Marriage and the 'Prospect of Happiness'

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"The Unequal Marriage" by Vasili V. Pukirev, 1862

Historically, given the patriarchal nature of most world cultures, the happy expectations that many brides may have imagined at their wedding fell far short during their marriage—disappointment often began before the honeymoon phase, if there was such a thing. To cope with the lack of attention or even abuse by their husbands, women around the globe had limited choices—especially since ill-treatment of wives was often sanctioned by their religions and governments. “A bride,” nineteenth-century journalist Ambrose Bierce said, “is a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.” Indeed, for eons, a married woman’s “prospect of happiness” was a dilemma.

In the middle of nineteenth-century England “marriage was the subject of much contemporary debate,” wrote best-selling author Kate Summerscale. Divorce laws were being investigated and reformists were “campaigning to improve the lot for married women.” One such reformist, novelist and poet Caroline Norton, even wrote to Queen Victoria—a happily married woman and mother—about the “injustices of wedlock,” as shared by Summerscale:

 “A married woman in England has no legal existence...her being is absorbed in that of her husband.” A wife could not undertake legal proceedings, or keep her own earnings, or spend eons own money as she wished. She “has no legal right even to her clothes or ornaments; her husband may take them and sell them if he pleases.” A wife’s identity was subsumed in that of her husband....

And Caroline Norton should know. “When she left her unfaithful, bullying, profligate husband in 1836,” wrote Summerscale, “he had kept her children from her and had confiscated the money that she earned through her writing.”

[Continue reading this short chapter excerpt on Medium...enjoy!]

Herstory

Judy Chicago at the New Museum in NYC as seen in The New York Times

Judy Chicago is at it again! "The pioneering feminist artist rules the New Museum with a six-decade survey, but she shares the stage with her sisterhood." (See Melena Ryzik's article in the NYTimes, Judy Chicago Makes 'Herstory'.)

Click here for a preview of the exhibit on the New Museum website. (The Herstory exhibition has been extended until March 3, 2024.)

Ann Lowe: American Couturier

Costume Exhibition at Winterthur Museum
Sept 9, 2023 - January 7, 2024

“In 1964, The Saturday Evening Post referred to fashion designer Ann Lowe as ‘Society’s Best-Kept Secret.’ Although Lowe had been designing couture-quality gowns for America’s most prominent debutantes, heiresses, actresses, and society brides—including Jacqueline Kennedy, Olivia de Havilland, and Marjorie Merriweather Post—for decades, she remained virtually unknown to the wider public. Since then, too little recognition has been given to her influence on American fashion.

“Ann Lowe’s recently emerging visibility as a designer stands in contrast to much of her career and the countless unrecognized Black dressmakers and designers who have contributed to American fashion for generations, including her own grandmother and mother. She blazed a path for others to follow and her legacy is still felt in fashion culture.” [Continue reading exhibition text.]

Jacqueline Kennedy in her wedding gown
designed by Ann Lowe, 1953

My 2011 article published in Atlanta's Season magazine, "What Does a Fashion Icon Wear to Her Own Wedding/s," shares what Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy really wanted her wedding gown to look like! Here's an excerpt:

During the presidential state visit to France in the spring of 1961, “more than a million Parisians lined the parade route, chanting ‘Jacqui! Jacqui!’ as the Kennedys entered Paris,” Kathleen Craughwell-Varda recalled in Looking for Jackie: American Fashion Icons. As the charismatic wife of the U.S. president, Jackie Kennedy’s chic, elegant style—copied by women around the world—even won over the toughest fashion critics...the French!

However, the woman who revolutionized a stodgy fashion industry and headlined the best-dressed list for years had not worn the wedding gown of her choice. Jacqueline (Jock-leen) Bouvier was a young bride in 1953 when it was typical for the bride’s mother to plan the wedding, dictate or greatly influence what her daughter would wear (and frequently whom she would marry), and basically run the show.

Of course, the headstrong Jackie was not just any bride of the fifties. She was the future wife of one of the wealthiest men in the country and one whose father had great political plans for his oldest son’s future. So not only did the Newport wedding become a huge Kennedy-orchestrated, high-society spectacle (instead of the small affair the bride and her family wanted), but the bride’s gown reflected what the groom requested. “Jackie wanted to wear a sleek, modern gown, in keeping with the pared-down style she preferred,” Craughwell-Varda explained, “but Jack persuaded her to select something more traditional and old-fashioned.”

The bride’s mother chose Ann Lowe, an African American designer in New York City “who catered to society women.” From her workshop on Lexington Avenue, the designer created an elaborate gown of ivory silk taffeta with a portrait neckline, off-the-shoulder cap sleeves and big ruffled swirls on the full skirt. Jackie also wore the long rose point lace veil worn by her mother and grandmother attached to their wax orange blossom wreath. Perhaps the only time the glamorous Jackie looked “traditional.” (If Jackie had gotten to choose, don’t you think her gown would have been very Givenchy-ish? And with all that Kennedy money at her young fingertips, perhaps she would have gone directly to the master French couturier himself!)

Jacqueline Kennedy wearing Oleg Cassini,
appointed as her "exclusive couturier,"
Elysee Palace reception in Paris,1961

...and more love

 

A Wedding Classic Revisited

from GETTY IMAGES

“On May 19, 2018, the royal nuptials of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex made history and broke traditions, with the bride Meghan Markle’s wedding dress almost serving as an allegory,” Fawnia Soo Hoo wrote in her recent article, “Meghan Markle’s Wedding Dress Nods to Hollywood and American Royalty,” for Vanity Fair.

I love that this “allegorical” wedding, this extraordinary couple, and Meghan’s sensitive and intuitive creativity is being revisited in such a beautiful article. Fawnia chats with the gown’s designer, Clare Waight Keller, about its inspiration and her collaboration with the bride, noting other memorable wedding gowns....

“There was that sense of playfulness and modernity and doing things in a different way,” Waight Keller says. “And I really feel that—for the dress, particularly—that sense of it could be something that really represented her, her spirit, her modernity, and the freshness....”

Click on the article here...

from GETTY IMAGES

Also revisit the article I wrote a few days after that memorable wedding in 2018 and posted here: “A Day of Gracious Gestures and Love Power”....

The radiant bride, in designer-sculpted shimmering white silk....

from GETTY IMAGES

In addition, I’ve written about Harry and Meghan’s spiritual union in a section of a book I've been working on for many years, using this lovely quote from a friend of the bride: 

Meghan’s friend Vicky Tsai, after attending the wedding ceremony, confirmed: “It felt like a moment where the world paused and celebrated love.”

Women's Equality Day

The first Woman's Rights Convention

July 1848, Seneca Falls, New York

Between August 18 (when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1920) and August 26  (when it was signed into law, giving women the vote...a date now known as “Women’s Equality Day”), I posted a five-part essay titled “Second-Class Citizen” on MEDIUM…sharing a little this ‘n that of women’s history.

To begin the series, 

click here for Part I: 'Remember the Ladies'