By the 1810s, the ideal American marriage was no longer an arranged match. Rather, it was republican (a contract between equals) and romantic (a declaration of mutual love). Were these new ideals attainable, given the authority accorded to men and the volatility of human passions? Letters and diaries offer insight into the new system of marriage. Emma Hart married John Willard in 1809; the excerpt below is from an 1815 letter to her sister, Almira. Elizabeth Scott Neblett lived in Navarro County, Texas. She reflected in her diary on her bouts of depression and the difficulties of wives and husbands in understanding each other’s inner lives.

EMMA HART WILLARD AND ELIZABETH SCOTT NEBLETT

Emma Hart Willard: Those tender and delicious sensations which accompany successful love, while they soothe and soften the mind, diminish its strength to bear or to conquer difficulties. It is the luxury of the soul; and luxury always enervates. … This life is a life of vicissitude. …

[Suppose] you are secured to each other for life. It will be natural that, at first, he should be much devoted to you; but, after a while, his business must occupy his attention. While absorbed in that he will perhaps neglect some of those little tokens of affection which have become necessary to your happiness. His affairs will sometimes go wrong. …

But where is the use, say you, of diminishing my present enjoyment by such gloomy apprehensions? Its use is this, that, if you enter the marriage state believing such things to be absolutely impossible, if you should meet them, they would come upon you with double force.

Elizabeth Scott Neblett: It has now been almost eight years since I became a married woman. Eight years of checkered good and ill, and yet thro’ all it seems the most of the ill has fallen to my lot, until now my poor weak cowardly heart sighs only for its final resting place, where sorrow grief nor pain can never reach it more.

I feel that I have faithfully discharged my duty towards you and my children, but for this I know that I deserve no credit nor aspire to none; my affection has been my prompter, and the task has proven a labor of love. You have not rightly understood me at all times, and being naturally very hopeful you could in no measure sympathize with me during my seasons of gloom and despondency. … But marriage is a lottery and that your draw proved an unfortunate one on your part is not less a subject of regret with me than you. …

It is useless to say that during these eight years I have suffered ten times more than you have and ten times more than I can begin to make you conceive of, but of course you can not help the past, nor by knowing my suffering relieve it, but it might induce you to look with more kindness upon [my] faults. … The 17th of this month I was 27 years old and I think my face looks older than that, perhaps I’ll never see an other birth day and I don’t grieve at the idea.

SOURCE : Abridged from documents in Anya Jabour, ed., Major Problems in the History of American Families and Children (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 108–113.