestal that she cannot find someone worthy of it. This sounds like a woman who cares about the man courting her but who has no interest, ever, in seeing him remove his trousers.
It appears that Stone, here, is letting Blackwell down as gently as she is able to. It’s not that she is interested in being with him but has such high standards that she can’t move forward; it’s simply that she’s not interested in being with him.
That doesn’t imply that she’s being disingenuous. Berend’s diarists were raised in a highly religious culture and their thinking naturally incorporated their faith. My point is there’s a difference between wanting something but feeling blocked by your standards, and not wanting something and appealing to your standards to justify your decision. Lucy Stone’s correspondence with Henry Blackwell seems to be a strong example of the second.
In contrast, there are other women in Berend’s research materials who seemed genuinely ambivalent — who wanted to marry, but never found someone who could stir the feelings that they expected to feel. Another one of Berend’s diaries — this one written by Lucy Larcom — captures this ambivalence well. Regarding Frank, the man courting her, she said:
“I could almost believe I love him enough to go to him at once…” but “I am sure there are chambers in my heart the he could not unlock… I do feel that it is in me to love, humanly, as I have never loved him.”
So, we have one Lucy here, Ms. Larcom, who was clearly weighing the quality of her feelings carefully, looking only for the choicest love. But our second Lucy, Ms. Stone, seems just to have found the perfect language for saying “no.”
Culture and missed opportunities
A second point, this one more of a question than a comment. I’m curious about how the old Christian chastity played into all of this. Men and women were expected to fall in love but also were expected to keep their passions in check. This probably means that many of them never really got a chance to find the things that really hit their romance buttons. I guess we can’t know this for sure, but I imagine that some of the more cerebral woman at that time might have found someone to love passionately if they hadn’t been forced to imagine men from a distance? (Or women, for that matter).
One quotation from Berend is particularly poignant in this regard. Catharine Sedgwick, reminiscing about a man who she was interested in, said “I liked him, and not knowing quite as much of the heart (or of my heart) as I do I fancied that liking might ripen into something warmer.” Later in life, however, Sedgwick realized that love is not just a more intense form of liking, but a different emotion altogether. It’s worth considering, then, whether the culture of the time might have barred some people from the exploration that they needed to feel that emotion in the first place.²
The freighting of marriage
Another point about this time period that interests me: it is a prime example of what E.J. Finkel calls “the freighting of love.” One of Finkel’s arguments is that the expectations we put on love can squash our chances of it before it starts. The interesting thing here, though, is that Finkel argues that our time is unique in how heavily it freights love. We expect our partner to be our best friend, an exciting lover, a support in time of need, physically attractive, financially stable. The list goes on.
Simply having this set of expectations means that many people are unlikely to find someone who fulfills them (especially if they are not very gregarious and able to put in the hours to find someone). This ties in, as well, with a gradual shift in our cultural conception of marriage, from a cornerstone event in one’s life, to a capstone event. Roughly, marriage as a cornerstone is considered a support for a good life, whereas marriage as a capstone is considered a late (or final) step in attaining it, after one has prepared enough and gotten other important achievements out of the way.
Arguably, this ties in with our attitudes towards spousal faults, as well. For those who consider marriage a cornerstone experience, many of the minor faults can (and should) be forgiven because the most important element of marriage is the mutual support it provides in building the future. And for such people it is also understood (and deeply internalized) that there is an element of work in marriage — no partner will be perfect, but two partners can start humbly and work toward being better together.
On the flipside, if marriage is considered a capstone experience, then there’s a greater element of “take it or leave it” involved, and people might wind up emphasizing the socially communicative parts of marriage (such as a spouse’s social status) when they’re selecting a partner.
Ultimately both camps run headlong into the reality of marriage, which is that it requires a lot of work, that appearances aren’t the true measure of a person, and that it has the potential to be incredibly rewarding anyway if both people are committed to making it work. But it’s worth noting that the two different attitudes, cornerstone vs. capstone, may have a very strong influence on how people approach finding a spouse at the beginning. And Berend’s spinsters are a great example of women who never found a compelling reason to explore past the beginning.
The past and present
Finally, Berend’s spinsters lived two centuries ago, but their connection to the present is intriguing. Then, as now, many people demand everything of love and, because of their uncompromising standards, go without it.
The source of those standards is different — in the past they were presumed to have a component of divine will attached, whereas today we appeal to individualistic motives. But the result is the same — some people just continue waiting, or decide to stop searching.
But Berend also noted that much of the reason her diarists remained single is because society made space for them — if someone couldn’t find within themselves the right motives for marriage, or couldn’t find a marriage that made them and their partner greater together than they were separately, then it was not only understood, but honorable, to spend a life devoted to being happy, virtuous, and beneficial to others.
And now, as then, it seems that many people are finding that going without a life partner isn’t so bad when the societal stigma against it is removed. There are lots of other important, deeply meaningful things to do in the meantime, and then, like now, high standards were not a sin.
Footnotes
- The final age arrived in 1960. A rough overview of Finkel’s timeline: prior to 1800 America was mainly pragmatic. In the mid-1800’s something shifted and American conceptions of love became spiritual and romantic. By 1900 the primary attitude was romantic but the interactions between men and women had become less formal, emphasizing connection and companionship. In 1960 people started transitioning to the most recent phase, which is highly egalitarian and emphasizes two partners supporting each other towards mutual self-actualization.
- An extension of this is that LGBT passions were probably repressed to the point that some of Berend’s diarists, who felt no passion for the men in their lives, might never have had the experience with women that would have tipped them off that they couldn’t feel anything for men. Presumably if this was the case some allusion to it might show up in their diaries, but I have yet to read those. Even if this wasn’t the case with Berend’s diarists specifically, given what we know now about the prevalence of LGBT individuals it seems likely that it still would have been the case for many.