Stray Wives: Marital Conflict in Early National New England - Hardcover

Sievens, Mary Beth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 081474009X ISBN 13: 9780814740095

Publisher: NYU Press, 2005

Synopsis

Whereas my husband, Enoch Darling, has at sundry times used me in so improper and cruel a manner, as to destroy my happiness and endanger my life, and whereas he has not provided for me as a husband ought, but expended his time and money unadvisedly, at taverns . . . . I hereby notify the public that I am obliged to leave him.
Phebe Darling, January 13, 1796

Hundreds of provocative notices such as this one ran in New England newspapers between 1790 and 1830. These elopement notices--advertisements paid for by husbands and occasionally wives to announce their spouses' desertions as well as the personal details of their marital conflicts--testify to the difficulties that many couples experienced, and raise questions about the nature of the marital relationship in early national New England.

Stray Wives examines marriage, family, gender, and the law through the lens of these elopement notices. In conjunction with legal treatises, court records, and prescriptive literature, Mary Beth Sievens highlights the often tenuous relationships among marriage law, marital ideals, and lived experience in the early Republic, an era of exceptional cultural and economic change.

Elopement notices allowed couples to negotiate the meaning of these changes, through contests over issues such as gender roles, consumption, economic support, and property ownership. Sievens reveals the ambiguous, often contested nature of marital law, showing that husbands' superior status and wives' dependence were fluid and negotiable, subject to the differing interpretations of legal commentators, community members, and spouses themselves.

About this title

Review:

"Offers an engaging look at marital conflict at a key transitional time in the emotional and economic landscape of early national New England."
-Journal of the Early Republic

"To fully appreciate how far women's rights have evolved by the twenty-first century, all one need do is read a work like this one. . . . Highly recommended."
-Choice

" Stray Wives is an insightful, carefully argued, and well-written work that complicates our understanding of law, society, and gender in early national New England. Along the way, it adds to our store of knowledge on such topics as women's economic role, domestic violence, and community relationships in early America. Sievens does a lovely job of showing the ways in which wives contested their husbands' dominance at the same time that they tolerated-indeed, sometimes benefited from-their own dependence."
-Anya Jabour, author of Marriage in the Early Republic

"Wonderful. . . . A fascinating and complex account of husbands struggling to assert their legal dominance in a changing cultural landscape, while law remained static. . . . Stray Wives is full of creative research and compelling new insights about marriage in early national America. Sievens's nuanced argument about power and interdependence within marriage is absolutely convincing. She also clearly demonstrates that legal change lagged behind cultural change, leaving husbands frustrated by their inability to rule."
-William & Mary Quarterly

"Sievens shows how even when free of their marriages, women often remained dependent on male kin."
-The Chronicle of Higher Education

"In Stray Wives, Sievens examines hundreds of desertion notices to elucidate how couples negotiated the common law of marriage by revealing the words they addressed to the public, the issues over which they disagreed, and their strategies for maneuvering through and settling their conflicts. This important book adds both detail and depth to our knowledge of marriage and marital conflict in the early republic."
-Merrill D. Smith, author of Breaking the Bonds

"Sievens focuses on a rich and under-used source: the ads that appeared in early American newspapers alerting readers not to extend credit to run-away wives, as well as occasional replies made by wives themselves. This is a terrific source that illuminates marriage, gender, law, print culture, and community in early America. Sievens has shown considerable sensitivity and acuity, as well as diligence in the pre-digitized days, in her approach to these fascinating sources. This is an impressively lucid coverage resting on persuasive claims. . . . Indeed, this book, in its brevity, clarity, and inherent drama, may be of particular use in the classroom. A fine book on an important topic, it will certainly be of use to many working in this field."
-Journal of Social History

Synopsis:

"Stray Wives" examines marriage, familial gender relations, and the law through the lens of "elopement" notices: advertisements that husbands and occasionally wives placed in newspapers to announce their spouses' desertions as well as the details of their marital conflicts. Using these notices in conjunction with legal treatises, court records, and prescriptive literature, Mary Beth Sievens highlights the often tenuous relationships among marriage law, marital ideals, and lived experience in the early Republic, an era of exceptional cultural and economic change. The rise of companionate marital ideals and economic changes that brought house-holds more firmly into the developing market economy presented husbands and wives with new challenges as they constructed their marriage relationships. Couples used elopement notices to negotiate the meaning of these changes, through contests over such issues as husbands' authority and wives' submission, consumer spending, economic support, and property ownership. The notices and couples' experiences reveal the ambiguous, often contested nature of marital law.

Husbands' superior status and wives' dependence were fluid and negotiable, subject to the differing interpretations of legal commentators, community members, and spouses themselves.

About this edition

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 081474009X
• ISBN 13: 9780814740095
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 171