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The Free Women of Petersburg, Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784 - 1861, was written by Suzanne Lebsock in 1984 and won the Bancroft Prize in 1985. Lebsock focuses on Petersburg, Virginia between 1784 and 1860 to recount the status of women in society, and how that status changed. She also examines the views of women during that time. The author did extensive research of Petersburg local records to obtain a comprehensive study of the female culture during the antebellum years.
Lesbocks discusses the institution of marriage in great detail. The author found that women married for economic reasons as well as romantic feelings. In years past, marriage was based on economic value. By the early nineteenth century however, romance was beginning to lead. The author explains companionate marriage as a term used by some historians of the family to describe a new marriage pattern that allegedly took hold in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, primarily in the middle class. Companionate marriage was for love, and involved mutual respect and a degree of equality among partners.
However, studies show most of the women would not have classified their marriages as companionate. This was not all due to their husbands actions. The laws of the time gave the husband rights to the wifes services and to any property she owned at the time of marriage. The wifes only legal right was the receipt of a dower in the event of her husbands death.
A dower included one-third of her husbands personal property, and the use of one-third of his real estate and slaves. Lesbock's analysis of remarriage showed that the majority of women who were wealthy enough to support themselves when widowed would remain unmarried. She states remarriage patterns of Petersburg's widows suggest that some sort of generalization is called for; the reluctance of wealthier widows to marry again suggests that in the eyes of women themselves, something had gone wrong with marriage. Separate estates for women were allowed under equity, an alternative system of justice from the common law.
Separate estates were property set aside for the woman for her benefit that her husband could not have his usual common law rights over. Separate estates were free from the husbands control and from his creditors, but the woman did not have unrestricted control over her property. The growth of separate estates did provide an advancement for women overall. Lesbock's research on the records of the wills of the men and women provided a distinctive difference in their value systems. Women died intestate less frequently than men.
The authors opinion was that men had more trouble with the inevitability of ones death, while women faced death with every pregnancy. Because of this, women had less trouble preparing for death. Women also personalized their will more often than men, and were more likely to select certain heirs above others. Men usually divided their estates evenly among their children. Women also granted their daughters separate estates more frequently than men; thus placing female economic security above the prevalent male control.
The author discovered that the women of Petersburg placed a high value on economic security, their families, religion, and the interest of other women. Lesbocks provided a great insight into womens history through careful research of real womens experiences during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in one society. Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on Free Women Of Petersburg
