Star InactiveStar InactiveStar InactiveStar InactiveStar Inactive
 

Article Index

 

XII. Matrimonial Advice

Through the letters of the day many hints have come down to us of what colonial men and women deemed important in matters of love and marriage. Thus, we find Washington writing Nelly Custis, warning her to beware of how she played with the human heart--especially her own. Women wrote many similar warnings for the benefit of their friends or even for the benefit of themselves. Jane Turrell early in the eighteenth century went so far as to write down a set of rules governing her own conduct in such affairs, and some of these have come down to us through her husband's _Memoir_ of her:

     "I would admit the addresses of no person who is not descended of pious and credible parents."

     "Who has not the character of a strict moralist, sober, temperate, just and honest."

     "Diligent in his business, and prudent in matters. Of a sweet and agreeable temper; for if he be owner of all the former good qualifications, and fails here, my life will be still uncomfortable."

Whether the first of these rules would have amounted to anything if she had suddenly been attracted by a man of whose ancestry she knew nothing, is doubtful; but the catalog of regulations shows at least that the girls of colonial days did some thinking for themselves on the subject of matrimony, and did not leave the matter to their elders to settle.