True Sisterhood: the Female Family in Nineteenth-Century Michigan.

In nineteenth-century America, women expected to fill the roles of sister and daughter simultaneously with those of wife and mother. A woman's familial obligations extended beyond the household to include parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, and gr and children. Indeed, when women defined their place in the home they referred not solely to their own households but also to networks of kin, networks composed primarily of othe women. In spite of geographic distance, women in Michigan maintained close, lifelong ties with their female kin in the East as well as those who had moved further west. This study examines the letters and diaries of thirty Michigan families whose papers are located in the Michigan Historical Collections, Bentley Library, University of Michigan. The letters that white, Protestant, native-born women living in Michigan between 1820 and 1920 exchanged with their relatives in Michigan and other regions of the country reflect the importance of female kin in allocating resources among nuclear families, reinforcing norms, and providing emergency assistance. Historians studying women and the family usually have focused on the role of women within the nuclear family. Yet networks of female kin formed important, indeed central, units of the nineteenth-century family. Aware of their vulnerability in the face of the dissolution of their marriages, as well as the need for assistance in case of illness or economic loss, women turned to their female kinship networks as dependable and enduring sources of tangible as well as emotional support. Reliance on female kin for potential emergency assistance reinforced the desire of women to maintain close ties with their relatives in spite of geographic separation. By providing an alternative source of support, kin networks enabled married women to achieve a degree of autonomy, even allowing women to divorce abusive husb and s. Defining home and family to include kin outside the household, women viewed their participation in kin networks as an essential aspect of their domestic duties. Sharing the same roles as wives and mothers, then, female kin were able to assist one another with daily household tasks. In a culture in which only women were believed to underst and the problems of other women, female kin provided one another with companionship and emotional support. Most important, however, was the promise of emergency assistance. Widows, young and old alike, turned to female kin for financial aid. Divorced women and those deserted by their husb and s similarly sought help from female relatives. Women provided homes for the motherless children of their sisters and daughters, ensuring continuity of childcare witin the family. Even intact nucelar families frequently relied on female kin to nurse both men and women in times of illness and to channel financial assistance to households in need. and when husb and s and wives separated temporarily as a strategy to improve their financial prospects, female kin provided shelter and assistance for women and children. Networks of female kin thus served as stable family units in which to rear children, nures the ill, and care for the elderly. Women were not, then, in opposition to the family, but instead constituted the core of the family, a true sisterhood offering the security and support that nuclear families were unable to ensure.Ph.D.Cultural anthropologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/158317/1/8116305.pd