What Studying the Women in the Founders' Lives Reveals [View all]

[ellisonz]

Friday, July 16, 2010 - 10:09
Thomas Fleming
Mr. Fleming, a former president of the Society of American Historians, is the author of more than forty books, both fiction and non-fiction. His latest is: The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers. He is a member of the board of directors of HNN.

With leaks and wandering emails, talk shows and tell-all aides, the private lives of today's politicians seem to have become public property. Whether this may eventually unravel the Republic is frequently debated in the media. Not a few bloggers, talk show hosts and late night gurus maintain that the best and brightest are now loath to enter politics.

Still, the number of politicians has not noticeably declined. Nor are we the first generation to take a more than passing interest in the personal lives of our elected leaders. Convinced that historical perspective might be the best answer to the Gotterdammerung tone that the discussion sometimes takes, I decided to explore the roles of women in the lives of the first group of American politicians to win fame -- George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and James Madison. Collectively, most historians agree, these are the founding fathers, the men who made the greatest contribution to the birth of the nation.

I was soon watching a young George Washington riven with desire for the wife of his closest friend. I stood with Thomas Jefferson at the bedside of his dying wife, Martha Wayles, as he sobbed a fateful promise that he would never marry again. I saw a youthful Alexander Hamilton imbibe a toxic mix of fear and anger in his psyche when his headstrong mother banished his hapless father from her bed .

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Although the women in these famous lives spoke a hundred and fifty years before feminism entered the American vocabulary, their independent voices will surprise many people. The men and women of 1776 were far more candid and realistic about sexual desire and marital relationships than the Americans of the 21st century realize. They gave serious thought to the ancient conflict between the sexes and talked and wrote about it in ways that still have relevance today. This was evident from the novels they read and the stories that were printed in the newspapers.

More: Article from the History News Network.

History News Network has a pretty strong search engine is a great place to find history related news and scholarly analysis on many topics with it's broad collection of magazine-style articles and other materials. Hope you found this article to be a good read outlining what the lives of women for the middle/upper-class of American colonial society were very broadly like. Our culture has come a long way, but many cultural mores are still quite relevant.

Aloha.