__________
“Don’t
be offended when I add that from the day you marry you must have no will of
your own. The subordination of your sex to ours is enforced by nature, by
reason and by revelation.”
Benjamin Rush gives advice to a young female.
__________
Home built in Stonington, Connecticut, c. 1792.
African Americans barred from the U.S. military.
May 8: Congress passes the Militia Act, which empowers the president to take over state militias in time of invasion or insurrection. The act specifies that “free able-bodied white male citizens” shall be eligible to service.
This act, and another,
passed three years later, effectively barred African Americans from serving in
the U.S. military.
*
June 1: Kentucky
joins the Union. The state constitution does away with property and religious
qualifications for voting.
*
“The subordination of your sex to ours.”
PAIGE SMITH notes: “Even so liberal and enlightened a spirit as Benjamin Rush wrote to a young friend on the eve of her marriage warning her that,”
you
will be well received in all companies only in proportion as you are
inoffensive, polite, and agreeable to everybody. … Don’t be offended when I add
that from the day you marry you must have no will of your own. The
subordination of your sex to ours is enforced by nature, by reason and by
revelation. … In no situation whatever, let the words “I will” or “I won’t” fall
from your lips till you have first found out your husband’s inclinations in a
matter that interests you both. The happiest marriages I have known have been
those when the subordination I have recommended has been most complete.
The ideal wife. Dr. Rush added helpfully, is “kind, obsequious, uncontradicting.” (45/60)
NOTE TO TEACHERS: I would assume your students, like mine, would be
interested in analyzing this quote.
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