Love and Marriage, Consent and Dowry

Marriage place settings.  Marion Nicholson Hugh Blair 1913. Home-made and on the cheap.

I’ve completed my draft of Diary of a Confirmed Spinster the follow up to Threshold Girl.

It has to be typed and put into pdf.

As I turn to Marion’s Story, I have marriage on my mind, 1910 marriage.

It’s still considered cute today, on sitcoms at least, for men to ask the father of their intended for his consent to a marriage.

I’ve only heard of one or two real life people who did that.

I think Wolowitz did it on Big Bang. He got married to Bernadette yesterday. Not a bad episode, the wedding on the roof with Google Earth was cute. (It’s hard to write an original marriage scene and that was fairly original.)

But I think I’ve figured out what a father’s consent meant, at least in Canada in 1910, at least for the middle class. It meant the father would give money, a dowry, set the young couple up.

So when a father didn’t give his consent, it didn’t mean he didn’t like the guy or want the daughter to marry, it meant he couldn’t afford it.

This reality is at the heart of my story Diary of a Confirmed Spinster. Norman Nicholson, Edith’s father would not even comment on her favorite, even when introduced to him. So in the book I have her beloved, Charlie, go to extremes to make money for marriage – and get killed. In real life he died in a fire at at Hotel in Cornwall, the Rossmore. His body was never identified.

As for Marion, well, she gets engaged in May 1913, a decision made only by the couple, although she has indeed ‘asked’ her father for his opinion of her intended earlier in October 1912.

In June 1913 Edith writes to her Mother, saying she wishes father would write and give his FULL CONSENT as Marion has to tell her principal whether she wants her teaching job back the next year. And Hugh, her fiance, wants to start looking for a house.

Norman does write to Marion a long letter saying “He doesn’t know what to say as he is dead broke.”

Norman and Marion’s fiance, Hugh Blair, come to some agreement and I have a letter from Hugh saying he as received whatever  and thank you. (In letters, if someone is thanking someone for money, it is never spelled out. Thank you for ‘the favour’ of the 12th instant.)

Hugh also asks for something from his own father (not sure what) and the father writes a jolly letter back but never mentioning Marion or the marriage.

Hugh’s parents do not attend the wedding in October in Richmond.

I also have a marriage contract, drawn up in Richmond a few days before the wedding, saying that Marion brings nothing to the marriage but her clothes and wedding presents.

So if she leaves Hugh, he keeps the furniture.

In 1910 In Canada, marriage was still a financial contract, although like Marion and Hugh, couples in love could get married without consent and suffer the consequences. Hugh had to go out into business on his own as a lumber merchant. He got shut out the family business, for a while at least.

The ideal marriage is where a man with prospects and education, although perhaps no money of his own, married a woman whose dowry could set him up in life and business. My own grandfather married 1901 was an example. He was Jules Crepeau and Assistant City Clerk in Montreal in 1901. He married the daughter of a master butcher, who brought if my mother is correct, 40,000 to the marriage. (Hard to believe, although Master Butchers were prominent citizens. The woman he married also had prominent connections, a Monsigneur and such.)

So what if they spent their marriage throwing crockery at each other.

Hugh and Edith

From what I see the Nicholson marriage was on the cheap. 6.65 for a cake and a few dollars for material and new shoes for outfits from Hudon’s.

Love and Marriage Dear Sir, I wish to consult you on a subject that deeply interests me while it indirectly concerns you and I hope that my presentation of the matter will meet with your approval. For sometime past your daughter Marion and I have been on intimate terms of friendship which has developed into affection on my part, and I have reason to believe my intentions are not indifferent to her, so I would therefore request your consent to our marriage. Yours sincerely, Hugh Christian Blair (PIC BELOW: Marion draws her ring!)

War and Prices, the Cost of Living 1914-1918

A page from Oct 1914 House Accounts, Norman Nicholson of Richmond, Quebec.

I have 50 years of Household Accounts for the Nicholson Family of Richmond, 1883 to 1921 and in those years, not that much changed with respect to what they bought and how much they spent.

I’m assuming there was wartime inflation, so I scanned two pages from October 1914 and two from November 1918.

For the story, Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, about Edith Nicholson in 1910,  the follow up toThreshold Girl about Flora, I am using the Household Accounts to tell the story of her childhood.

This morning I had a bowl of Harvest Crunch. I haven’t eaten that for years. My husband found it on sale at Costco. That product was one of the first pseudo health foods. I could look it up, but I’m pretty sure I ate it in the late 70′s. I think it is pretty fattening. It has coconut oil.. but I don’t think that is as bad for you as previously thought. I mean the Thai’s live on it.

I usually eat Bon Matin 14 grain toast for breakfast with multi berry jam.

The short of it is, we still eat ‘by habit’ but new products are being introduced every day. Not the case back then, although that era saw the birth of a number of iconic products that became favorites over the century, thanks to heavy advertising. As I wrote in an earlier post, Crisco was invented in 1911, but they tried to get Margaret Nicholson to use it in 1916. Likely because butter had risen in price due to the war.

as opposed to: 1918

Me in the Press

In was on the Front Page of the Sherbrooke Record this Easter Weekend. The story: Century Old Townships Letters Capture Titanic Era Life. I was promoting Threshold Girl my ebook, the first in a digital trilogy as the Record Reporter Corrinna Pole described it.

Last November I got some press in Cornwall promoting the second book in the trilogy: Diary of a Confirmed Spinster. I had expected to have that book finished by now, indeed, I gave myself until the Anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking, but I got sidetracked with injuries and a trip to California. Lucky for the trip, I got my hair done so I had a decent pic for the Record Story. I was on the front page, yikes!

The Cornwall Story is still online, without the pic. Here’s the pic. Edith and her beau Charlie, who died in a 1910 hotel fire in Cornwall.

Anyway, I am getting to the story. The Cornwall Standard Freeholder reporter will likely report on it when it is posted, just like Threshold Girl, on my www.tighsolas.ca website for free.

Anyway, another reason I haven’t finished the Spinster story is because I was missing a piece. I finally found it! An article from the April19, 1912 Votes for Women Magazine about Teachers and Suffrage.

I will have Edith get this issue and read this article and be incensed at a certain part, where an older teacher mocks younger ones for being so radical. (Edith was a radical suffragette, but never did anything about it. )

Here’s the article.

From Votes for Women Magazine, April 19, 1912: The Question of Women’s Suffrage was again discussed by the national congress of teachers at Easter. As was the case last year there was a very heated debate.

 

The Yorkshire Observer refers to Women’s Suffrage as “the great bone of contention at Aherysteryth in 1910 and as the topic hotly discussed by local associations throughout the year and, again, as the dividing whirlwind at Hull. ‘No man,’ it said, “could hold the storm. It broke with the violence of a northerly gale. Again and again the meeting was stopped by rival cries and calls. The assembly heaved with crosswinds and currents of feelings churned by an angry sea.”

 

Eventually, the previous question was carried and the discussion was once more shelved as far as the Congress is concerned.

 

But we shall be greatly disappointed if the women teachers, who are in an enormous majority as members of the NUT allow the question to remain where it is.

 

When the Congress arrived at the motion of Parliamentary Franchise for Women, it was met with deafening applause.

 

Miss Isabel Cleghorn, M.A. ex President of the Congress, moved the following resolution.

That this conference expresses its sympathies with those members of the National Union of Teachers,

who desired to possess and exercise the Parliamentary Franchise, but because they are women, and for that reason alone, are by law debarred from it.

 

She remarked that there were three reasons given last year why the suspension of standing orders should not be carried so that this resolution could be discussed: 1)That the motion had been sprung upon the executive; 2) that the associations had not had the opportunity of discussing it; 3)that this was a political question and should not be discussed by the National Union of Teachers.

 

This year they could not advance these reasons.

 

The association had discussed the motion and the result was that the motion was now sent forward by 17, 062 votes for its discussion and 6,728 against it. (Applause)

 

In addition, the associations had sent it up as the number 3 resolution to be discussed among the members.

 

 

Parliament from the London Eye, 2006. Taken by Me.

 

With reference to the argument that it was a political question, she said that the conference would agree, that  the parliamentary influence of their union was one of their greatest assets (Applause) that they were continually in their meetings and in their conferences discussing politics. They had not only discussed the question of the franchise but they had expended union money to extend the franchise to people who resided in their schoolhouses. (Applause.) And in the past they had discussed education bills. It seems to her that if their political power (and they had political power)depended on the vote, then if they were going to add more of their members as voters it must increase their political power. (Applause). Women were earning their own living. They were teaching in the schools of the country. They had to teach their children citizenship, loyalty patriotism and all that was necessary to make them good citizens of the future and  yet they had not the power of the vote which made for the good of the  country in the making of its laws. (Applause)

 

Mr. Dakers VP seconded the resolution and amidst cries of dissent reserved his remarks.

Mr. A E Cook NW London was loudly cheered on rising to move the previous question. He belonged to a large association in connection with which was an active ladies committee and they unanimously decided that it was not part or parcel of the union to interfere in this question. One of the objects of the association was to unite the member and this would bring disunion. Another object was to extend influence and dignity of the profession. The only cause of their object which touched the question was that which referred to securing of effective representation in Parliament. But this was not an education question: it was absolutely a political question.

 

Mrs. Bergwin seconded. She said all the sophistry, all the arguments of the suffrage association dissolved when she thought of the  actualities of life as she knew them. (Loud and prolonged applause and one call of Traitor). She had been asked if her position was not illogical. She reminded council that she had to support illogical things before when common sense opposed them.

It was no argument at all to say that because men had the vote women should too. What women would have the vote? ( Cries of ‘That’s the question’ and an interruption from some young women delegates who Mrs. Bergwin addressed as ‘dear girls’, adescription which created great laughter.

 

They might soon be happy wives but they would commence their married life with a grievance. “See what I have had to give up? I am not fit to have a vote now.”

I have a personal grievance, said Bergwin. We have had a government who would have carried social reform, remedied evils burning to be remedied.(Applause). But that government has been hampered and hindered…(Cries of dissent drowned out final words of sentence..

And this in atime that men’s passions may have been easily aroused. It was the job of her sex to shout PEACE. Peace with honour. Because her sex, womanhood and motherhood convinced her that this was not the time, nor was it opportune to give votes for women.

Mrs. Allan Croft said he was responsible for the appearance on the motion on the agenda. And he was proud.

Mr. Cook had missed out the very object of the NUT which was the justification for the motion on the agenda.  Object number 5 is to secure effective representation of education in Parliament. What better way could we devise to secure effective representation of education in Parliament than by greatly largely augmenting the ranks of voting members of the NUT.(Here. Here.)

 

The women members of the NUT provided the greater part of the parl. Fund. (Here here.) Over 4,000 pounds went every year into the fund directly from the pockets of the women members of the union.

 

Mr. Dakers pointed out that there was one department of social life in which women had a special interest. The department of the home. Therefore he claimed women had a special interest in the laws and regulations which determine the education of their children. Children were the shuttlecocks .of the party politicians. With their special interests in the welfare of the children who were a part of the home women would make a much better case of it.

 

 

Time to have THE TALK

About the P word. Purity. The advert above is from the back of Marion’s 1912 Fannie Farmer Cookbook. Wales’ jams made in Newton Centre Mass. I chose this ad from the others because there was a Newton Centre connection to Tighsolas. Henry Watters, the doctor, and nephew to Norman, had a practice there.

Wales is a prominent merchant, philanthropist from Richmond, Quebec. Could this Wales be related? Maybe.

Anyway. The preserves are ABSOLUTELY PURE.

Virtually every product advertised in the back of this cookbook claims to be PURE.

Lowney’s chocolat bonbons. Every ATOM of them is PURE.

The aristocrat of olive oil. Micelli’s. Recommended and used by Miss Fannie Merritt Farmer and many others interested in PURE FOOD

and on and on. Ivory Soap, the book has an add for that product, is the one 1910 product that has survived until today with its PURITY label intact.

Ok. So I’ve decided to bake some of the recipes from Marion’s 1912 cook book. The recipes she’s ticked with a pencil.

I don’t want to be redundant:to copy the Julia and Julia blog. The one that was turned into such a great movie. (I love Meryl Streep’s recent films. The Altman one, Prairie Home Companion; Mamma Mia; and Julia and Julia. Fantastic!!! )

But I hanker to make breads, by hand. Not by machine. Scones, maybe. They are so Scottish. But there is only one scone recipe in this book. Scones are called baking powder biscuits. Hmm. My mom, who was French Canadian, made baking powder biscuits. YUM.

I have some of my MOM’s favourite recipes on cards I typed for her in 1972, after taking typing in 9th grade. Mint Chocolate Cake and Southern Fried Chicken are of special interest. I made many friends due to these recipes. You know, these recipes are surprisingly simple. Just a few ingredients. But my son, who works at a high end resto (part time as a student) in Ottawa tells me that many of their recipes are deceptively SIMPLE. It’s the quality of ingredients and cooking techniques that count.

My son also thinks bread making machines are great. But I want to feel my knuckles pounding the d0ugh. And I want to eat the scones, buttery and warm.

Very primal.