ePub Blood Libel: The Damascus Affair of 1840 by Ronald Florence in History

Description

“For liberty is a better husband than love to many of us.”—Louisa May Alcott This sensitive account focuses on the women who chose to remain single in antebellum America. Based on a study of the lives and writings of over one hundred Northeastern women; it describes the reasons why the rejected marriage and the joys and frustrations they encountered in adhering to the tenets of the cult of “Single Blessedness.” Lee Chambers-Schiller sketches the historical forces that allowed middle- and upper-class daughters to leave home in search of personal and economic independence; and she portrays the constrictions of married life from which these women fled. Single women found their own families to be sources of both pain and pleasure; for no matter what their age or position in the world; unmarried females remained daughters with dependent status; their lives continually shaped by the conflicting pulls of work and family. Yet these families—especially sister relationships—provided many of these women with love and intimacy. In fact; an extraordinary number of single sisters pursued join careers: the Weston sisters were activists in abolitionist causes; Emily and Elizabeth Blackwell both practiced medicine; Alice and Phoebe Cary became writers. By demonstrating how these women asserted themselves as individuals; Chambers-Schiller presents them as among the first to articulate the value of female autonomy and as pioneers in expanding the boundaries of women’s progress toward equality.