Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: As Catherine looks out across the water, she wonders what her life will be like when she reaches Virginia.She knows that conditions will be hard, but life in England was also hard.At least in the colony, there is the possibility of improvement.The Virginia Company has assured her and the other women that they will have their choice of marriage partners.They have promised that the men are wealthy, or at least will be wealthy with the women's help.Moreover, in Virginia, as a married woman she has the right to share in her husband's wealth.Catherine knows it is a risk, but she has been assured she can always return home if she changes her mind.Regardless, Catherine expects to stay.There is little for her back in England.She will marry a colonist and help found a nation.The first American mail order brides were independent, powerful and respected; they are never described as "mail order brides."The term "mail order bride" is most often reserved for women perceived as victims. 1 Colonial mail order brides, by contrast, have other names: "Jamestown brides," "King's daughters," and "Casket girls."Nonetheless, the label "mail order bride" is just as appropriate.Sources describing colonial mail order brides demonstrate that these women immigrated to America for many of the same reasons as their modern counterparts, but the colonial mail order brides received a level of respect and acceptance that typically eludes contemporary mail order brides.2 Distancing today's mail order brides from these lauded forbearers obscures their similarities and perpetuates the one-dimensional treatment of modern mail order brides.3 Re-examining the feminist underpinnings of the first mail order brides
Author: Marcia Zug
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W79849778