Introduction
Rachel Hope Cleves’ Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America: Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake are a same-sex couple who lived in 19th century New England. The author, who carries out thorough archival research and uses creative interpretations of personal correspondence, argues that they recognized themselves as a married couple in early 19th-century New England. Cleves deliberately contextualizes their relationship within the intellectual developments in the early republic that questioned the gender roles and female intimacy in the writings of Sarah Grimké and Alexis de Tocqueville. Therefore, Cleves makes a strong argument that same-sex partnerships were a reality in the early republic even though they violated elite ideologies. This essay discusses the book’s central theme, including the author’s methods and sources. In addition, the essay will examine the relationship between this book and other readings from the course and why I consider it crucial to my understanding of the Early American Republic.
Summary of Central Argument
The book’s central theme states that Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake considered themselves married, and their marriage would have been recognized in the early 19th century in Weybridge, Vermont, and Middletown, Connected to their local community and social circle. Cleves draws on this based on detailed research, including more than 300 letters Mary and Philip wrote to each other using affectionate marital language like “husband” and “wife.” They discussed things like jealousy, household arrangements, and intimate relations in a way that was similar to the real-life married heterosexual couples back then. Tocqueville’s mention of gender-based segregation situates Charity and Sylvia’s marital relationship within this context, stating how the subject of sex and gender was given priority and handled with great concern in the olden days.Clarke emphasizes the contextuality of their relationship in the framework of the 17th-century notions of sex, gender, and same-sex female relationships. Accordingly, she argues that the phenomenon of the “female husband” or that of the husband-wife same-sex relationship was part of an earlier tradition that became unacceptable only in the mid-19th century under the constraints of the Victorian age.
Methods and Sources
Charity and Sylvia are to be reconstructed through the careful archival research of Cleves, which involves drawing on census records, town histories, legal documents, and the wealth of correspondence between them and their family and friends. This she does by placing her analysis in the historiography of gender and sexuality in early America, and it brings to light scholars like John D’Emilio, Judith Butler, and Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, and the topics of Republican motherhood ideology, female same-sex intimacy, and historical understanding of sex and gender. Cleve employs advanced approaches from literary and queer theories to analyze the concealed words and expressions Charity and Sylvia used to describe their relationship, with attention to details like figures of speech, use of pronouns, jealousy manifestations, intimacy, and household patterns. She points out that after reading this letter while understanding that same-sex relationships were more dominant in those times, the marital nature of Charity and Sylvia’s bond becomes evident, even though they used the modern label “lesbians.” On the other hand, the limitation is the absence of sources from Charity and their spouse directly addressing how they understood the nature of the relationship and whether they had a gender identity. Cleves unravels this secret by looking at the ambiguity of the era together with the context from their letters, but the mystery remains somehow.
Moreover, Cleves equally relies on the documentary evidence for her well-researched contextual investigation into the gender, sexuality, and marriage norms and customs of the early 19th century New England society. She analyzes both the social views of the times, like “female husbands,” and the legal systems and court cases on same-sex relationships to provide a glimpse of how others viewed their relationship. The integrative nature of Cleves’ gender studies, legal history, and economic histories of households aims to encompass the nature of the subjects’ lives.
Besides, the writer uses skillful analogy and comparison to liken the power of their relationship. She compares the activities of managing the household to the male headship roles but simultaneously portrays their relationship as complementary and non-hierarchical, contrasting male-dominated marriages. It is an analysis of a fine-grained nature, the way Cleves uses the available primary sources to investigate the rare nature of the couple. Grimké was a sure challenger of the patriarchal norms that categorized women’s duties within the home and barred them from intellectual and social development. Grimké’s paper on women’s rights and Sarah Cleves’ commentary on the theme of Charity and Sylvia’s union is a case in point of shaking off the established gender norms, even though they happened in different eras and contexts.
Relation to Other Course Readings
The book involves many core topics discussed in the other assigned readings this semester, which address gender, sexuality, and the changing understanding of women’s roles during the early American republic. As narrated by writers such as Benjamin Rush and Alexis de Tocqueville, the constraints of female education and separate spheres to women’s lives provide helpful background for understanding how Charity and Sylvia could maintain their commitment to one another while performing some of the roles considered for women only. The works of the early nineteenth-century women’s rights activists such as Sarah Grimké, whose writings questioned women’s male dominance, illustrate that the relationship between Charity and Sylvia represented a kind of female autonomy and mutual personal power that opposed the male authority within marriage. The Declaration of Sentiments, the Women’s Rights Movement’s epic document, was drafted at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, and it resonated with people who wanted equality and challenged the laws and social norms that held women in a submissive position. Hence, the themes of Charity and Sylvia’s rebellion against the patriarchal regulation of marriage laws are a synecdoche for the struggle to break free from the legal and societal bonds that servile women had to face in the 19th century.
Contribution and Recommendation.
The book Charity & Sylvia by Rutledge is a significant work of literature that profoundly develops American society’s perception of different lifestyles and ideologies on sexual and gender matters in the early 19th century. The novel Cleves chooses to focus on the lives of those two women allows him to show that people could comprehend female husbands as a part of the societal fabric and also same-sex relationships as marriages even if both did not correspond to elite notions emphasizing women to be domestic and men to be the leaders of society.
The book also emphasizes that, in reality, sex, gender, and sexuality were in the periods immediately following the American Revolution in a state of flux, and the Victorian-era restrictions on sex and gender roles were only gradually being implemented. Cleves manages to combine old-school queer theory with literary analysis and archival research to provide the reader with an in-depth analysis of how Charity and Sylvia saw themselves as a married couple. I strongly suggest this book to anyone curious about the history of LGBTQ, sexuality, and the realities of women and gender/sexuality in the early American republic. Cleves develops an alluring narrative and integrates primary sources to provide a captivating read. Benjamin Rush, a significant figure in the Founding era and physician, advocated for women’s education and believed that educated women would contribute to a more enlightened society. Like Ben Rush’s belief in female education, Sarah Cleves challenges the one-dimensionality of women’s expectations in early America by examining Charity and Sylvia’s unusual relationship.
Conclusion
Rachel Hope Cleves’ Charity & Sylvia provides essential insights into the diversity of intimate relationships and understandings of marriage in post-Revolutionary America. By carefully reconstructing the lives of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake, Cleves challenges narratives that erase or make unthinkable committed same-sex relationships in the early United States. Her nuanced analysis makes a significant contribution to the growing field of LGBTQ history and our understanding of sex, gender, and sexuality in the early American republic.
Bibliography
Cleves, Rachel Hope. Charity and Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, (2014).
De Tocqueville, Alexis. “How Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes.” In The American Yawp Reader. Edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, (2020).
Grimké, Sarah. “Sarah Grimké Calls for Women’s Rights, 1838.” In The American Yawp Reader. Edited by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, (2020).
National Park Service. “Declaration of Sentiments – Women’s Rights National Historical Park.” (2023).
Rush, Benjamin. “Thoughts Upon Female Education.” 1787.
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