Historian's Doomed Romance 💔
ANNETTE TELLS TALES Christine Heyrman's 19th Century Christian Love Triangle Scandal, plus Missionary Positions
This is an Annette Tells Tales post at Non-Boring History, in which Non-Boring Historian Dr. Annette Laing helps translate academic history for real people.
Annette was formerly a tenured professor who chose to leave the academy and become an independent public historian. Please support her work (and her independence) with an annual or monthly paying subscription:
Note from Annette
Imagine how shocked I was when I learned this bizarre news:
Eminent historian Dr. Christine Heyrman, winner of the Bancroft Prize (think Best Picture Oscar for historians) and the Francis Parkman Prize (think, I dunno, BAFTA) has published a book titled Doomed Romance.
😲😲
I mean, I was gobsmacked. It's like the Pope doing shots in Vegas. Or Princess Anne pole dancing. Or . . . I've run out of examples of the last few celebs who still have dignity, hold on . . . Or, um, Snoop Dogg in The Sound of Music.
Let me make myself clear: I'm no fan of romance novels. I don't even like the novels of Jane Austen. That's why my application to be a middle-class woman in England was thrown out, why my cat was cancelled, and why I was exiled to America, taking with me only the Non-Boring History Gnomes and my history books.
In my own defense, historians, no matter how dedicated to our loved ones. are not the most romantic people. We're the sort who schedule conferences on Valentine's Day. The sort who think that it's ok to lecture a first date on the influence of pumpernickel on medieval Westphalia.*
*With apologies to the late Tom Sharpe.
That's why I am stunned by Heyrman's apparent betrayal. And she almost got away with it, because her book came out in 2021, while most of us had our attention elsewhere. Like perfecting our sourdough technique.
But surely Doomed Romance can’t possibly be what it sounds like? Any book published by a university press is surely a proper . . .
Oh. It's not published by a university press. It's published by Knopf, a big corporate press. Uh oh.
But, look, Doomed Romance has a long subtitle! It's not a novel! It is a work of history! Phew, that's a relief. Here, let me just pop on my glasses so I can read the subtitle. . . Broken Hearts, Lost Souls, and Sexual Tumult in 19th Century America.
Huh. Yeah, ok, this is academic history, but maybe not as we know it? Yes, it's aimed at the public, but will romance readers clasp it to their ample bosoms? I hate to say it, but the title doesn't seem commercial enough to me. I mean, if you're gonna write a sell-out bodice ripper, maybe just go for it? At the least, how about we just trim that title a bit?
May I suggest: Doomed Romance: Broken Hearts, Lost Souls, and Sex! Lose a few syllables, add an exclamation point, and watch those Amazon sales soar!
But seriously . . . Between you and me, I’m a teensy bit worried that Dr. Christine Heyrman will be insulted by my doing a Non-Boring History riff on this book. She has clearly worked hard to make it appealing to the public.
Not to mention that she is a terrific writer and a noted wit, and when I say that, I'm not just trying to protect myself from her terrifying wrath. Although this is a woman I once watched on a conference panel verbally kicking a senior male historian in the goolies while wearing high heels and a big smile. . . And clothes, I hurriedly add. Clothes. Obvs.
But . . . (I add carefully) . . . But her book is still a work of academic history.
Treading very carefully here. I don't want to offend Dr. Heyrman, or Christine as she prefers to be called (although I would much rather address such a formidable person as “Dr. Heyrman”). If I do, I'm dead.
That's because, while I've never met Christine in person, she's my academic grandmother, the PhD adviser of Richard Godbeer, my PhD adviser. If I do offend her, then I will likely be hearing from Richard that I've upset Granny, and it will not be a pleasant conversation.
Then again, hey, what the hell. Neither of them lives anywhere near here, and they aren’t gonna fly all the way to Madison just to kick my ass. Onward!
Yes, it's long past time for me to pull myself together, act my age, and give the NBH treatment to Doomed Romance, distinguished scholar Dr. Christine Heyrman’s first ever dirty book!
Hang on. The Legal Affairs Gnome at Non-Boring House has just informed me that he’s had a call from Knopf, and that under no circumstances am I to refer to Dr. Heyrman’s popular yet scholarly work as a “dirty book”.
So can I call it a trashy book? Oh. I can't do that, either. Got it. Ahem. But, hey, I bet Amazon sales just rose!
Doomed Romance
OK, I have changed into a demure high-necked long Victorian nightdress and a fluffy pink dressing gown and slippers. I just made a nice cup of tea in my stylish Non-Boring History mug (available exclusively from AnnetteLaing.com), and set out a box of luxury artisanal chocolates.
Heaving bosoms . . . Manly bare chests . . . Steamy scenes . . .
. . . do not appear in the early pages of Doomed Romance, which I'm riffing on today. How very disappointing. But I'm sure they're in here somewhere, what with 223 pages to fill, plus endnotes.
Meanwhile, let us meet our tragic yet nubile heroine Martha Parker, sultry sex goddess pious and educated evangelical Christian woman of the new, throbbingly vibrant culture of early 19th century America. She has a secret yearning to be married to a man who will whisk her away from dreary New England for a life of passionate faith.
Here comes handsome, virile Elnathan Gridley, who proposes marriage to Martha, and offers to transport her from a frigid existence in the US northeast to Sunny Syria, Land of Eastern Promise.
Trouble is, Elnathan may not be the first to capture Martha's heart. And the first may not have been a man. No, no, not a woman either. Rather, Martha’s own headstrong ambition may have led her astray.
Was Martha’s true love really Elnathan? Was she the humble pious girl she was thought to be? Or was she an overambitious striving Jezebel, who could bring down the world-winning work of American evangelicals with her wicked selfish ways?
Boy, this sort of judgment about a woman sounds familiar. Hmm. I wonder why. 🙄
Martha Falls in Love
Handsome, masculine Rev. Elnathan Gridley, his neck muscles rippling beneath his tight clerical collar, had struck a home run with his sermon. The congregation began drifting toward the exits, tears of excitement still streaming down their cheeks.
But Elnathan only had eyes for the gorgeous, pouting young teacher standing at the center of the church, surrounded by her admirers. She was his betrothed, his heroine. Soon, they would tie the knot, and sail away in the Lord’s service to the Ottoman Empire, the bit of it we today call the Middle East.
Everyone loved and admired the lovely Martha Parker for her courage, her faith, and her lack of ego. She was a model of evangelical teachings: Service was her watchword. And soon she would be serving Elnathan in body as well as soul.
Ah, time for a chocolate! Salty Cherry and Chewy Nuts, I think.
In Syria, Martha was to continue her holy work as a schoolteacher by doing outreach to oppressed foreign women. Martha had been well prepared for this role in Massachusetts. She had attended Bradford Academy, a new kind of school, full of young men and women from respectable and privileged homes, to whom the school offered a superior education, and a chance for students of both sexes to rub closely against one another.
By the time Martha enrolled, in 1820, far more women than men were among Bradford’s students, which is yet more evidence that as soon as we get the door open, the blokes run out the back.
The masterful gentlemen confident enough to cope with female success in their midst (my kind of blokes!) took manly classes, either college prep courses in classics (Latin and Greek), or else practical preparation for masculine careers, as merchants or master seamen.
However, women could share the men’s classes in English, math, and geography, as well as courses in those feminine arts that could attract a husband, like art and needlecraft, which were expected parts of a girl’s schooling. Bradford Academy’s nubile schoolgirls could even learn how to sew the maps they studied in geography, or copy them onto velvet, you know, just like those paintings of Elvis one used to see.
But let’s not miss the point that these amazing evangelicals of 1820 believed firmly that women should be educated. Don’t confuse them with the Taliban! That's right! And no fluffy classes in dancing or French for these practical, devout (and yet poutingly alluring) girls. They were modern and striving, as well as passionately religious . . . and, in the view of some men, they were also in serious need of taming. Yeow! And also uh-oh.
Ghost Chili Caramel: Soft, luscious, sweet, and yet spicy, with a hint of danger.
Martha Parker was a prime example of the young women of Bradford Academy.
Now let’s be clear: This religious life was not for every woman. Poet/cat fancier Emily Dickinson had no interest in revivals or church membership when she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, a similar institution to Bradford.
Oh, I can’t resist this! Dried Prune in Bitter Chocolate.
But never mind Emily Dickinson. Martha Parker is our star here. She started out life in a godly, respectable household in the pretty village of Dunbarton, New Hampshire. She was a flower ready for plucking, already saved for Jesus, born again as an evangelical Christian, a virgin dedicated to the Lord’s service, and to the service of men.
Martha’s pastor, Walter Harris, gave sermons that encouraged young women like Martha with stories of iconic women like Mary Magdalen, who stood by her man until he died, and then came back to life again.
Comely women should not preach, said Rev. Walter, but in every other way, they are spiritual equals to men. That's a belief evangelicals got from 17th century New England Puritans, who also thought that lots of rumpy-pumpy was perfectly fine so long as it happened within marriage.
Martha would have been excited by the example of her neighbor Sally Ladd, a beautiful girl tragically struck down by tuberculosis in 1816, who became a celebrity when her biography was published. Okay, Sally was already dead when she became famous. But as Martha’s own pulse quickened, she likely thought how cool it would be to be famous, even while dead.
Martha also became besotted with the very idea of being in a missionary position, thanks to Abigail Hasseltine, her formidable schoolmistress at Bradford, a woman who dominated her submissive students, while wearing sensible shoes.
Abigail insisted that her innocent, comely charges look up to role models, and especially to those men and women who had already taken up missionary positions. She urged her women students to satisfy the most important, urgent, bodily needs of evangelical male missionaries, by marrying them.
Two former students of Bradford had already done just that by the time Martha Parker arrived. And both of them had been whisked away to exotic, romantic locations, One went to Bombay. The other went to Hawaii, then called the Sandwich Isles by the British, who, being British, made that beautiful sexy place sound like an unsexy lunch.
And then there was Martha’s eldest sister, Ann Parker Bird, who will play quite a role in this story. Ann had married missionary Isaac Bird, and they had traveled to exotic, romantic Beirut, to start the new evangelical Christian mission in Palestine.
Hmmm… Good luck with that, I think. I choose a piece of plain dark chocolate, nice and uncontroversial. Ooh, look, this bonbon is both halal and kosher! And handmade by an artisan named Jesus, pronounced Hay-zus! Excellent.
Ann Parker Bird strongly believed that her little sister Martha would excel in a missionary position. Martha, awed by her older sister, longed to join her in the hot climes of Palestine.
Martha read newspapers, magazines and books, panting with excitement as she devoured amazing stories of American evangelical women who did much more than offer hot sticky buns at church bake sales, and, in Dr. Heyrman’s words, who “undertook more strenuous and courageous work to advance God’s kingdom.” The sweat that must have poured from their feverish brows as they strained in the service of faith!
The missionaries’ purpose was serious. They aimed to show the world’s people their path to Christianity and human dignity. Missionary wives reached out to foreign women, and showed them that they, too, were equals to men, no matter how manly those men might be.
And missionaries, including women, sometimes had breathtaking adventures worthy of a James Bond novel. Consider the missionary wives of Rangoon, in Burma, who escaped a mob by dressing in colorful, attractive local garb and darkening their faces, before being rescued by the vigorous dishy ladies’ men of the British Royal Navy.
Now, this calls for a chocolate in the flavor of a traditional British pudding! Let’s see what we have . . . Perfect. Rum-Soaked Spotted Dick.
No wonder Martha’s heart thudded in her chest! No wonder her bosom heaved! Why, missionary wives were as close as evangelicals got to Catholic saints, who were famous for their lurid and alluring deaths! Maybe cards could be printed, like the saints’ cards that Dr. Christine Heyrman once collected as a Catholic schoolgirl in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, an early education that surely prepared her to write this very broad-minded book about evangelicalism.
Tragic Harriet
Another evangelical missionary heroine and Bradford graduate who would have stirred Martha to passion was Harriet Atwood Newell. Harriet tragically died before she could assume her missionary position in India.
In 1814, Rev. Leonard Woods pieced together Harriet’s letters and diaries into a biography. Woods argued that women missionaries were even braver than the men, because they had to give up the womanly comforts of home in order to service others. He also argued that Harriet got a huge reward for her sacrifice because she was now known around the world, through his book. So, hey, that's another young woman about whom it could be said, ok, she was dead, but at least she was famous.
Yes, the nineteen-year-old Harriet Atwood Newell (deceased), Dr. Heyrman informs us, was “someone whom many other young women could imagine themselves becoming, even longing to become.”
She was the Taylor Swift of her times, as Dr. Heyrman assuredly did not write.
Annette’s Aside: I'm mystified by this bit. My role model was a terrifying British battleaxe of the World War II generation, who had apparently single-handedly defeated Hitler. That's who I wanted to be when I grew up. Not some young blonde bombshell. But I guess that’s why I'm a grumpy old dragon stranded in Madison, Wisconsin, not a globetrotting glamorous international sensation. Figures.
So Martha was not only excited by Harriet’s passion. She also learned from Harriet that the life of a missionary wife was, as Dr. Heyrman puts it, “adventurous and even glamorous”. How sexy is that!
Rev. Woods’s memoir of Harriet Atwood Newell was a bestseller, and heavily promoted among young evangelical women. Martha would have read with mounting excitement of Harriet’s travels in India, including her stay in a mansion where several families of American evangelical missionaries shared a sort of love nest, cared for by eager servants, who, Harriet boasted, made sure the Americans had “all the comforts of life.” Goodness gracious. Did they now? How about that.
Ok, another chocolate. What’s this one? Big Spicy Comfy Curry Mallow Mounds. Hmm.
All the reports from the American missionary wives suggested that they were living in romantic luxury overseas, from being carried around by servants on litters, to elephant rides, to hobnobbing with foreign royalty. It all sounds a bit more exciting than a quick snog with Amos round the back of the barn in Massachusetts, doesn't it?
Fear of missing out of this glamorous foreign adventure was real, and so was the desire to meet celebrity missionaries. Rufus Anderson, student at Bowdoin College, had fantasies about doing something to Harriet’s sister . . . What was it . . . Oh, yeah, marrying her and going on mission to India.
Cardamom and rose petal jelly? Umm uummm. Yes, please!
Novel Dreams
Young evangelical Christians were strictly forbidden to read wicked secular novels, with their themes of desire and seduction.
So, of course, the young folk, especially women, were gobbling them up as fast as they could.
In fact, evangelical publishers had unwittingly led women down this wicked path of racy fiction, by presenting letters, missionaries’ reports, and biographies to read like exciting novels. As Dr. Heyrman puts it, “Missionary chronicles abounded in tales of drama and romance, peril and courage, unfolding in exotic settings.”
Hmm. More chocolate. Pineapple and coconut with Scotch Bonnet chile. Okay, a little too spicy for me. I’ll pass.
Young women who read these Christian publications were certainly very excited about what serving in missionary positions could do for them. Like anyone who reads fiction knows, you get drawn into a good story as if you were there, and these were really spicy stories, with lots of drama, romance, danger, and bravery, in very hot places.
This wasn’t just public relations fluff, either. In real life, such missionary wives could gain dominating power they would never get otherwise in snowy freeze-your-bits-off New England. Ann Judson, heading home to New England after her hair-raising escapades in Burma, traveled via London. An impressed British MP, a Baptist, succumbed to her domineering charm, and introduced her to a circle of like-minded rich, powerful British evangelical men, so they, too, could experience her dominating presence.
They connected her with powerful American Baptist men, and she instantly became famous and influential, invited to advise on expanding missionary positions. They even formed what they called Judson Societies to defer to her while fundraising. Ann Judson saw the power of the press to extend her list of clients, and she published a story about the mission in Burma which, in turn, made her its icon.
A Chorus of Approval and Disapproval
Now, let’s be clear: A lot of New England men and women frowned on Ann Judson’s prowess in steamy places like Burma. Young Martha Parker heard that disapproval all around her, and that helps explain why she was uncomfortable with praise: If you got too convinced you’re great, then your faith required that you watch yourself for human pride. And if you didn’t, then there were always people ready and willing to take you down a peg or two.
Hmmm. This made me think about my hard-earned caution about whom I trust to give me critical advice. I am also distrustful of flattery, and its potential to corrupt my purity. Then again, I’m from Britain, where we accept all sorts of things submissively in the pursuit of politeness: even the King might apologize for being in the way when someone steps on his toes. But I digress.
So Martha felt she had to be modest and unassuming. Yet she was also encouraged by evangelicalism itself to exploit her charms for pleasure. While the evangelical press tried to spin missionary wives as self-denying examples of virtue, no attentive reader could miss that young women were getting super-stimulated by reading of their heroines’ adventures in fabulous locations.
And at Bradford Academy—and other similar schools— students—women as well as men— were encouraged to compete with each other for praise and prizes. Perhaps, in good New England fashion, they were pushed to succeed, but weren’t supposed to enjoy themselves too much while they were at it. Bonkers-making, isn’t it? I was baptized a Scottish Congregationalist myself (think Puritan with a cute accent) but, luckily, it didn’t take. Much.
No wonder, though, that Martha might have let all the praise go to her head: I think here of dead legendary actor Laurence Olivier. Why? Because any excuse to insert a photo of lovely Larry into a post:
What does Laurence Olivier have to do with anything? Olivier said that what drives actors is attention: “Look at me! Look at me! Look at me!” I bet Martha felt the same way, but whatever.
Phwoar! Happy to look at you anytime, Larry!
Cough. Anyway. Well, we can all appreciate how taking a missionary position in the East was a heckuva lot more exciting a prospect for Martha than, say, doing farm chores or teaching snot-nosed kids, or working in a textile mill, the main options to young New England women, who were expected to contribute to the family purse before marriage.
A perky bright lass like Martha must have worried about ending up in a dead-end job followed by a dead-end marriage. And the odds, alas, were good that this was what would happen to her and her sisters: Their dad died young, leaving eight kids and a widow.
Martha’s mum, Martha Tenney Parker, fortunately, was a bit of a goer herself. She took over managing the family farm. But everyone had to shift their weight somehow: And the boys did, working the farm, so the girls could go to school.
Martha’s elder sister Ann, her younger sister Emily, and Martha herself attended Bradford Academy, and Ann went on to teach there before marrying Isaac Bird: I mention this because Ann Parker Bird is THE star of Doomed Romance. She’s awesome. But you’ll have to read Doomed Romance to find out why.
Martha started teaching after only one year at Bradford Academy. She had to move for her job to Fairhaven, Massachusetts, near Cape Cod, where the Kennedys didn't live yet. Her new job was at a girls’ school owned and operated by Rev. William Gould and his wife, Charlotte.
The Goulds’ school in Fairhaven advertised that it offered the girls academic subjects, including geography for which students had access to one (1) hands-on high-tech audiovisual teaching aid: A globe. Well, I always think it’s very satisfying to run your hands over the curves of one of those, so hey, if you’ve got it, flaunt it, I say. The bigger your curvy globe, the better.
But the big emphasis at the Goulds’ school was the art course offered by Mrs. Charlotte Gould, as advertised: “Painting in Water and Oil Colours, and in Crayons, on paper, wood, canvass[sic], silk, and velvet.”
Oh. Well, personally, when I hear painting on velvet, as I said earlier, I think Elvis. So . . . Yeah, whatevs.
For her first job, though, Martha could have done worse than to live in Fairhaven, a booming port. Fairhaven regularly saw huge whaling ships return from the sea, staffed by lots of bare-chested seamen. And then there were the ships coming to and from China, incoming ships full of tea and exotic luxury goods, and outgoing ships full of, I dunno, Dr. Heyrman doesn’t say, but opium probably. Drugs.
Pretty exciting for a girl coming straight from the farm! Next to the real deal, these contacts with a wider world, the school globe’s charms were no doubt quickly exhausted.
Next up, Martha took a new job at another girls’ school, where her younger sister Emily had been principal, in Boscawen, New Hampshire. The local farmers were happy to support a library, charities, and schools, especially a school that churned out handsome young ministers. So Martha’s job was, as Emily’s had been, to educate young women to be these hunks’ wives.
And educate them, the Parker sisters did, with a proper curriculum: Not just geography, but also English composition, math, history (go, Emily and Martha!) , chemistry, and more! This was as close as a girls’ school dared get to college prep, and it was right in line with the curriculum promoted by the most advanced women educators in New England and New York, like Emma Willard and Catherine Beecher (yes, sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe, of Uncle Tom’s Cabin fame.) No painting on velvet, though, thank heavens, or indeed, any useless “ornamentals”.
And in 1825, Martha Parker’s name appeared in BIG BOLD LETTERS on the school’s newspaper ads. The shameless hussy. Did she get all excited by the attention, Dr. Heyrman wonders? Or did this just add to her discomfort, her concern that she shouldn’t be removing all her modesty in public?* Or, as Dr. Heyrman suggests, were both these things true? Dang, I should have been an early 19th century New England evangelical, but being Scottish is practically the same thing. A modest, self-deprecating show-off. Hmm.
*For my protection, let me just note here that Dr. Heyrman didn’t put it quite like that.
Today, we have lots of young women from elite and middle-class backgrounds who think the sun shines out of their spoiled backsides are full of themselves confidence. But not so in Martha’s day! Indeed, and this is cool if you ask me, young men as well as young women were urged in evangelical New England to put God first, and get over themselves.
Unfortunately for young women, that also meant they were supposed to be indiscriminately submissive to male ministers’ authority while being educated and successful and, oh boy, ask a lippy woman survivor of a university in the Deep South (i.e. your very own renegade Non-Boring Historian) how badly all that can go wrong.
Recall that young women like Martha were encouraged to emulate women who were internationally famous as missionaries’ wives, women like Ann Judson. The enormous tension Martha felt between all these conflicting expectations of women must have been unbearable. I feel for her honestly. I wish I could offer her some chocolate. Since I can’t, I grab a big handful of bonbons, and chug them myself.
However . . . All these thingies were going on against a writhing background of new ideas about women, coming out of the Enlightenment in a hot steaming stream. The Puritans had seen women as men’s spiritual equals. Now, the Enlightenment presented them as intellectual equals. And like 17th century Puritanism, early 19th century American evangelicalism even presented women as superior to men in some ways.
Laing, that can’t be right. This history is never mentioned on Reverend Todd’s Holy Happy Hour, to which I regularly make love offerings.
How odd. Maybe you should send Rev. Todd a note suggesting he read up on evangelical history. If Doomed Romance is too hot for him to handle, I suggest a great book I just read, Dr. Daniel G. Hummel’s The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism, which also has lots of ups and downs.
When women like Martha got involved in charity work—and they did—they showed that women make kickass nurturers. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. Every last one of us needs a bit of kickass nurturing, with varying degrees of ass kicking. They showed that women might even be superior to men, straining for the common good of humanity, and not just to advance their own damn selves.
Ooh. I like that. Think I’ll have a Whisky Truffle. I earned it. Make that two whisky truffles.
So, Martha, more self-esteem possibilities open to her than any of her women ancestors, now runs into that handsome hunk, Elnathan Gridley, as he prepares to take a missionary position, and quickly starts hoping she will do it with him.
Come Together: Elnathan and Martha
Martha didn’t meet Elnathan Gridley in a bar. They were set up on a date by Elnathan’s pal James Kimball. James had met Martha and thought she was great. James, however, was already married. Both James and Elnathan also admired Ann and Isaac Bird for their amazing missionary work in Syria.
James, sadly, could not assume a missionary position himself, because the self-abuse of demanding ministerial work had ruined his eyes. But he did the next best thing, and urged his best buddy Elnathan to take Martha himself.
Elnathan, eight years older than Martha, was handsome, popular, and a sophisticated graduate of Yale. He then attended Andover Theological Seminary, a college for training ministers, on what’s now the campus of Phillips Andover Academy (UK Much like Eton and Harrow except they allow girls)
At Andover, Elnathan was invited to join the prestigious Brethren secret society for men intending to take missionary positions. He was also in a hurry to get married before he went to the dangerous Middle East. His Andover mentor was Leonard Woods, who told Elnathan that he saw him as his own child (Say the same, mentors, when it’s true, OK? Some students, especially those not from elite/academic backgrounds, need to know that. Just saying.)
Elnathan then went on to be a kind of sales rep for the American Board, the organization that would sponsor him as a missionary, traveling the US to preach, fundraise, and organize male and female supporters into clubs. He brought all his considerable assets to bear in his job, charming the pants off everyone.
Elnathan did not yet want marriage. He wanted to play the field of global mission work first. He figured he would end up being partnered with another male missionary to work abroad, rather like LDS (Mormon) missionaries today, although maybe without the nametags and bicycle clips. He was asked to go to the Levant, what we now know as the Middle East, the area that’s now Syria, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, and Iraq, which then was ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
Once Elnathan started reading about the Levant, his enthusiasm evaporated. That place is was dangerous: Deserts. Mountains. Robbers. Warlords. A bit like Las Vegas, really. The Board suggested Elnathan not get married, the implication being that he wasn’t going to live long out there. Not good. He suddenly thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be a married missionary, like Ann Parker and Isaac Bird, living in the relative safety of the city of Beirut.
Plus Elnathan's mum, Hannah, kept nagging him about grandchildren. While Elnathan was training as a minister at Andover, his dad died. The old man’s will said that Elnathan and his brother could not inherit any property on their mother’s death if they didn’t have kids. They had to continue the Gridley name.
In Dr. Heyrman’s amusing observation, the Gridley men were “great begetters”, i.e. at it like rabbits. So it was time for Elnathan to gird his loins, and get with the program: Enter Martha.
Not quite. At this time, Elnathan was burnishing his resume by getting some medical training in Boston, and boarding with Jeremiah Evarts, who happened to be president of the American Board that would sponsor his missionary position.
Everts was not pleased by Elnathan's plan to marry. The Board reminded Elnathan that he was supposed to go to the East alone. But Elnathan squared up his manly shoulders, wielded his masculine Yalie charm like a weapon, and would not budge. He was going to marry. He had promised his mum.
And he had also already asked for (and received consent for) Martha’s hand in marriage, and she was eager to come with him to the Middle East. No wonder. He was full of “ardor and energy” by popular acclaim. She took one look at him, and her knees buckled. Six months after they met, Martha was engaged.
That’s fast by New England standards, just as Martha at 21 was young by New England marriage standards. This was by no means a whirlwind romance by American evangelical missionary standards, however: One woman got engaged to a missionary after knowing him a single day, and was married to him and off to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) within the month. That was practically the respectable New England equivalent of being a bit tarty.
Love Matches? 💕
This habit of quick marriages among departing missionaries was a bit awkward for evangelicals, because many respectable Americans at this time had come to think of marriage as the culmination of romance, a love match. Bit hard to claim you’re in love with someone you met 24 hours ago. Lust match, sure, but love?
Let’s just say these women loved to talk about how much they loved their new husbands. One missionary wife, now stationed in Beirut, admitted she was a bit too shy to let her new husband have his way with her, but he brought her flowers every morning, and wasn’t that romantic of him?
Poor sod.
Evangelical missionaries thought the most important thing wasn’t the love in these fast marriages. It was about missionaries getting geared up quickly, to set out into the world and win as many heathen souls as possible before the Good Lord recalled them to base camp.
As Dr. Heyrman notes, this suggests a very different idea of marriage from later unions, or maybe not, since there are modern marriages based primarily on shared interests. Like Lord of the Rings, I guess.
Meanwhile, if a couple didn’t get along once they were in missionary positions, there were consolations. A lot of evangelical missionaries lived in, basically, apartment buildings or compounds or what I call “love nests” (but Dr. Heyrman does not) rather than in single family homes. So if the spouse and you were not “satisfying partners” (Dr. Heyrman’s words) your housemates could provide the “missing intimacy” (Dr. Heyrman’s words) that you lacked.
UK Readers: Oooh, Matron!! (NOT Dr. Heyrman’s words)
Ooh, Matron?
Oooh, Matron is a Brit in-joke, a reference to Carry On . . . films, classic naughty double-entendre low-budget postwar humor we Brits love but don’t export, because it will ruin our sophisticated global brand. We prefer you think we’re all like Larry Olivier.
However, as a Non-Boring History exclusive, I will let you take a peek at a Carry On film this one time, with an iconic scene from Carry on Doctor, starring Dr. Tinkle (Kenneth Williams) and, of course, the fearsome Matron with hidden depths, played by the one and only Hattie Jacques. When Brits think romance, this is more like it:
Doomed Romance?
Elnathan Gridley had the hots for Martha Parker, his demure bride to be. “I love you and shall love you till I die,” he wrote. Even his mentor at Andover, Leonard Woods, saw how his surrogate son was full of the old “ardent and tender.”
Martha’s mum and sisters thought Elnathan was perfect for her. The elder Martha already had sent one daughter, Ann Parker Bird, to assume a missionary position abroad. She was thrilled to have another to donate to the cause. This might also be because Elnathan had a huge tract of land to offer, and an enormous asset in the estate he would inherit as soon as he and Martha knocked out grandkids.
The least enthusiastic person in all of this might possibly have been Martha Parker herself. I mean, Elnathan was a nice bit of eye candy, no question. But Martha also knew she had considerable assets of her own, and options. She could wait to marry, and become the headmistress of an important school. She could possibly have a better marriage offer waiting in the wings. And yet . . . she also knew that Elnathan Gridley offered a whole package swollen with goodies: Handsome! Rich! Headed for an exciting life in the exotic Middle East! Who better than him with whom to share a missionary position?
There was only one problem: Rumors were bubbling up that Martha wasn’t the lovely, honest, pious girl she seemed. She was a Jezebel, the whispers went, who had accepted Elnathan Gridley’s proposal even though she had already promised her heart and hand in marriage to her second cousin and childhood friend, Thomas Tenney, Dartmouth College graduate. Never mind that Martha’s sisters didn’t like Thomas. A bit slimy, he was. And he didn’t have a lot of respect for learned young ladies. He was a bit of what we might today call a . . . well, rhymes with thick.
When I read about men like Thomas Tenney, I find I need more chocolate. Hey, here are some Malt Balls! Yum! My favorites! Oh, how disappointing. They’re really, really tiny. What a shame.
Thomas Tenney said he had first proposed marriage to Martha in 1823, and she had rejected his advances. And then, in summer of 1825, he unexpectedly got a note encouraging him to try again. He hesitated, suspecting this might not be wise. Sure enough, a few weeks later, he got a message that she’d changed her mind.
So much drama! Just like those lurid novels that young women like Martha weren’t supposed to be reading! And get this: Martha had two other suitors now: Elnathan Gridley, who we already know about (Thomas did not) and Elisha Jenney, a cute Fairhaven boy who had grown to ravishing manhood, and was now haunting Martha’s home in Dunbarton, from where he fired malicious potshots at Thomas Tenney.
Elisha even told Martha that Thomas had dumped another girl to whom he was engaged. When Thomas showed up in Dunbarton, his rival, Elisha, told him he was surplus to Martha’s requirements. Not shockingly, Thomas felt gutted. “Never did such mental agitation distract my bosom!” he moaned like a girl.
But it ain’t over until it’s over. Thomas stopped by Dunbarton for tea, and got a big surprise when Martha suggested he stay the night . . . .
Okay, the next part of the book gets very soap opera. But then it turns into something so amazing, it left me stunned. A total page turner. To find out why, you gotta read Doomed Romance.
Read On
Now I’ve set you up, go grab yourself a copy of Christine Heyrman’s Doomed Romance from your library or bookseller. Available now in brown paper wrappers.
I promise the story only gets better from here. The truly filthy bits are on p. 168-9, in case you prefer to skip those. Of course you do.
And the story of Martha Parker’s love triangle will keep you panting and breathless to the end. Women, especially, will find the book extremely satisfying, but we can all learn from it.
In all seriousness, Doomed Romance is really well written, especially for a book by an academic historian, even one as truly talented and brilliant and successful and fabulous as Dr. Christine Heyrman who I hope will allow me to live after she reads this post, when Richard Godbeer grasses on me by sending it to her.
Are you Christine Heyrman? After years of listening to Richard Godbeer sing your praises, I would love to finally meet you, perhaps popping over to (consults map) Maryland for coffee on my way to see my son in Washington, DC. But possibly this may not have been the best way to introduce myself, so maybe I'll give you time to recover from the shock. Meanwhile, Christine, if I may, if you would like to express your views about my riff on Doomed Romance, and you promise not to hurt me, you can reach me through the Complaints Gnome at Non-Boring House . . . Ah, too late. He’s already gone into hiding.
Look, just contact me through the usual channels, my P.O. Box on the Cayman Islands. Or via Richard Godbeer. If necessary.
We were quite amused.
BRAVO!!! Your entendres - double, triple, more multiple - were superb! I was glad to read that in your box of bonbons you didn’t find Python specials like Spring Surprise and Anthrax Ripple. Again, bravo!