5.3 5.4 marriage and motherhood  (Page 2/6)

Girls did feel a power over their own lives before marriage. Annie Jenkins Sallee, the missionary to China, wrote about refusing a proposal while still a schoolgirl at Baylor:

He said he didn't see how he could ever give

me

up. I laughed at him, and told him he didn't have me to give me up.

Generalization about marriage is always hazardous because the relationship is deeply affected by general cultural patterns. It has subjective, personal dimensions that can withstand or transcend societal norms. Hence, good marriages exist in the least conducive conditions, and the best of times produce some miserable matches. Throughout the period of this study, therefore, both good and bad marriages existed regardless of societal influences or the relative degree of equality and control the wife enjoyed. The national climate of opinion shifted between 1880 and 1920 and the role of Baptist women within marriage was somewhat altered, but that merely implies change in the institution rather than improvement. Judgment on the degree of improvement was probably correctly assessed by one Baptist social observer in 1904:

there is more good

and

bad than ever before.

Precise evaluation of the satisfaction evoked by marriage remains elusive because that measurement would have to take into consideration the expectations of the married partners. In the late nineteenth century, a woman generally expected to encourage and provide comfort for her husband and anticipated that he would protect and support her. This symbiosis worked most satisfactorily as long as both were working toward a common goal (as typified in religious occupations and farm life) and the contributions of both were highly valued. A kind of comradeship based on mutual respect was possible under this system as long as the sexual stereotypes that defined the roles were unquestioned.

In an idealized paternalistic marriage, the wife viewed her husband as her leader, a beneficent protector who led only after he had won her affection and trust. As her friend and comrade, he tried to discern her desires as well as impose his own. She gave weight to the worth of her opinions by faithfully fulfilling her domestic and maternal tasks. Dictatorial leadership was actually submerged in a

mutual adaptation of mind, body, and heart.

BS , February 25, 1897, p. 4.

first and always as well or better than [himself],

the happiest earthly fruition of life.

Usually such connubial bliss remained in the realm of the ideal—Baptist writers described their own marriages or those of others they knew as conforming to the pattern, but their descriptions were not specific enough to convince the skeptical. One that answered the need for specificity was J. B. Gambrell's recollection of his and his wife Mary's life in the period following the Civil War. Although Gambrell espoused male leadership in the home, their arrangement was more egalitarian than authoritarian.

How did we live?