Cynthia Culver Prescott

"Why she didn't marry him": Love, Power, and Marital Choice on the Far Western Frontier

Frontier marriages were practical unions characterized by strong patriarchal authority. The children of Anglo-American settlers in Oregon's Willamette Valley, in contrast, postponed marriage, seeking more egalitarian power relations, companionship, and romantic love. Changing marital relationships highlight the expansion of middle-class culture in the nineteenth-century American West.

IN 1853, AN ANGLO-AMERICAN BACHELOR living on the Oregon frontier wrote to his parents in Ohio, "I do need a wife no mistake ... for I am geting most tired of doing my own cooking washing and mending."¹ Two decades later, an article in an agricultural newspaper advised young Oregon men and women: "[I]f you do not love, then do not marry. Singleness is blessedness compared to marriage without affection."² As these differing perspectives on marriage suggest, expectations for marriage in the Far West changed from the need for shared labor to demands for companionate relationships at the close of the frontier era. As native-born white farmers replaced Native peoples in Oregon's Willamette Valley and built new ties to the eastern United States, settlers' daughters grew unwilling to cook, wash, and mend in exchange for field labor and male dominance. Besides enjoying more companionate relationships, women began to expect greater influence over household decision-making, and became less tolerant of physical and emotional abuse. In only one generation, economic and technological change spread middle-class American culture to the Willamette Valley. As it took root, this middle-class culture pruned patriarchal authority and planted seeds of companionship and romantic love in the fertile soil of the American West.³

Economic prosperity shifted power relations between husbands and wives and helped to transform the meaning of marriage in Oregon and throughout the nineteenth-century United States. Family historians Karen Lystra and Ellen Rothman argued that the ideal of romantic love became a central feature of middle-class marriage during the nineteenth century.⁴ Although they disagreed about when romance first became a central element of American courtship, Lystra and Rothman concurred that by the late-nineteenth century, "ideal love" was the only chance for a happy marriage. Frontier studies have called into question the universality of these findings, however. Although John Mack Faragher identified mid-nineteenth-century midwestern courtship rituals similar to those described by Lystra and Rothman, he argued that romance was not accessible to men and women raised on the Ohio Valley frontier. Certainly rural men and women were glad to marry someone whose company they enjoyed, and many later bemoaned the absence of their beloved spouses. For Oregon settlers, though, like farming families throughout rural America, the financial necessity of a partner in labor superceded their desire for a romantic companion. Comparing these early Oregon settlers to their children—who benefitted from generous grants of productive farmland and the West's economic incorporation into the American nation—reveals how fleeting these frontier conditions were in Oregon's vast Willamette Valley. Analyzing interactions between Willamette Valley husbands and wives highlights the westward expansion of middle-class culture, including a shift in power relations more transformative than the flowering of "ideal" romantic love.

Throughout the Far West in the mid-nineteenth century, frontier conditions prevented Anglo-American settlers from matching their daily lives to their class aspirations. Immediate labor requirements forced men and women to marry at relatively young ages, and to remain flexible about their gender-based division of labor. Although husbands and wives valued one another as economic partners, Anglo men's land ownership gave them a great deal of patriarchal authority over their wives, and conditions in the Willamette Valley appear to have increased men's patriarchal power.⁵

Family letters, diaries, and account books reveal that Willamette Valley labor constraints eased over time, allowing families to establish work roles that better fit the gender ideology they carried with them to the Far West. Genealogical records reveal changing ages at first marriage. As the children of early settlers came of age, increasing prosperity enabled the second generation to set aside the practicality previously dictated by frontier conditions. Meanwhile, new employment opportunities for women combined with a shortage of available land to shift the balance of power between men and women. Moreover, expanding railroad and telegraph networks carried new household technologies and print media to previously isolated western farms and communities. Improved trade and communication networks tied the West into a national consumer culture that carried with it new expectations for men's and women's behavior.

Increasingly, the children of early settlers embraced the cultural expectations of the eastern middle class. This included not only distinct gender roles, but also a demand for companionability and a distaste for forceful demonstrations of patriarchal authority. Inspired by advice pieces in local newspapers and emboldened by new educational and occupational opportunities, second-generation women postponed marriage in search of a partner in life, and not only in labor. When they finally found a man who met their demands for companionability, they expected their modern marriage to bring with it a greater voice in household finances and freedom from spousal abuse. Divorce records reveal local men's and women's unwillingness to tolerate deviations from these ideals. By the late-nineteenth century, the children of far western settlers abandoned the highly patriarchal marriages of their frontier parents and joined their eastern counterparts in embracing marital relationships based on shared decision-making, gentle behavior and romantic feelings, as well as shared labor.

Frontier men and women married primarily for practical reasons, combining men's outdoor work with women's domestic labor to overcome chronic labor shortages. Despite their economic interdependence, men maintained significant patriarchal authority over their wives. Historian David Peterson del Mar demonstrated that moving families from the male-dominated rural Midwest and Upper South to distant Oregon generally reinforced male authority while separating women from the protection and support of kith and kin.⁶ Male settlers' authority was further enhanced by the availability of large grants of rich Willamette Valley farmland. Although the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 (DLCA) technically granted equal portions of land to married men and their wives, men typically controlled the couple's combined landholdings, and chose how to divide the acreage among their children. Men thus enjoyed the legal and social authority that landownership brought, while their wives suffered from additional isolation created by vast farms. As the initial frontier period passed, first-generation Oregon women gradually gained a degree of influence over their domestic products, but they failed to significantly challenge their husbands' role as household head.⁷

Rural families throughout the United States relied primarily on the labor of family members. This was particularly true on the frontier, where labor was scarce and labor needs especially great. Frontier men and women worked together to establish viable farms. While men performed most of the fieldwork, they relied on their wives to provide labor and domestic expertise on their farms. A wife was "an equal partner in every-thing," as first-generation Oregon settler Maria Locey proclaimed, but particularly in labor.⁸ In addition to domestic work, women bore and raised children who also contributed to the household economy by assisting with field- and housework. For all of these reasons, marriage was a necessity, and frontier men and women lacked the luxury of searching for romantic love.⁹

Across rural America in the mid-nineteenth century, men and women married at relatively young ages to secure land and a partner in labor. They could not afford to postpone marriage in search of the perfect mate. Uneven sex ratios and acute labor needs placed additional pressure on frontier women to marry early. Scholars Paul Bourke and Donald DeBats estimated the median age at first marriage of women living in Washington County, Oregon, in 1860 to be 17.4 years.¹⁰ Among this study's sample of thirty-eight women who migrated to Oregon in the mid-nineteenth century, the average age at first marriage was 18.6 years, and more than two-thirds were married before the age of 20.¹¹ (See Figures 1 and 2.) Oregon women's ages at first marriage were comparable to those who settled in Sugar Creek, Illinois, earlier in the nineteenth century.¹² Romantic love may have characterized eastern middle-class courtship in the nineteenth century, but it remained inaccessible for men and women on the frontier. Reciprocity, rather than romance, was the foundation of a successful rural marriage.


Figure 1. Female Age at First Marriage. Source: Family database.

Generation 1^st Generation 2^nd Generation	Average Age at First Marriage (years) 18.6 N = 38 20.8 N = 47	Married by Age 20 (percent) 78.9 57.4	Married by Age 30 (percent) 100 93.6


*Figure 2. Female Age Distribution at First Marriage.Source:Family database.*

Age (years) 10–14 15–19 20–24 25–29 30–34 35+	First Generation (N = 38) 0 26 12 0 0 0	Second Generation (N = 47) 1 21 20 2 2 1

Willamette Valley settlers enjoyed particularly generous grants of rich farmland. Yet practical labor needs on their large farms prevented even these relatively fortunate settlers from patterning their marriages after the romantic ideal developing among the eastern middle class. In fact, the terms of the DLCA, which permitted married couples to claim twice as much land as could single men, appears to have encouraged teenage girls to marry at even younger ages than their counterparts in other frontier regions. Memoirs suggest that fifteen was a typical age for women to marry during the early years on the Willamette Valley frontier. One woman recalled that "in those days the young men began wondering why a girl wasn't married if she was still single when she was 16."¹³ Anecdotal evidence also reveals that young women who migrated to Oregon with their families during their teenage years were sometimes pressured to marry significantly older men, and at least a few young women married men whom they hardly knew. For example, one fourteen-year-old married a man twice her age whom she had known only a week. Such relationships enhanced men's domestic authority at the expense of their young brides. Oregon women's rights activist Abigail Scott Duniway averred that "when a man of forty, thirty, or even twenty-five, marries a child of fourteen ... the result is subjugation on one hand and despotism upon the other."¹⁴ To be certain, not all single women married at such an early age. In fact, Jennie Stevenson Miller recalled: "I had my first offer of marriage when I was 13, and from then till I was 24 I had numerous proposals." However, Miller resisted these offers precisely because "[she] had a pretty strong suspicion that many of the men who wanted to marry [her] wanted the extra land they could get if they were married."¹⁵ Financial opportunities offered by the DLCA thus exaggerated frontier pressures to marry for practical reasons, encouraging many who came to the Willamette Valley as pre-teen or teenage girls to marry early, with little or no attention paid to social compatibility.¹⁶

Frontier marriages were based on economic reciprocity, but pecuniary partnerships did not necessarily lead to equal power relations. Mid-nineteenth-century American rural men demonstrated their masculinity by directing the finances and relationships within their household. Their independence was defined largely in opposition to the dependence of their wives and children. Men made decisions for their families in Oregon, as they had on the midwestern frontier. They controlled everything from household purchases at the local general store to the decision to sell their farms and migrate more than two thousand miles to Oregon. A man who lacked such authority risked calling into question his very masculinity. If husbands and wives disagreed on major decisions, women ultimately had little recourse. They did, however, find a variety of ways to influence their husbands' decision-making, particularly regarding finances.¹⁷

Women gained the greatest influence over so-called "women's" work. Settlers' account books indicate that men typically were responsible for maintaining their families' accounts at the local general store. Men consistently purchased groceries and dry goods, as well as seed and plows, in exchange for the various goods their households produced. However, women's responsibility for domestic labor often earned them control over the fruits of their labor. Women controlled the schedule, pace, quantity and quality of domestic work. Furthermore, frontier women appear to have developed an informal rural exchange network, trading small surpluses of vegetables, eggs, and milk with their female neighbors. As women produced goods for this network, they increased their families' dependence on their own work and their female neighbors'. Unfortunately, the extent of this female-dominated rural network is difficult to document because Willamette Valley women rarely maintained written records of these exchanges, which remained separate from the formal accounts recorded in men's farm and general store records. Like Martha Ballard, who recorded extensive exchanges of goods and labor among early female settlers on the Maine frontier a half-century earlier, women on the far western frontier controlled a domestic economy that remained largely invisible to their husbands and relatively free from their husbands' control.¹⁸

Changes in dairy and poultry production highlight shifts in frontier women's work and their growing influence over household finances. During the early years of settlement, work roles were flexible, but financial control lay squarely with men. In those years, when the nearest neighbor might live several miles away, women's eggs, milk, and butter were sold as part of their family's larger financial strategy. These products of women's work appeared in local stores' account books as credits against purchases of farming equipment and other goods for the household. Within a decade of their arrival in Oregon, however, many women claimed a greater role in financial decisions related to their own work, particularly those associated with dairy and poultry production. As farms became better established and women were able to concentrate on domestic production, women began to exert more influence over the sale of their goods and the ways that the proceeds were spent, as had Mid-Atlantic women in previous decades.¹⁹ Husbands and wives worked out individual arrangements about control over these products, often reflecting the labor that each man and woman contributed to the enterprise. For example, in her fourth marriage, thrice-widowed Eleanor Shrum of Marion County was able to keep the money earned from the sale of her chickens and eggs. However, her husband maintained the money earned from butter production, with which he frequently assisted her—an arrangement that Eleanor apparently chose. Over time, as men's and women's work roles became separated, their relative control over the household's finances came to reflect more accurately the labor provided by each husband or wife.²⁰

Willamette Valley women resisted their husbands' patriarchal authority in a variety of ways. Although most did not directly confront their husbands regarding major household decisions, many women expressed discontent with those decisions, confiding in diaries or female friends, if not their husbands. Women might also verbally debate with their husbands or challenge their husbands' authority in more subtle ways, such as refusing to do small things that their husbands wished them to do. Moriah Kelly was insulted at the suggestion that her husband Albert should ask her opinion on decisions such as their 1849 move to Oregon. Nonetheless, once in Oregon she convinced Albert to provide her with the expensive refined white flour she craved while her neighbors made do with home-ground wheat. One particularly outspoken woman argued early in her marriage that a husband ought to treat his wife as "what she is, an equal partner in every-thing, money-matters and all."²¹ Over time, Maria Locey did gain more influence over money matters in her marriage by acquiring her own dairy cattle and maintaining separate accounts of her earnings. As Maria grew more financially independent late in the nineteenth century, she became more candid with her husband, Cyrus, about her opinions on financial matters. Although Maria frequently complained in her diary of Cyrus's growing debts, when Cyrus considered selling enough cattle to get out of debt, Maria and their twenty-two-year-old son Ernie "seem[ed] opposed to taking it." They apparently convinced Cyrus to sell a smaller number of cattle.²² Cyrus gradually began to trust Maria more with financial issues, although he continued to claim decision-making authority as her husband and the household head.²³

Even Maria Locey's determination to achieve marital equality had limits. In her advice to a neighbor experiencing marital trouble, this relatively independent-minded woman revealed the limits of first-generation wives' authority within their households. In their roles as leading church members, Maria and Cyrus went to visit a couple who were fighting. After listening to the woman's concerns, Maria advised her to sacrifice whatever she could to achieve peace with her husband. Maria was gratified that the woman accepted her advice, and rejoiced when the couple eventually reconciled. Although Maria Locey frequently expressed frustration with men who were overly controlling toward their wives, she nonetheless concurred with her neighbors that women ultimately must submit to their husbands to maintain comity within the household.²⁴

Some first-generation Oregon men and women relied on physical force to improve their position within the marriage relationship. Habitual physical control was ok for men, so long as they didn't cause permanent physical damage. Men could divorce their wives for punching them once, which represented more a disruption of the power relationship than it did a physical endangerment of the husband. This unequal treatment of husbands and wives in divorce cases reflected the power differential between frontier men and women. Both men and women could seek a divorce if their spouse crossed the boundaries of acceptable behavior in attempting to control them. However, as shown by the divorce cases, a far greater level of violence was tolerated from men than was permissible for women. Compared to later decades, 1850s Oregon society and its courts were accepting of men who physically dominated their wives. Repeatedly beating one's wife lay within the boundaries of societal norms. Only when a man such as W. W. Coulton subjected his wife to such "cruel and inhuman treatment" that he "rendered it unsafe and improper for her to cohabit with him," and threatened to kill her if she left him, was the court system likely to become involved.²⁵ In contrast, it was not acceptable for a woman to strike her husband, because to do so challenged man's position as household head. For example, in 1860 William Larkins sought a divorce because his wife challenged his patriarchal authority by refusing, in front of his friends, to do simple tasks he considered part of her domestic responsibilities, and by once striking him with her fist.²⁶

First-generation Oregonians married at relatively young ages, forming economic partnerships that were crucial to survival on the frontier. As extreme frontier conditions gave way to more settled farms and communities, women gained a degree of financial control within their households and found ways to voice their opinions to their husbands or to female friends. In the end, however, first-generation women were expected to bow to their husbands as household heads. As they came of age, many settlers' children abandoned these frontier marital relationships. Embracing changing economic and social conditions in post-frontier Oregon, the second generation sought more equal power relations within more companionate relationships.

Oregon became economically and culturally integrated into the United States in the late-nineteeth century. Although the Willamette Valley remained primarily rural, 13.6 percent of the valley's population lived in the growing city of Portland by 1870, and railroads and telegraphs rapidly linked the Willamette Valley to national communication and trade networks.²⁷ Meanwhile, a newly national print culture carried middle-class ideals of manly restraint and romantic love to formerly remote areas in the Willamette Valley and throughout the American West. Shifts in marital relationships among second-generation settlers reflect these profound societal changes.²⁸

Decreased land availability reversed the downward pressure on marital age that characterized the frontier era, and reduced young men's opportunities for financial independence. The DLCA's generous terms enabled rapid settlement of the Willamette Valley, leaving virtually no unclaimed land in the region by the time second-generation men came of age. Like young New England men during the colonial period, Willamette Valley sons were forced to remain longer on the family farm, with more than 90 percent of first-generation men in this sample choosing to maintain control of the family farm until death.²⁹ As a result, many young men remained in a prolonged period of semi-dependence on their fathers. Like young men across rural America, second-generation men postponed marriage while pursuing economic independence.

Meanwhile, new employment opportunities encouraged young women throughout the United States to postpone marriage. As Willamette Valley communities grew, so did demand for female school teachers and Oregon's fledgling service industry. Inspired by fashion magazines and mail order catalogs, many young women sought to join the developing rural middle class by participating in new patterns of conspicuous consumption modeled after those of eastern cities. Working for pay prior to marriage supported Oregon women's fashionable lifestyle and earned them a greater voice in when and whom to marry. Young men's prolonged dependence coincided with young women's increasing independence, encouraging second-generation Oregonians to join young people throughout the nation in marrying later and reducing men's patriarchal power.³⁰

Although nearly all of the second generation eventually married, they waited longer, seeking greater financial stability and a partner who met expectations that would have been unreasonable for their pioneer parents. Once married, women expected a greater voice in household decision-making than their mothers had enjoyed. As the second generation of Willamette Valley men and women came of age in the 1870s, they modeled their lives and gender ideology after eastern middle-class standards. Abandoning their parents' frontier practicality, the second generation increasingly married for companionship and challenged the male authority established by their settler parents.

Second-generation Oregonians recorded a broader range of attitudes toward marriage than had their parents. A handful concluded that they ought not to marry. Nellie Hill wrote to her mother that, while "[e]ach man ought to try to get the best woman and make himself worthy of her," she believed that women ought not to marry at all.³¹ In contrast, Linus Darling hearkened back to first-generation views when he emphasized in a high school composition the dangers of girls becoming "old maids," whom he characterized as physically unattractive gossips.³² Both Darling and Hill clearly believed that marriage could change young men and women, and that second-generation Oregonians could decide whether or not to marry. However, they came to very different conclusions about whether or not women should choose to marry.

Ultimately, Darling, Hill, and nearly all of their peers did marry, but they felt less urgency to marry than had their parents, embracing the middle-class belief that it was better not to wed than to marry the wrong person. They agreed with an 1875 article in the local weekly Willamette Farmer that "the maiden [is rich] whose horizon is not bounded by the coming man, but who has a purpose in life, whether she meets him or not."³³ Unlike midwestern folklore of the previous generation, which centered on marrying a good worker, stories published in Willamette Valley newspapers during the 1870s and 1880s focused on navigating among conflicting desires for love, economic partnership, and shared power within a relationship. Young women like Mollie Hill collected a variety of short fiction and advice columns related to choosing a suitor. These articles encouraged second-generation Willamette Valley women to prioritize their own happiness above parental obedience when selecting a spouse and emphasized women's efforts to protect their own interests within marital relationships. For example, the Willamette Farmer twice reprinted a Christian Standard article urging young women to "make [their] own match ..." and not to "... marry for a home and a living. Do not let aunts, fathers or mothers sell you for money or position into bondage, tears and a life long misery, which you must endure."³⁴ Even local advertisements played on young people's anxiety about choosing a suitable suitor, such as one for hair balm that claimed to reveal "WHY SHE DIDN'T MARRY HIM."³⁵

Local newspapers encouraged young Oregonians to seek romantic love, warning that "married people who are not lovers, are bound by red-hot chains."³⁶ Humorous pieces likewise reflected growing passion among the second generation. In 1877, "Dan" told of kissing his beloved repeatedly: "... and when I finally ceased, the tears came into her eyes and she said in sad tones, 'Ah, Dan, I fear you have ceased to love me.' 'Oh no, I haven't,'" Dan replied, "'but I must breathe.'"³⁷ Second-generation Oregonians increasingly sought spouses who left them breathless, choosing to marry individuals with whom they shared passion rather than a practical partnership.

Many second-generation Oregonians embraced advice in local periodicals emphasizing romantic love and companionship rather than practical concerns or parental obedience in choosing a spouse. Violet Ann Brown Kersey recalled that her father "had good judgment and he thought he could pick out a husband better than [she] could, but as [she] had to live with the man who was to be [her] husband [she] decided to do the picking [her]self."³⁸ Harry Denlinger ignored his father's wish for him to marry for more than six years, throughout the better part of his twenties. Denlinger finally fell in love with twenty-six-year-old Stanford University student Nellie Hill, shortly after she confided to her mother that she was "quite convinced that it is dangerous for women to marry" for "[t]hey have not been raised to find out life" and are "quite civilized enough without getting married." Although Hill's identity as a "New Woman" conflicted with Denlinger's belief that women should be "Queen of the home," true love won out in the end, and the two soon married.³⁹

Second-generation women expected their potential suitors not only to have good economic prospects, but also to demonstrate kindness and genteel behavior. Many second-generation women preferred prolonged singleness to marrying a man who did not meet their specifications. If they could not find a suitable companion, the daughters of Oregon settlers were content to teach school or to continue domestic work in their parents' homes. They cheerfully braved the label "old maid," and removed much of the derogatory term's former bite in the process. For instance, Mary Robinson Gilkey "was wedded to [her] profession," teaching school until age thirty-four.⁴⁰ One third of the forty-seven second-generation women in this study's sample waited past age twenty to marry, and three did not marry until after their thirtieth birthday. (See Figures 1 and 2.) By 1880, a local newspaper claimed that the term "old maid" was rarely heard. Seven years later, an article in the Willamette Farmer admitted that the aphorism "'any husband is better than no husband' had once a great deal of truth in it ... Today, however," the author insisted, "the scales tip the other way with a vengeance."⁴¹ As second-generation women increasingly preferred to chance their neighbors' criticism rather than risk an unhappy marriage, their community gradually accepted women's choice not to marry.⁴²

Most second-generation Oregonians hoped to develop both economically successful partnerships and close emotional ties with their marital partners. Although burning passion might be more dream than reality, second-generation men and women sought to select a spouse with whom they shared a close emotional relationship. In addition, second-generation women expected that companionability to weaken their husbands' claims to patriarchal authority. Like their fathers, second-generation men were responsible for providing for their wives. As Harry Denlinger explained to his intended, "No man has a right to marry until he is reasonably certain of furnishing a decent support for himself and some one else."⁴³ Unlike their parents, however, the second generation did not take for granted that "furnishing a decent support" entitled them to control their wives. Thus, Oliver Jory cautiously wrote to his fiancee about a neighbor: "I suppose now that he has become if I maybe [sic] excused for using the term the head of a family, will be a very staid and steady boy[,] leastwise I hope so."⁴⁴ Jory clearly associated responsible behavior with the position of household head. Yet he anticipated that his fiancee would be uncomfortable with his assigning such authority to a young husband, and thus asked to be excused for using a term that would have been used without comment by their parents' generation. He further softened his tone by describing the neighbor as a "very staid and steady boy," rather than a man who might truly have dominion over his wife.⁴⁵

Second-generation women expected a degree of control over domestic issues rarely enjoyed by their mothers. Like their fathers, second-generation men chose whether and whither to move their households, and their management of fields and crops gave them significant control over the family's finances. Unlike their fathers, however, second-generation men's authority was as much a topic of criticism as it was an admired display of manhood. Models of middle-class manly restraint increasingly replaced frontier men's patriarchal privilege as the standard for proper behavior. Rather than controlling all household finances, men managed only the wealth derived from their own labor, while second-generation women gained greater control over the domestic sphere.⁴⁶

Whether or not women significantly chipped away at their husbands' patriarchal authority, second-generation men began to pay lip service to their wives' right to make decisions affecting the household. In some cases, women began to simply ignore men's guidance on major decisions. Salem resident Oliver Jory frequently reassured his fiancee, Ella, that she should make her own decisions regardless of the advice he offered. Yet he did not acknowledge the power that he held over her, as he continually postponed their marriage through a remarkably prolonged eighteen-year engagement. Throughout that period, Ella continued to live and work with her family in Coos County some 175 miles away. She apparently waited patiently for Oliver's business to improve for nearly two decades. Once they finally married in 1901, however, Ella ignored Oliver's request that she wait until his business enabled him to travel with her and their son to visit her relatives. Having told him they would be gone three to four weeks, Oliver's wife and son stayed away for a year. Ella had finally lost patience with Oliver's refusal to consider her priorities in his decision-making. The frontier generation's acceptance of male authority eroded over time in the Jory household.⁴⁷

Contestation over patriarchal authority gradually replaced romance for the Beesons in southern Oregon. Early in their marriage, Kate Beeson entrusted her husband Welborn with most decisions affecting their household. Only when Welborn was away did Kate make decisions on her own, and even then she feared that her actions would make Welborn cross. For example, when Welborn's apprentice, Logan Estes, refused to do the work assigned to him, she threatened to send him away. Kate soon regretted having usurped her husband's authority, however, and forgave Logan for her husband's sake. Husband and wife continued to write one another love notes in Welborn's diary, and Welborn followed Kate's wishes in naming their sons. Within a decade, however, Welborn was complaining to his diary that "Kate is of but little value," continually spending "mony [sic] as fast as I can make it."⁴⁸ Kate grew bolder as she and her husband grew older, inviting many guests for prolonged visits against Welborn's wishes, and his complaints gradually drowned out their earlier romantic musings.

Newspaper articles in local publications suggest that second-generation women sometimes resorted to indirect influence over their husbands, as their mothers had done. In one 1885 piece, a women claimed to have prevented her husband from becoming a "domestic tyrant" by causing him to mistake her desires for his own. "[W]hen I want a new dress," she explained, "I tell him that Mrs. Brown has been terribly extravagant and bought a new velveteen, and I am sure she doesn't need one half as bad as I do, but I can't think of such an expense." Upon hearing this her husband would insist that "he can afford to dress me as well as Brown can his wife, and I must go right down town and get a better dress than hers!"⁴⁹ Articles like this one suggest that Oregon women continued to subtly influence their husbands' decision-making. However, many second-generation women also sought more direct influence on both minor and major issues.

Building on the small gains their mothers had made, second-generation Oregon women took a more active role in negotiating the decision-making authority within their families. Control over household finances became a primary fault line between husbands and wives. Some women gained a greater degree of influence over household matters by explicitly maintaining separate domestic accounts. Oregon law gave women the right to hold property separate from their husbands, and after 1872 their separate property was protected from seizure for their husbands' debts. Nonetheless, some men borrowed or sold their wives' separate property according to their own priorities. Linn County resident Ida Peterson loaned her husband a total of $1500 over twelve years with the understanding that he would pay her back. She eventually accepted ownership of personal property in lieu of the cash that her husband owed her, agreeing "as long as my said Husband takes good care of said property [to] let him use the same but not to sell said property without my authority ... and not to take or remove said property from our home."⁵⁰ Similarly, when W. E. Payne of Linn County was unable to repay the $2400 plus $1333 interest that he borrowed from his wife Sarah, he signed over to her an assortment of livestock, field equipment, and grain to fulfill the debt.⁵¹

At least a few second-generation wives sued for divorce after their husbands appropriated their separate property. In 1882, Laura Woodworth complained to the Marion County circuit court that her husband George had failed to respect the property given to her by father. She said that George spent her cash for horse feed, sold her cattle and kept the proceeds against her wishes, and "never furnished me any money with which to support the family."⁵² Five years later Selena Potter complained that her husband had sold her sewing machine and other belongings "and used the mony [sic] for his own use, and never gave [her] nothing, but abuse."⁵³ Both Woodworth and Potter sued for divorce on the basis of their husbands' cruelty, which they demonstrated in large part through their husbands' forced acquisition of their separate property. Second-generation women insisted on maintaining control over their portion of household finances, and were more outspoken against abuse than their mothers had been.

Although many second-generation men granted their wives greater influence over household finances, they nonetheless expected to maintain authority in other areas. John McCarl received a divorce in 1889 because his wife refused to obey him, despite his compliance with new guidelines for husbandly behavior. He testified that he was a responsible provider and kind husband who "turned my pay over to her as good as anybody could do."⁵⁴ And yet, he complained: "[E]ver since we were married she would do nothing according to my wishes, but was contrary in every thing." McCarl detailed the ways that his wife refused to do the domestic labor, failed to adequately care for their children, and was unwilling to follow his direction in proper behavior. Furthermore: "She would refuse to cook anything for me which I wished, unless it was something she wanted to eat herself."⁵⁵ Thus, his wife was guilty not only of failing in her role as housewife, but also of refusing to obey him or prioritize his desires above her own. This proper second-generation man might be willing to give up control over the household accounts, but he still expected his wife to submit to his guidance and authority in other aspects of their lives.

Even if they permitted their wives to manage certain minor expenses, second-generation men generally continued to control major purchases. Yet as mechanical equipment became increasingly available to assist with women's domestic work, the right to purchase costly devices such as sewing machines became a defining issue in power struggles between husbands and wives. Like their frontier fathers, second-generation Oregon men were hesitant to invest in expensive domestic conveniences, instead favoring farm equipment that would enhance their own productive efforts. To Oregon women, in contrast, sewing machines represented not only increased productivity, but also independence and freedom from drudgery. In 1875, the Willamette Farmer quoted "a certain sensible woman" as saying that "there are two things she w[ould] never allow anybody to meddle with—her husband and her sewing machine."⁵⁶ The machines could ease women's labor requirements, freeing them to focus on other domestic work, or to participate in new women's voluntary organizations outside the home. In many cases, sewing machines enabled women to decorate their dresses with the many tucks, frills, and bustles required by new middle-class standards for women's fashion. Purchasing a sewing machine also indicated that women's work was sufficiently valuable to warrant a significant financial investment. Because of the machine's great practical and symbolic value, women took sewing machine ownership very seriously, and many struggled to justify purchasing a machine to their more land-oriented husbands.⁵⁷

Couples' disagreements over productive equipment such as sewing machines revealed those goods' symbolic importance to second-generation Oregonians. When Florence and S. T. Garrison began fighting over control of their property shortly after their 1873 marriage, S. T. claimed that Florence escalated their power struggle by purchasing

a Sewing machine, and other articles to the amount of One hundred Dollars, without [his] knowledge for the purpose of involving [him] in debt, when the same might well have been avoided, as She herself afterwards admitted,: [sic] Saying, she did it to punish [him], for that [he] would have to pay whether [he] wanted to or not.⁵⁸

Florence Garrison chose to "punish" her husband by purchasing a sewing machine, which would not only increase her own productivity and stylishness, but also redirect household resources from the fields to the domestic sphere. Intriguingly, her husband also complained to the court that Florence refused to do laundry for S. T.'s hired hand, "saying she would not help make money for as mean a man as [he] was or for [his] children," and threatened to leave him and to burn down his house and barn. Like many other second-generation women, Florence Garrison sought increased control in her marriage by asserting her domestic priorities over those of her farmer husband. However, she did so within the separate work identities hammered out by men and women of the frontier generation.

Husbands and wives who failed to compromise on household decisions sometimes found themselves embroiled in divorce suits. Divorce was extremely rare among the first generation, and a majority of early divorce suits complained of spouses' failure to meet their economic obligations. More than one-tenth of divorce complaints filed in Marion County during the 1860s complained of adultery, and nearly one-tenth complained of fraud.⁵⁹ (See Figure 3.) A majority of those seeking divorces on the basis of fraud complained that their husbands had knowingly abandoned their families and moved to new frontier areas, where they posed as single men and married a second wife. Such fraud complaints became less common as the settled society made it more difficult for men to abandon their wives and remarry in a new community, and expectations for companionability eclipsed financial contracts at the heart of marital relationships.


Figure 3. Reasons Cited as Grounds for Divorce in Marion County, 1860s–1880s.

Adultery Fraud Felony Desertion or Financial Non-Support All Cruelty (Physical or Verbal) Verbal Cruelty (only cause provided) Verbal Cruelty Physical Cruelty Total number of divorce complaints	1860s 10 6 1 41 34 2 6 7 78	1880s 13 2 6 106 105 23 48 5 192	1860s (percent) 12.8 7.7 2.3 52.6 43.6 2.6 7.7 9.0	1880s (percent) 6.8 1.0 3.1 55.2 54.7 12.0 25.0 2.6

Note: Some divorce complaints were counted multiple times because these cases cited multiple causes. Source: Marion County Circuit Court Divorce Files, 1848–1900, Oregon State Archives, Salem.

A significant shift occurred in the most common causes for divorce complaints during the 1870s and 1880s. Whereas financial non-support was the primary cause of divorce cited by women in the 1850s and 1860s, after 1870 complaints of cruelty became increasingly common.⁶⁰ As David Peterson del Mar demonstrated, physical abuse declined during the late-nineteenth century.⁶¹ This shift could be seen among the second generation as early as 1868, when Thomas Ward testified that he "c[ould]not strike a woman ... [because] it [wa]s against [his] principles."⁶² At the same time, however, complaints of verbal cruelty increased dramatically. For example, six Marion County residents claimed verbal cruelty in divorce complaints between 1860 and 1869, representing only 7.7 percent of all divorce suits. In contrast, forty-eight Marion County residents complained of verbal cruelty between 1880 and 1889, representing one-quarter of those seeking divorces in the county during that decade. An additional 12 percent sought a divorce solely on the basis of verbal cruelty. (See Figure 3.) Oregon women thus held their husbands to an increasingly high standard of gentlemanly behavior.

Women also appear to have held their husbands to new standards for male sexual restraint during this period. They increasingly rejected frontier beliefs in men's right to sexual intercourse with their wife whenever they wished, particularly if their wives had delicate gynecological health. On the fifth night of Arnold and Mary Myers's 1870 marriage, Mary informed Arnold that an injury had rendered her unable to bear children. Citing two doctors' advice that pregnancy would kill her, she refused to have sexual intercourse with Arnold. She said she had not told him prior to their marriage because "it was not the place of a young girl to tell such things." Mary later testified that they only had intercourse their wedding night, "and that was imperfect & got more by force than anything else & hurt her very much." After two weeks of marriage Mary deserted Arnold and moved to California to live with her mother. Arnold was granted a divorce on the grounds of impotence and fraud. However, "[a]s to whether the Def[endan]t is guilty of cruel & in human treatment towards the Pl[ainti]ff rendering his life burdensome in refusing to have sexual intercourse with him" the judge was "not prepared to find definitely, as that would depend much upon the passion & inclination of the Pl[ainti]ff."⁶³ A quarter-century later, the Marion County court was far more sympathetic to Cora Ramsden, who complained that, even after excessive sexual intercourse had damaged her health, her husband had continued to force himself upon her once or twice each week. Societal expectations were shifting in favor of protecting women, and holding their husbands to a greater standard of genteel—or at least less abusive—behavior than had been expected of their fathers during the early years on the frontier.⁶⁴

Local courts began to reflect the second generation's beliefs that marriage should be entered into thoughtfully, and that financial necessity was not sufficient reason to enter or remain in an unhappy marriage. In 1880, the circuit court for Marion County heard a divorce complaint against Nancy Parker, who had deserted her husband because "[she] [did] not wish to live with any man[.] [She] d[id] not wish to have [additional] children or be a married woman. [She] was married thoughtlessly when quite young, and as [she] grew older [she] ... desired to leave married life."⁶⁵ The woman's desertion clearly justified granting her husband a divorce. Yet the court took unusual steps on behalf of this woman who regretted having followed the first generation's pattern of marrying young. Rather than granting custody of their six-year-old daughter to the husband, as was customary in the United States throughout much of the nineteenth century, the court gave custody of the child to the wife, in keeping with a new eastern middle-class emphasis on the maternal role. The court restored Nancy's maiden name, and permitted her to live with her daughter on her father's farm. Similarly, Rebecca H. Minto was granted a divorce in 1888, after her husband, Sheriff John W. Minto, moved to a different part of their house and refused to cohabit with Rebecca. The couple agreed that Rebecca and their two daughters would live in a house near John W.'s father, State Representative John Minto, and John W. would give her $1000, a sewing machine, carpet and set of bedroom furniture, plus pay maintenance for the two children until Rebecca remarried or their daughters married or reached age twenty. Whereas both the court and individuals like Maria Locey had encouraged first-generation women to remain with their husbands at high costs, the court permitted Nancy Parker and Rebecca Minto to escape unhappy marriages. Furthermore, the court granted a substantial financial settlement to Rebecca Minto, and both women received custody of the children born to these ill-conceived marriages.⁶⁶

Marriage was an economic, social, and sexual partnership in nineteenth-century America. Influenced by the rise of romantic love and changing models of masculinity in the eastern United States, and empowered by economic changes that marked the close of the frontier, second-generation Oregon women chose to marry for love as well as practical concerns. They waited longer to marry, and when they did marry, they expected to enjoy a greater voice in household decisions than had their mothers. These young women negotiated with their husbands about financial priorities and held their husbands to a middle-class standard of genteel behavior largely unknown to their frontier mothers.

Middle-class Americans embraced new expectations for romance during the mid-nineteenth century. In the Far West, however, frontier conditions caused men and women to marry primarily for practical reasons. Although women's domestic skills earned them a certain degree of autonomy within the home, they ultimately accepted their husbands' patriarchal authority. Nonetheless, these frontier power relations increasingly came into question as the second generation came of age.

In Oregon and throughout the Far West, the children of early settlers increasingly matched their lives to eastern middle-class standards as frontier conditions faded. Young women postponed marriage in search of companionability and romance, demanded a greater voice in family finances, and became less tolerant of abuse. Second-generation Oregonians' rapid adoption of eastern expectations for marriage reveals the rapidity with which the West became incorporated into the American nation during the late-nineteenth century. By adopting new standards of marital choice and demanding somewhat more egalitarian relationships within marriage, second-generation western settlers abandoned the constraints of frontier household formation and embraced an increasingly national middle-class culture.

CYNTHIA CULVER PRESCOTT, teaching fellow in American Cultures at Loyola Marymount University, thanks Lawrence Culver, Timothy Prescott, and Virginia Culver.

NOTES

¹ William VitzJames Johnson to his parents, 29 April 1853, Aitken Family Papers, MSS 1630, Oregon Historical Society Research Library, Portland [hereafter OHS]. Title quotation from Parker's Hair Balsam advertisement, Oregon (Salem) Statesman, 2 January 1885, 5.

² "Marrying Without Love," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 23 July 1875, 2.

³ I use the term "patriarchal" to describe gender relations in which men dominate every aspect of household and family life. Men's right and ability to control the labor, finances, social interaction, and all other elements of their wives' and children's lives declined over the course of the nineteenth century. On declining male dominance in Oregon, see David Peterson del Mar, What Trouble I Have Seen: A History of Violence against Wives (Cambridge, MA, 1996).

⁴ Conceptions of romantic love have changed over time. I use "romantic love" to refer to the sharing of emotions and sexual passion. A marriage could be "companionate"—sharing common interests and concern for one another's well-being—while lacking the passion that characterized romance. On romantic love, see Karen Lystra, Searching the Heart: Women, Men, and Romantic Love in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, 1989); Ellen K. Rothman, Hands and Hearts: A History of Courtship in America (New York, 1984); Ruth H. Bloch, "Changing Conceptions of Sexuality and Romance in Eighteenth-Century America," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Series, 60 (January 2003): 13–42.

⁵ Cynthia D. Culver, "Gender and Generation on the Pacific Slope Frontier, 1845–1900" (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2004).

⁶ Peterson del Mar, What Trouble I Have Seen, 10–8.

⁷ Culver, "Gender and Generation," 150–222.

⁸ Locey Family Papers, MSS 2968, OHS [hereafter LFP].

⁹ Aitken Family, MSS 1630, OHS; LFP; T.T. Geer, Fifty Years in Oregon (New York, 1916); (Nathaniel) Coe Family Papers, MSS 431, OHS; Abigail Scott Duniway, Path Breaking: An Autobiographical History of the Equal Suffrage Movement in Pacific Coast States, 2d ed. (Portland, OR, 1914), 1–27; Paul Bourke and Donald DeBats, Washington County: Politics and Community in Antebellum America (Baltimore, 1995), 95–145; Peterson del Mar, What Trouble I Have Seen, 9–25; Dean L. May, Three Frontiers: Family, Land, and Society in the American West, 1850–1900 (New York, 1994), 131–7, 146–84; Ruth Barnes Moynihan, Rebel for Rights: Abigail Scott Duniway (New Haven, CT, 1983), 1–11, 43–83; John Mack Faragher, Sugar Creek: Life on the Illinois Prairie (New Haven, CT, 1986), 99–118; Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail (New Haven, CT, 1979), 49–65, 144–78.

¹⁰ Bourke and DeBats, Washington County, 121.

¹¹ Drawing on manuscript collections, family histories and probate records, I created a database [hereafter FD] of genealogical data for more than fifty families that settled in the Willamette Valley in the mid-nineteenth century. Statistics in this article were calculated from those within this database for whom appropriate demographic and/or inheritance data was available. Because the nature of these sources favor families that persisted in Oregon, the resulting statistics may likewise favor more successful families. For the sources utilized in creating this database, see Culver, "Gender and Generation," 173–4. (Database in author's possession.)

¹² Faragher, Sugar Creek, 87–8.

¹³ Lucy Henderson Deady, "Crossing the Plains to Oregon in 1846," Transactions of the Oregon Pioneer Association (1928): 57–64.

¹⁴ New Northwest (Portland, OR), 2 June 1871, 1.

¹⁵ Fred Lockley, Conversations with Pioneer Women, comp. and ed. Mike Helm (Eugene, OR, 1981), 250.

¹⁶ Ibid., 95, 160–1, 168–9; Julia A. Holt Letters, SFM 113, Eugene Collection, Knight Library, University of Oregon [hereafter UO]; Agnes Ruth Sengstacken, Destination, West! A Pioneer Woman on the Oregon Trail, 2d ed. (Portland, OR, 1972); Benton County Circuit Court [hereafter BC] no. 369, James Coffey v. Mary J. Coffey, 1861, Oregon State Archives, Salem.

¹⁷ See Peterson del Mar, What Trouble I Have Seen, 9–25; Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail, 88–112,160–8; E. Anthony Rotundo, American Manhood: Transformations in Masculinity from the Revolution to the Modern Era (New York, 1993), 129–66.

¹⁸ Mary Jane Hayden, Pioneer Days (San Jose, CA, 1915), 28. Marion County Circuit Court, case no. 2108 [hereafter listed MC and case number], Matilda Penter v. Samuel Penter, 1872, and MC 1546, L.B. Morgan v. W.W. Morgan, 1866. All Marion County Circuit Court Documents found at Oregon State Archives, Salem. Clingman-Crewse Family, MSS 2645, OHS; LFP; Coe Family, MSS 431, OHS; Seth Lewelling Papers, MSS 23, OHS; Calvin M. Reed Account Book, MSS 606, OHS; Levi Scott Papers, MSS 2340, OHS; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785–1812 (New York, 1990).

¹⁹ Joan M. Jensen, Loosening the Bonds: Mid-Atlantic Farm Women, 1750–1850 (New Haven, CT, 1986) and "Butter-Making and Economic Development in Mid-Atlantic America, 1750–1850," in Promise to the Land: Essays on Rural Women (Albuquerque, 1991), 170–85.

²⁰ MC 4664, Eleanor Shrum v. Henry Shrum, 1889; Edward E. Parrish, MSS 648, OHS; Clingman-Crewse Family, MSS 2645, OHS; LFP; Coe Family, MSS 431, OHS; Seth Lewelling, MSS 23, OHS; Calvin M. Reed, MSS 606, OHS; Levi Scott, MSS 2340, OHS.

²¹ Although they left the Willamette Valley in the 1870s to farm and ranch in eastern Oregon, I use the Loceys as a case study because of their remarkably rich family records. Maria Locey, "Women and Marriage," LFP. Emphasis in the original.

²² LFP.

²³ Agnes Plummer Burns, "On to Oregon," Albert Kelly Family Papers, MSS 871–2, OHS; Oregon (Oregon City) Statesman, 21 October 1851; Elinor Meacham Redington, Reminiscences, MSS 2562, OHS; Coe Family, MSS 431, OHS; Homer Davenport, The Country Boy: The Story of His Own Early Life (Chicago, 1910); "Matrimony," Oregon (Oregon City) Statesman, 21 October 1851.

²⁴ LFP.

²⁵ MC 329, Harriet Coulton v. W.W. Coulton, 1853.

²⁶ MC 996, William Larkins v. Caroline Larkins, 1860; MC 1834, Paul Oberheim v. Penelope Oberheim, 1869; Peterson del Mar, What Trouble I Have Seen, 9–46.

²⁷ Peterson del Mar, What Trouble I Have Seen, 14 and U.S. Bureau of the Census, A Compendium of the Ninth Census (Washington, DC, 1872), I:57.

²⁸ Peterson del Mar, What Trouble I Have Seen, 47–71; William Deverell, Railroad Crossing: Californians and the Railroad 1850–1910 (Berkeley, 1994); Shawn Johansen, Family Men: Middle-Class Fatherhood in Early Industrializing America (New York, 2000).

²⁹ FD. On New England, see Daniel Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen: Two Centuries of Work in Essex County, Massachusetts, 1630–1850 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1994).

³⁰ Sengstacken, Destination West!; John McCoy Recollections, MSS 1166, OHS; Samuel's Directory of Portland and East Portland, for 1873; Containing Every Thing Found in a Complete Directory (Portland, OR, 1873); Portland City Directory, 1885, vol. 23 (Portland, OR, 1885); Julia A. Holt, SFM 113, UO; Elinor Meacham Redington Reminiscences, MSS 2562, OHS; Lucy Preston (Wilson) Peters Reminiscences, MSS 2406-B, OHS; Gragg, Ax 139, UO; Richey Family, MSS 1508, OHS; Marion County Married Women's Property Register, 1859–1897, Oregon State Archives, Salem [hereafter MCMWPR]; Clackamas County Women's Separate Property Register, 1859–1909, Oregon State Archives [hereafter CCWSPR]; Linn County Women's Separate Property Register, 1862–1912, Oregon State Archives [hereafter LCWSPR]; Polk County Married Women's Separate Property Register, 1859–1897, Oregon State Archives [hereafter PCMWSPR]; Washington County Women's Separate Rights Records, 1881–82, State Archives [hereafter WCWSPR]; Chronology and Documentary Handbook of the State of Oregon (Dobbs Ferry, NY, 1978).

³¹ Nelly [sic] Hill to Mamma, 1 April 1894, Hill Family Papers, Ax 47, UO.

³² Linus Wilson Darling Papers, MSS 129, OHS.

³³ "Who are Rich?" Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 19 February 1875, 2. See also, LFP; Mollie Hill Scrapbooks, MSS 1352B, OHS; Hendershott Family, MSS 109, OHS; Clingman-Crewse Family Papers, MSS 2645, OHS.

³⁴ "Advice to Young Ladies," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 10 September 1875, 2, reprinted 6 April 1877, 7.

³⁵ Advertisement for Parker's Hair Balsam, Oregon (Salem) Statesman, 2 January 1885, 5. See also, Hendershott Family Correspondence, MSS 109, OHS; "Who are Rich?" Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 19 February 1875; LFP; Mollie Hill Scrapbooks, MSS 1352B, OHS; Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 20 April 1877; Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 6 April 1877, 2; New Northwest (Portland, OR), 2 March 1882; Oregon (Albany) Cultivator, 16 December 1875, 1; "What Men Need Wives For," Oregon (Albany) Cultivator, 30 December 1875, 2; Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 6 April 1877; Eugene City Guard, 29 June 1889; "A Loveless Marriage," New Northwest (Portland, OR), 25 June 1885; "What Men Need Wives For," New Northwest (Portland, OR), 10 September 1875; "A Chapter on Marriage," New Northwest (Portland, OR), 2 April 1875.

³⁶ "A Happy Couple," in Coe Family Farm Journal, MSS 431, OHS.

³⁷ Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 6 April 1877.

³⁸ Lockley, Conversations with Pioneer Women, 146.

³⁹ Hill Family, Ax 47, UO; LFP; Welborn Beeson Papers, Ax 799, UO; Oliver Jory, MSS 2928, OHS.

⁴⁰ Lockley, Conversations with Pioneer Women, 181.

⁴¹ "Why Girls Don't Marry," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 11 February 1887, 3.

⁴² Julia A. Holt Letters, SFM 113, UO; Lockley, Conversations with Pioneer Women, 181, 227; Oregon (Salem) Statesman, 17 April 1885, 1; LFP; Hill Family Papers, Ax 47, UO; Cyrus Hamlin Walker Papers, MSS 264, OHS; "For What is a Wife Wanted?" Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 6 June 1874; FD.

⁴³ Harry Denlinger to Nellie Hill, 9 March 1896, Hill Family, Ax 47, UO.

⁴⁴ Oliver Jory to Ella Hodean, 16 December 1892, Oliver Jory, MSS 2928, OHS. Emphasis added.

⁴⁵ Oliver Jory, MSS 2928, OHS; Hill Family, Ax 47, UO; Mollie Hill Scrapbooks, MSS 1352B, OHS; BC 642-A, Mary Frances Belfils v. Louis Belfils, 1865; Julia A. Holt, SFM 113, UO; LFP; MC 4548, D.H. Close v. Hattie J. Close, 1889; MC 3259, Martha E. Wilson v. Albert Wilson, 1881; "Marriage Maxims," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 9 April 1870, 55; Lystra, Searching the Heart, 227–37.

⁴⁶ "Tell Your Wife," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 6 November 1874, 2; "A Wife's Rights," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 22 November 1874; Edward E. Parrish Papers, MSS 648, OHS; BC 642-A; Charles Stevens Letters, 1837–99, MSS 2624, OHS; MC 3342, H.A. Skinner v. Clara Skinner, 1881; Welborn Beeson, Ax 799, UO; MC 6398, Anna J. Martin v. L.J. Martin, 1896; MC 4747, Celeste Marchbank v. J.H. Marchbank, 1890; "The Purse Keeper," Willamette Farmer (Portland, OR), 27 October 1882, 3; "For Husbands," Willamette Farmer (Portland, OR), 14 February 1879, 3; "Pinn Money," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 4 June 1886, 3; "What the True Wife Will Do," Boston Globe, reprinted in New Northwest (Portland, OR), 10 June 1886; "A Happy Couple," Coe Family, MSS 431, OHS.

⁴⁷ Oliver Jory, MSS 2928, OHS and MC 4201, Silas Moser v. M.J. Moser, 1886.

⁴⁸ Welborn Beeson, Ax 799, UO.

⁴⁹ "How to Manage Him," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 18 June 1885.

⁵⁰ LCWSPR.

⁵¹ "How to Manage Him," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 18 June 1885; "She Cured Him," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 18 September 1884; "How to Manage Him," Mollie Hill Scrapbooks, MSS 1352B, OHS; MC 4275; LCWSPR.

⁵² MC 3400, Laura J. Woodworth v. George W. Woodworth, 1882.

⁵³ MC 4275, Selena Potter v. George Potter, 1887.

⁵⁴ MC 4659, John A. McCarl v. Diana McCarl, 1889.

⁵⁵ Ibid.

⁵⁶ "Flirtation," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 6 August 1875.

⁵⁷ MC 4500, Mary A. Bushey v. William M. Bushey, 1888; "Flirtation," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 6 August 1875; MC 2490, S.T. Garrison v. Florence Garrison, 1876; "Flirtation," Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 6 August 1875; MC 2490; MC 4500; MCMWPR; CCWSPR; LCWSPR; PCMWSPR; WCWSPR; MC 2825, Mary A. Creswell v. Donald Creswell, 1878; Sallie Applegate Long Papers, MSS 233, OHS; Margaret Caples Family Papers, MSS 1508, OHS; Seth Lewelling, MSS 23, OHS; LFP; Joseph Gragg, Ax 139, UO; Ansel Hemenway, A 49, UO; Culver, "Gender and Generation," 117–22, 284–303.

⁵⁸ MC 2490.

⁵⁹ Oregon territorial law initially required residents seeking a divorce to directly petition the legislative assembly, and later the United States District Court. After statehood in 1859, divorce suits became less onerous and more common. This study's statistical analysis begins in 1860, the first full year in which divorce cases were under the jurisdiction of the county circuit court.

⁶⁰ Nineteenth-century Oregonians increasingly complained to the courts of "cruelty," which might include anything from cursing or shouting insults to beating another person with a large stick or other object. In this article the term "physical cruelty" refers to acts of cruelty involving physical contact, while "verbal cruelty" refers to cursing or insulting another person.

⁶¹ Peterson del Mar, What Trouble I Have Seen, 47–71.

⁶² MC 1724, Thomas B. Ward v. Sarah Ward, 1868.

⁶³ MC 1848, Arnold Myers v. Mary Myers, 1870.

⁶⁴ MC 1724; MC 1372, Frances Ann Godfrey v. Robert Godfrey, 1865; MC 3865, Rachel Wait v. T.B. Wait, 1886; MC 3161, W.R. Parker v. Nancy E. Parker, 1880; MC 1724; MC 981, Theresa Coil v. Michael Coil, 1858; MC 1848; MC 2363, Josette Berneir v. Louis Bernier, 1874; MC 2634, Fannie B. Dixon v. J.H. Dixon, 1877; MC 4665, J.H. Lunn v. Victoria A. Lunn, 1889; MC 6521, Cora Ramsden v. W.T. Ramsden, 1896. See also, Mollie Hill Scrapbooks, MSS 1352B, OHS; "Origin of the Word 'Husband,'" Willamette Farmer (Salem, OR), 9 April 1870, 55; Peterson del Mar, What Trouble I Have Seen, 47–71; E. Anthony Rotundo, "Learning About Manhood: Gender Ideals and the Middle-Class Family in Nineteenth-Century America," in Manliness and Morality: Middle-Class Masculinity in Britain and America 1800–1940, ed. J.A. Mangan and James Walvin (Manchester, 1987), 75–91; Jesse F. Battan, "The 'Rights' of Husbands and the 'Duties' of Wives: Power and Desire in the American Bedroom, 1850–1910" Journal of Family History 24 (April 1999): 165–86.

⁶⁵ MC 3161.

⁶⁶ MC 3161; MC 4471, Rebecca H. Minto v. John W. Minto, 1888; LFP; Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790–1865 (New York, 1981).

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