We all have a mental image of Scarlet O’Hara dressed in a bell-shaped, elegant gown; sitting on her veranda; sipping mint juleps; and being fanned by one of her slaves as that of the typical plantation mistress. Nothing could be farther from the actual thing.
Married at a very young age (usually around fifteen) to a man much her senior, she was immediately plunged into a life filled with duties she was rarely prepared to take on. From the cradle she was groomed to marry and take her proper place in a society that demanded much, but didn’t train her for what her life would really entail.
Typically this young girl would go from being cosseted, waited on and even dressed to virtually running the plantation. In today’s world it would be the equivalent of a girl just into her teens running a small corporation. The so called “Southern Belle” had no time for worrying about ball gowns and parties at neighboring plantations. Fact of the matter is, she rarely attended parties because she couldn’t be spared from her duties. Most of the time her husband went alone.
While the plantation master was off “partying,” his wife was busy doing things like supervising the butchering of livestock, tending the sick, seeing that everyone on the plantation was clothed and fed, delivering babies and, if there was a need for a new gown, she would probably weave the cloth and then stitch it herself. All this she accomplished while supplying the master with an heir to his vast holdings. It was not unusual for a plantation wife to give birth to ten to sixteen children, and often died doing it.
Plantations, geographically, were located miles apart, which isolated the women even more from the society they’d known prior to marriage. There were often epidemics of yellow jack, cholera and other communicable disease that doubled her duties in caring for the sick. Even the mail came rarely more often than once a week. But just because she could not attend parties didn’t mean she didn’t entertain. Visitors came regularly and stayed for weeks, sometimes months.
Is it any wonder that when their menfolk died or when they trotted off to serve the Confederacy in the Civil War, that these ladies saw to running the plantations in their absence?
These Steel Magnolias can indeed take their place on our roster of outstanding women.
Blessings,
Diva Elizabeth
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