Gravestone of the Day: Sarah Taylor

Sarah Taylor, 1809, Groton, MA

To

the Memory of

Mrs. Sarah Taylor

Relict of Mr. David

Taylor formerly wife of

Mr. Wm. Parker

and also wife of

Mr. Abiel Richardson

She died Febr. 9, 1809

Aged 80 years

In Defense of Weddings

Getting all dressed up to get married, July 14, 2007.

Recently, I happened across an article bemoaning the high cost of weddings. In general, I think that critics of expensive weddings make some good points — the median cost of a wedding in America is $17,500, people could use that money for other things, the wedding-industrial complex has lots of arbitrary "musts" designed to fleece consumers, we don't need no piece of paper from the city hall, etc. I certainly understand the appeal of eloping and then spending nearly 20k on a fabulous trip (that $ wouldn't buy you a garden shed in my city, so I won't say "or house").

Yet, I will speak in defense of spending serious money on a wedding.*

I think that the sort of article that bemoans Americans' supposed stupidity for spending money on weddings or other celebrations — christenings, quinceañeras, graduations — often misses something important about living in communities. Sure, if we never threw birthday parties, we would have larger savings accounts, but that is a fairly cold measure of achievement. I think that assuming that the only thing that motivates people to spend money on celebrations is a self-centered love of conspicuous consumption overlooks how people create and sustain social bonds. A wedding isn't just a chance to show off — it's a chance to bring people you love together and to give them a opportunity to enjoy one another. For many people, marking the milestones of their lives with some amount of revelry is worth stretching their financial resources. It's not that they don't understand the magic of compound interest — they are making different (and reasonable) choices.

When Pete and I got married in 2007, we spent nearly $10,000 on our wedding and it was totally worth it. If I could live that day over again for 10k, I would do it in a heartbeat.

We did not have a fancy wedding — we got married in the little church up the street from my aunt's house and had the reception in her back yard. I bought most of my flowers at Stop & Shop and cut many of the rest in my mom's and aunts' gardens. Another aunt made the invitations. I bought my dress for $110 off the rack at Macy's. The bridesmaids' dresses were $100 each at the mall. We played music off of Pete's iPod over a sound system borrowed from my uncle.

Caitlin and Brighid in their fancy (but cheap!) dresses.

So where did all that money go?

We spent money on the things that would make the day great for our 150+ guests. We wanted to give our families and friends one wonderful day of enjoying one another and I think we succeeded in that.

About $1,000 went to cake. Rather than get an elaborate wedding cake, we bought about 30 cakes from our favorite bakery (Pastiche in Providence, RI) and had a cake buffet. Rather than choose one or two flavors, we ordered a bit of everything: cheesecake, carrot cake, lemon chiffon, chocolate, fruit tart, chocolate-raspberry torte, etc.:

Another $1,000 went to drinks: beer, wine, soda, water, and coffee. Three kegs of Sam Adams (Boston lager, stout, and summer ale) took up a chunk of that, as did 2 or three cases of wine. There's a local soda maker up the street from my parents' house, so we got a dozen different flavors of soda in glass bottles. We filled some big tubs with ice and put pitchers on a table and people helped themselves.

About $3,000 went to food. My mother and aunts made vats of pasta salad and potato salad, piles of cookies, and vast fruit plates. The bulk of this money went to a friend-of-a-friend who is a BBQ competition champ — we hired him to bring his setup and make pulled pork, spare ribs, bbq chicken, and grilled vegetables:

An additional $1,500 went to two large canopies. It turned out to be a spectacular day, weather-wise, but you can never tell in New England. If it had been drizzly, we would have been very thankful that we had those tents, so I can't regret the money we spent on them.

About $2,000 went to the photographer. It was a big expense, but we treasure the pictures we have from that day. We had her take family portraits of all of the nuclear families and extended families, with everyone looking their best and all together in the same place. We gave those pictures as Christmas presents and everyone has them framed in their houses now.

All the Galante cousins smiling and looking in the same direction — a rare occurrence.

There were other expenses here and there that made up the last little bit — church fees, gifts for the bridesmaids and groomsmen (we gave them the shirts/ties and necklaces they wore for the ceremony), a few hundred dollars on flowers, etc. In general, we didn't spend much on anything that wasn't directly related to making this a good party. I've been to plenty of un-fun weddings where I have eaten overcooked chicken and cardboard cake while attempting to avoid the dance floor, and I didn't think my family would have appreciated enduring that on my behalf. Instead, we blew 10 grand on the best barbecue ever and it was awesome.

Perhaps I remember my wedding with affection because my beloved grandfather had a devastating stroke a few weeks later, so it was the last time we were really all together as a family. When I look back at the pictures, I see my mom talking to my mother-in-law's friends and my grandmothers eating lunch together while my high school friends play badminton with Pete's cousins and the younger kids splash in the pool. Both of our families are musically inclined and many people brought instruments, leading to an hours-long cross-family, friend-inclusive jam session. Everyone got to chat with everyone else and enjoy free beer and good food.

So, I suppose it's true that if we had eloped and saved that $10,000, we could have invested it and spent it on Snapdragon's college education in 18 years. But we wouldn't have had that day, and we would have been the poorer for it.

Happy Three Years!

*I should note that we were married in Connecticut and live in Massachusetts, so marriage is an option available to all of our neighbors.

Go, Nancy!

Today, Professor Nancy Cott will use her expertise as an historian of marriage in America to testify for marriage equality in Perry v. Schwarzenegger.

As someone who has personally cowered under the withering gaze of the formidabe Prof. Cott, I extend my sympathies to the attorney who will have to cross-examine her. I'm sure the anti-Prop 8 legal team chose her for her world-class expertise, but it's her presence that will make her an amazing witness. For someone who is barely 5 feet tall, she can be incredibly intimidating — she has this way of smiling that conveys her infinite patience for your mindboggling stupidity.

If the reports about pro-Prop 8 lawyer Charles Cooper's opening statement are correct, he'll be seeing a lot of that smile.

Consort of Temperance Atwood

A while back, I highlighted the epitaphs carved by Obadiah Wheeler in which he identifies men as husbands to their wives.

This example from Plymouth, MA is not quite the same thing, but it is similar: William Atwood is identified as the "Consort of Temperance Atwood."

Since it is so rare to see an adult, white man identified in terms of his relationship with another person, I wonder whether this may say something about the position of women in maritime communities. Historians have long recognized that port towns tend to have a disproportionate number of female-headed households due to the long and frequent absences of male mariners. Is it possible that whoever commissioned this epitaph was accustomed to treating Temperance Atwood as the head of the Atwood household?

Also, I would name a hypothetical child "Temperance" if Pete would let me. It's a good twin name for "Patience."

Back in the Day

During a bout of insomnia, I came across this intriguing article by CNN's Jenn Thompson: "Bizarre Origins of Wedding Traditions." While I am all for reminding people that "timeless" traditions (white wedding dresses, Christmas trees in living rooms, etc.) are often fairly recent innovations, the most "bizarre" thing about this article is its theory of history. Eschewing any attempt at chronology, Thompson offers a mishmash of historical periods, presenting Queen Victoria's orange blossom gown side by side with Visigoths and "hordes of wedding guests crowding around the bed, pushing and shoving to get a good view and hopefully to get their hands on a lucky piece of the bride's dress as it was ripped from her body." All of this is offered up with a casually ahistorical attitude that makes me wonder if the phrase "back in the day" appeared in early drafts of this piece.

Now maybe I'm just a killjoy and maybe it's just that it's 4 in the morning and I can't sleep, but I found this article's attitude depressing. Of course people enjoy learning wacky facts about ordinary customs, but do these bits of history need to be presented in such a Nickelodeonesque fashion? Wouldn't CNN's audience benefit from a little more history and a little less being talked down to? It seems to me that the whole "people used to be so crazy/stupid!" tone of this article insults the intelligence of its readers. These wedding traditions aren't really "incredibly bizarre," as the author claims, but presenting all of pre-1950 history as a distant and unknowable shadow world is.

Also, this quote grated on my nerves:

A common theme that you've no doubt noticed throughout this post: humans used to be a superstitious bunch.

Used to be? Also, since when is it appropriate to use contractions and the second person singular when writing for a major news outlet. Perhaps CNN has decided to cede what remaining authority it once had to the blogs.

"His Amiable Partner in Life"

I have written previously on the topic of gravestones that identify a particular man as the husband of a particular woman. During the 17th and 18th centuries, women were routinely identified as the "wife of," "consort of," or "relict of" their husbands, but it is rare to find men defined similarly.

So far, I've only found three "husband of" stones, one in Windham, CT and the others in Lebanon.

When I was in Ipswich, I came across the gravestone of Joseph and Elizabeth Manning. While their is no "husband of" language, the epitaph does pay homage to an equitable and loving relationship. The language of "Partner in Life" may sound surprisingly modern, but it was not unknown in late-18th-century New England. Think John and Abigail Adams.

Anyway, I thought it was a touching epitaph.

ERECTED to the Memory of
Doctr. JOSEPH MANNING
& ELIZABETH his amiable Partner
in Life upwards of 46 years, who
died Jan. 30th 1779 in 71st year
of her age. He mourned her lose [sic]
until ye 8th of May 1784 and then
died in ye 80th year of his Age.
The toile of life and pangs of death are o’er
And care & pain & sickness are no more.
They both were plain and unaffected
in their Manners steady and Resalute [sic]
in their Conduct Humane, temperate,
Just & Bountiful.
Death can’t disjoin whom Christ hath join’d in love,
Life leads to death, and death to life above.
In Heaven’s a happier place frail things despise,
Live well to gain in futer [sic] life the prize.

Get Off the Track

Today's happy news from California and Melissa McEwan's comment about hearing "equality coming down the tracks" reminds me of one of my favorite Civil War-era songs: "Get Off the Track." It has a driving rhythm, reminiscent of a train barreling down the track, and reinforcing the idea that progress is irresistible. I'm not sure if I agree with that as an historical philosophy, but it makes for a good song.

"Get Off the Track"
by the Hutchinson Family

Ho! the car emancipation
Rides majestic through our nation,
Bearing on its train the story,
Liberty! a nation's glory.
Roll it along! Roll it along!
Roll it along, through the nation,
Freedom's car, Emancipation.

Men of various predilections
Frightened, run in all directions,
Merchants, editors, physicians,
Lawyers, priests, and politicians,
Get out of the way! Get out of the way!
Get out of the way, every station,
Clear the track for Emancipation.

Let the ministers and churches
Leave behind sectarian lurches,
Jump on board the car of freedom,
Ere it be too late to need them.
Sound the alarm! Sound the alarm!
Sound the alarm! Pulpits thunder,
Ere too late you see your blunder.

All true friends of Emancipation,
Haste to freedom's railroad station,
Quick, into the cars get seated;
All is ready and completed.
Put on the steam! Put on the steam!
Put on the steam! all are crying,
While the liberty flags are flying.

Hear the mighty car-wheels humming,
Now, look out! the engine's coming!
Church- and statesmen hear the thunder,
Clear the track or you'll fall under.
Get off the track! Get off the track!
Get off the track! all are singing,
While the Liberty Bell is ringing.

On triumphant, see them bearing,
Through sectarian rubbish tearing;
The bell and whistle and the steaming
Startle thousands from their dreaming.
Look out for the cars! Look out for the cars!
Look out for the cars! while the bell rings,
Ere the sound your funeral knell rings.

See the people run to meet us!
At the depots, thousands greet us;
All take seats with exultation,
In the car, Emancipation.
Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!
Huzzah! Huzzah! Emancipation
Soon will bless our happy nation!

On Theories of History

Earlier this month, this article by Kay Hymowitz earned some attention from feminist bloggers. My aim here is not to rehash their insightful comments on Hymowitz' sexist, reductionist pearl-clutching over the sad state of today's single young men (SYM). Rather, I would like to address Hymowitz' ill-informed and (unfortunately) popular approach to theorizing historical change.

She begins with a nostalgic appeal to the fairly recent past:

It’s 1965 and you’re a 26-year-old white guy. You have a factory job, or maybe you work for an insurance broker. Either way, you’re married, probably have been for a few years now; you met your wife in high school, where she was in your sister’s class. You’ve already got one kid, with another on the way. For now, you’re renting an apartment in your parents’ two-family house, but you’re saving up for a three-bedroom ranch house in the next town. Yup, you’re an adult!

Fair enough. The 1950s and 1960s saw historic lows in the average age at marriage, so the guy she describes is hardly atypical in that respect. On the other hand, he is fortunate to have finished high school: assuming he graduated with the high school class of 1953 (at age 18), he was one of the privileged 35-40% of Americans who finished high school in the '50s. It's also reasonable to assume that he didn't attend college: only 7.7% of American 25-year-olds had a bachelor's degree in 1960. So far, so good.
But here's where the historian in me gets pissed off:

Now meet the twenty-first-century you, also 26. You’ve finished college and work in a cubicle in a large Chicago financial-services firm. You live in an apartment with a few single guy friends. In your spare time, you play basketball with your buddies, download the latest indie songs from iTunes, have some fun with the Xbox 360, take a leisurely shower, massage some product into your hair and face—and then it’s off to bars and parties, where you meet, and often bed, girls of widely varied hues and sizes. They come from everywhere: California, Tokyo, Alaska, Australia. Wife? Kids? House? Are you kidding?
Not so long ago, the average mid-twentysomething had achieved most of adulthood’s milestones—high school degree, financial independence, marriage, and children. These days, he lingers—happily—in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. Decades in unfolding, this limbo may not seem like news to many, but in fact it is to the early twenty-first century what adolescence was to the early twentieth: a momentous sociological development of profound economic and cultural import. Some call this new period “emerging adulthood,” others “extended adolescence”; David Brooks recently took a stab with the “Odyssey Years,” a “decade of wandering.”

In this section, Hymowitz outlines a basic narrative of decline. Things were one way in the 1960s, today they are different (and worse). The unstated implication is that the norms of the 1960s are somehow natural, better, or historically representative. However, the lost "independence" of the 1960s young adult that Hymowitz laments is also a historically specific norm. Although many Americans seem to believe that Americans in the undefined past married young, had lots of children, and lived self-sufficient lives, this halcyon vision ignores almost every historical fact available to anyone who is willing to make the barest effort to educate his/herself. For example, the average age at marriage in 17th-century Massachusetts ranged from the mid to late twenties for men and the early to mid twenties for women (see: David Hackett Fischer, Albion's Seed, Roger Thompson's Sex in Middlesex, etc.). In 17th-century Virginia, a white man looking for a white wife was lucky to find her at any age. Think of it this way:

It’s 1665, and you’re a 26-year-old white guy. You’re an indentured servant in Virginia, or maybe you work on your father’s land in Massachusetts. Either way, you’re not married because you aren’t independent yet. For now, you’re sleeping on a pallet in the kitchen in your master’s/parents’ house, but you’re saving up for a few acres of your own in the next town. Yup, you’re an adult!

Perhaps this may seem a small point, but I think that it's implications are far-reaching. As an historian who hopes to have some contact with the public, even if only in the form of undergrads, one of the most important fictions that I hope to battle against is the idea of linear decline or improvement. Good luck with that, right? It is a crucial point: events do not move inexorably toward a fixed endpoint, whether that end is perfection or debasement. Times change because people change them, not because we are on an unalterable course toward the next chapter in the textbook. When people fail to realize the contingency of all historical events, their ability to make change in their own time is greatly diminished. Just because we have Roe v. Wade now doesn't mean we'll have it forever unless we fight to protect it. Just because young adulthood is different now than it was in 1965 doesn't mean it is necessarily worse.