Benjamin Franklin's 1745 Advice on chosing a partner "Prefer old Women to young ones"

Robert Feke (American artist, 1707-1752) Young Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) c. 1746

June 25, 1745

My dear Friend,

I know of no Medicine fit to diminish the violent natural Inclinations you mention; and if I did, I think I should not communicate it to you. Marriage is the proper Remedy. It is the most natural State of Man, and therefore the State in which you are most likely to find solid Happiness. Your Reasons against entering into it at present, appear to me not well-founded. The circumstantial Advantages you have in View by postponing it, are not only uncertain, but they are small in comparison with that of the Thing itself, the being married and settled. It is the Man and Woman united that make the compleat human Being. Separate, she wants his Force of Body and Strength of Reason; he, her Softness, Sensibility and acute Discernment. Together they are more likely to succeed in the World. A single Man has not nearly the Value he would have in that State of Union. He is an incomplete Animal. He resembles the odd Half of a Pair of Scissars. If you get a prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient.

But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. You call this a Paradox, and demand my Reasons. They are these:

i. Because as they have more Knowledge of the World and their Minds are better stor'd with Observations, their Conversation is more improving and more lastingly agreable.

2. Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.

3. Because there is no hazard of Children, which irregularly produc'd may be attended with much Inconvenience.

4. Because thro' more Experience, they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an Intrigue to prevent Suspicion. The Commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your Reputation. And with regard to theirs, if the Affair should happen to be known, considerate People might be rather inclin'd to excuse an old Woman who would kindly take care of a young Man, form his Manners by her good Counsels, and prevent his ruining his Health and Fortune among mercenary Prostitutes.

5. Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding2 only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.

6. Because the Sin is less. The debauching a Virgin may be her Ruin, and make her for Life unhappy.

7. Because the Compunction is less. The having made a young Girl miserable may give you frequent bitter Reflections; none of which can attend the making an old Woman happy.

8thly and Lastly They are so grateful!!

Thus much for my Paradox. But still I advise you to marry directly; being sincerely Your affectionate Friend..

A few 1760s-90s London prints of women doing domestic chores

Enterprising London printmakers published hundreds of popular & satirical mezzotints between 1760 and 1800, many of which quickly found their way to the British American colonies and later to the new republic. These prints were sometimes called drolls, were usually 10' by 14' and were relatively inexpensive. They could be seen in homes or in taverns & they give a glimpse into the everyday life of women in the larger British world, which is seldom found in more formal art.

The Landlord's Daughter. Haines and Son, London. 1798.

Lacemaking. John Fairburn. London. 1795.

Lady Working Tambour

March (Lady Holding Sewing). R. Dighton. Carrington Bowles. London. 1784.

The Fair Seamstress. Heilman pinxt J. Watson fecit. for John Bowles, London. 1760s.

The Tenant's Daughter. Haines and Son, London. 1798.

Love in a Village. Carrington Bowles, London, 1784

Rural Life. Robert Sayer and J. Bennett. London 1782

Rural Life Spinning Yarn Philip Mercier Pinxt. C. Corbutt fecit. Robt Sayer, 1760s London

Market Lass. Robert Dighton. Laurie and Whittle, London. 1794

Jockey and Jenny. Carington Bowles. London. 1782.

1776 America's first female lighthouse keeper

The Gurnet, a 27 acre peninsula forming the northern boundary of Plymouth Bay, is located a few miles northeast of Plymouth Rock. The Pilgrims knew the land as “the gurnett’s nose,” apparently naming the area for similar headlands in the English Channel, where the gurnet fish flourished along Devonshire’s shores. When Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1606 to map the Gurnet and Clark’s Island, he found thick pine forests & Native Americans fishing for cod using lines made of tree bark with wooden fish hooks to which a spear-shaped bone was attached.

Lighthouse at Plymouth (Gurnet), now Saquish Beach, MA

The Gurnet became part of Plymouth on January 7, 1638. By the 1770s, 75 fishing vessels were based in the area, and at one point, Duxbury was one of the world’s leading shipbuilding centers.

Under the direction of the Massachusetts Legislature, the first Plymouth Lighthouse, a wooden keeper’s dwelling measuring 15 by 30 feet, equipped with a lantern at each end of its roof, was completed in September 1768 at a cost of £660. The twin lights, exhibited at a height of 86 feet above the sea, distinguished the station from the single light used at Boston.

The lighthouse was built on land rented for 5 shillings a year from John & Hannah Thomas. John, a surgeon, was hired as the 1st keeper serving until he joined the Continental Army. He recruited a regiment of volunteers from Plymouth County to help repel the British in the Siege of Boston, & then served as a major general led troops in Quebec, where he died of small pox on June 2, 1776. Along with raising their 3 children, Hannah took over John’s lighthouse post, making her the first woman lighthouse keeper in America.

It is said that in 1776, after Fort Andrew was erected at Gurnet Point, the H.M.S. Niger reportedly sailed around the Gurnet toward Plymouth Harbor, exchanging fire with the fort’s six-cannon battery and, many believe, destroying one of the lighthouse beacons in the process.

Plymouth’s worst shipwreck occurred in 1778, when the American privateer General Arnold was trapped in a blizzard less than a mile from Plymouth Light. Choosing to forego the risk of entering Plymouth’s inner harbor without a pilot, the captain dropped anchor hoping to ride out the storm. As the gale rose to hurricane force, the vessel drug anchor running aground on White Flats. Before residents of the Gurnet could construct a causeway over the ice to reach the stranded vessel, 72 of the its crew of just over 100 froze to death in view of the light.

After the war, the lighthouse was refurbished & put back in service with Hannah Thomas as keeper. Hannah hired Nathaniel Burgess (or Burges) to serve as keeper in 1786, and that same year a coasting sloop traveling from Boston to Plymouth struck a sand bar near the Gurnet. Two of the seamen from the vessel trudged 7 miles through a bitter snowstorm to reach Gurnet Lighthouse. Keeper Burgess fed & warmed them beside the fire, dispatching his assistant, possibly Hannah’s son John, to bring in the rest of the crew.

In 1790, the light was ceded to the U.S. government, & John Thomas took over as keeper. His salary of $200 per annum was lower than at other lighthouses, because the Gurnet was deemed an acceptable place to live with ample fishing & land with good soil to garden. Keepers at less hospitable locations, such as Thatcher Island or Boston Light, earned $266.67.

1843 photo of the twin Plymouth Lights. Photo from US Navy
 
After the lighthouse was completely destroyed in a fire on July 2, 1801, the merchants of Plymouth and Duxbury funded the construction of a temporary beacon. On April 6, 1802, Congress voted to repay them $270 and appropriated $2,500 to rebuild the lighthouse on the Gurnet. The Thomas family was paid $120 for the land on which twin, 22' tall lighthouses, spaced 30 feet apart, were built in 1803.

See Lighthouse Friends here for more intriguing stories.

 

1756 Baltimore Indentured Servant Elizabeth Sprigs' letter home

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Elizabeth Sprigs, a servant in a Maryland household, financed her passage to the colonies from England in exchange for a term as an indentured servant.  She served in a Maryland household and wrote home to her father, complaining of the terrible treatment, begging her family to send her a blanket.

Maryland, Sept’r 22’d 1756

Honored Father

My being for ever banished from your sight, will I hope pardon the Boldness I now take of troubling you with these, my long silence has been purely owning to my undutifullness to you, and well knowing I had offended in the highest Degree, put a tie to my tongue and pen, for fear I should be extinct from your good Graces and add a further Trouble to you, but too well knowing your care and tenderness for me so long as I retain’d my Duty to you, induced me once again to endeavor if possible, to kindle up that flame again.

O Dear Father, believe what I am going to relate the words of truth and sincerity, and Balance my former bad Conduct my sufferings here, and then I am sure you’ll pity your Destress Daughter, What we unfortunate English People suffer here is beyond the probability of you in England to Conceive, let it suffice that I one of the unhappy Number, am toiling almost Day and Night, and very often in the Horses drudgery, with only this comfort that you Bitch you do not halfe enough, and then tied up and whipp’d to that Degree that you’d not serve an Animal, scarce any thing but Indian Corn and Salt to eat and that even begrudged nay many Negroes are better used, almost naked no shoes nor stockings to wear, and the comfort after slaving during Masters pleasure, what rest we can get is to rap ourselves up in a Blanket and ly upon the Ground, this is the deplorable Condition your poor Betty endures, and now I beg if you have any Bowels of Compassion left show it by sending me some Relief, Clothing is the principal thing wanting, which if you should condiscend to, may easily send them to me by any of the ships bound to Baltimore Town Patapsco River Maryland, and give me leave to conclude in Duty to you and Uncles and Aunts, and Respect to all Friends

Honored Father
Your undutifull and Disobedient Child      Elizabeth Sprigs

Source: Elizabeth Sprigs, “Letter to Mr. John Sprigs in White Cross Street near Cripple Gate, London, September 22, 1756,” in Isabel Calder, ed., Colonial Captivities, Marches, and Journeys (New York: Macmillan Company, 1935.)
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A day in the life of a wealthy widow on a country seat in colonial New York

Margarita Schuyler was a wealthy housewife in the countryside near Albany, New York. She was born in January 1701, the daughter of Johannes Schuyler & Elsie Staats Wendell. She was raised by her widowed mother & grew up in the Schuyler house in Albany, New York, & at the family farm, where she enjoyed the company of a large extended family. At the age of 19, in December 1720, she married her first cousin Colonel Phillipus Schuyler.

The couple had no children. They made their home at their country seat north of Albany called the Flats, which became a retreat for family and visitors. Her husband died in February, 1758. By that time, his wife was known as "Madame Schuyler," a gracious hostess & matriarchial figure in Albany social circles. Madame Schuyler knew better than to remarry, because then her husband would own all of her assets.  Instead she lived just as she chose for 54 more years as a widow.  She died at the Flats on August 28, 1782, at the age of 81. Ann Grant describes the older Madame Schulyer in her memoir.


"After the middle of life, she went little out; her household, long since arranged by certain general rules, went regularly on, because every domestic knew exactly the duties of his or her place...


"She began the morning with reading the Scriptures. They always breakfasted early, and dined two hours later than the primitive inhabitants, who always took that meal at twelve. This departure from the ancient customs was necessary in this family, to accommodate the great numbers of British as well as strangers from New York, who were daily entertained at her liberal table. After breakfast she gave orders for the family details of the day...her household affairs...went on in a mechanical kind of progress, that seemed to engage little of her attention, though her vigilant and overruling mind set every spring of action in motion...


"Having thus easily and speedily arranged the details of the day, she retired to read in her closet, where she generally remained till about eleven; when, being unequal to distant walks, the colonel and she, and some of her elder guests, passed some of the hotter hours among those embowering shades of her garden, in which she took great pleasure...


"From this retreat they adjourned to the portico; and while the colonel either retired to write, or went to give directions to his servants, she sat in this little tribunal, giving audience to new settlers, followers of the army left in hapless dependence, and others who wanted assistance or advise, or hoped she would intercede with the colonel for something more peculiarly in his way, he having great influence with the colonial government...


"At the usual hour her dinner-party assembled, which was generally a large one...There was more choice and selection, and perhaps more abundance at her table, than at those of the other primitive inhabitants...Her dinner-party generally consisted of some of her intimate friends or near relations and strangers sometimes invited, merely as friendless travelers, on the score of hospitality, but often welcomed for some time as stationary visitors, on account of worth or talents, that gave value to their society; and, lastly, military guests... Conversation here was always rational, generally instructive, and often cheerful...


"The afternoon frequently brought with it a new set of guests. Tea was always drank early here...with so many petty luxuries of pastry, confectionary, &c. that it might well be accounted a meal by those whose early and frugal dinners had so long gone by...

 "In Albany it was customary, after the heat of the day was past, for the young people to go in parties of three or four, in open carriages, to drink tea at an hour or two’s drive from town. The receiving and entertaining this sort of company generally was the province of the younger part of the family; and of these parties many came, in summer evenings, to the Flats, when tea, which was very early, was over...

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"The young people, and those who were older, took their different walks, while Madame sat in her portico, engaged in what might comparatively be called light reading, essays, biography, poetry, &c. till the younger party set out on their return home, and her domestic friends rejoined her in her portico, where, in warm evenings, a slight repast was sometimes brought; but they more frequently shared the last and most truly social meal within..."

Memoirs of an American Lady: with Sketches of Manners and Scenery in America, as they existed previous to the Revolution written by Anne Mc Vickar Grant. First published by Strahan and Preston, Printers-Street, London, in 1808.
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A day in the life of a gentry wife in a colonial southern town

To understand the well-to-do housewife in the colonial South, the most important fact to remember is that she was completely subordinate to her husband. He was the head of the household & exercised ultimate authority.

The wife was her husband's agent responsible for actually managing everyday household affairs. Depending on the family's financial status, she supervised a staff of household servants,  mainly comprised of male & female slaves.

At about 6:00 a.m., the wife arose, awakened the family, determined that breakfast preparations had begun & that fires wereburning in the appropriate fireplaces.

Appearance was important, especially in a town setting, where the wife would see visitors & neighbors on a daily basis. Freshening up, dressing often with the assistance of a personal maid, usually a slave, & arranging her hair consumed part of the housewife's morning hours.

New Hall Tea Pot, Pattern 121, c 1785-7

About 7:30 a.m., the wife surveyed the house & kitchen, & often the garden, to see what tasks needed to be accomplished that day & to make certain that breakfast would be served on time.

At 8:00 a.m., servants, usually slaves, served the breakfast. The housewife would manage the meal & spend about a half hour at table with her family. Sunday breakfasts were later & longer in some homes. Breakfasts may or may not have included tea.

A Chinese Export Porcelain Teapot in the Meissen Style, Qianlong c.1750
Beginning about 8:30 a.m., while the slaves ate breakfast in the kitchen, the housewife washed the fine glasses & china used at breakfast & left from the previous day either in the dining room, passage, or in a nearby room. She then set out the serving pieces & condiments for the upcoming mid-day dinner table.

After the slaves finished eating in the kitchen, she instructed the cook of the menu for the dinner meal & often measured out ingredients for each dinner dish herself. She told the other servants of their chores for the day & dispensed necessary supplies.

From about 10:00 a.m. to about 2:00 p.m., she supervised work in & around the house, perhaps assisted by teenaged daughters, while younger children received lessons. Daily household chores included cooking, cleaning, dairying, washing, ironing, sewing, & gardening.

Around 1:30 p.m., she checked on the cook's progress with dinner & then retired to her room to freshen up & perhaps change outer garments before dinner.

About 2:00 p.m., she presided over the table with her family & possible guests. Dinner, the largest meal of the day, was also the most formal & the longest. Dinner may or may not have included tea.

Polychrome Saltglaze Teapot Staffordshire 1760

At the end of the meal, she & other females left the men at the dinner table & retired to the hall or parlor for conversation over tea or coffee.

After dinner, the wife determined that the kitchen was put in order & directed the afternoon's baking of hot breads & desserts for supper plus bread for the next day.

Early Qianlong Famille Rose Teapo0-1750, ed, Possibly in England in c.1770

Beginning about 4:00 p.m., she had about 3 hours time of her own, since her staff had already received instructions for the whole working day. She might shop at local stores or visit friends for tea or pay a call on the sick or needy.

If she remained at home, she might have given needlework lessons to young daughters; practiced music with her family; & read. Or she might entertain visitors over tea.


About 7:30 p.m., the wife checked on the preparations for supper, which was generally little more than a snack & usually simple to prepare.

Usually 8:00 p.m.was suppertime for the family & possible guests. After dinner, the wife made certain that the kitchen was put in order & that the fires were banked for the night.

From dinner until about 11:00 p.m., the housewife, her family, & guests usually would socialize at home or with neighbors. Their evening activities included conversation, singing, listening to music, reading aloud, & playing cards. Beverages might include tea, or coffee, or more ardent spirits.

Bow Quilt-moulded Coffee Pot and Tea Pot 1768

Much of this information is from Pat Gibbs, Daily Schedule for an Urban Gentry Housewife. Series: Fresh Advices, A Research Supplement To The Colonial Williamsburg Interpreter. Vol 2, No. 6.