Lyddie: Voices from the Field - Chapter 18 Quaker Marriage

Vermont Quakers in the mid-nineteenth century generally lived harmoniously with their non-Quaker neighbors. Non-Quakers usually regarded Quakers as thrifty, moral, and honest, trustworthy in business and supportive of good causes. But they also saw them as different, following customs that their neighbors found puzzling.

Quakers saw themselves called by God to be a “peculiar people,” and many aspects of Quaker life intentionally tried to separate Quakers from their neighbors. Quakers eschewed “worldly fashion,” instead attiring themselves in what they called “plain dress”—collarless coats and broad-brimmed hats for men, unornamented bonnets and plain white caps for women. Well into the nineteenth century, they continued to use seventeenth-century language of “thee” and “thou” and “thy” to individuals, saying that it was “the plain Scripture language.” Nor did they use titles like “Mr.” or “Mrs.” Instead they addressed others by their full names or simply as “Friend.” Quakers justified their practices on two grounds. The first was that their understanding of the Bible required them. The second was that they formed a “hedge” around Friends. Worldly people would be unlikely to invite a man in a broad-brimmed hat to a horse race, or a woman in a plain bonnet to go dancing.

One of the most violated Quaker rules was the one that required Friends to marry only within the group. To marry a non-Quaker would bring “disownment,” loss of Quaker membership. Friends justified this with the argument that religious diversity in a household was likely to confuse children. Nonetheless, in every generation young Quakers broke this rule. Probably every community in Vermont that had Quaker residents would also have a significant number of ex-Quakers.

In the early nineteenth century, some Friends took a dark view of the communities living around them. One of those who expressed this most strongly was Joseph Hoag (1762-1846), a Friend known for his gift of ministry who lived in Charlotte, Vermont. In 1816, he wrote of “the world’s people”: “Some have fixed themselves in a security that will fail them in the end; and some are determined not to be aroused from their couches,—while the young are … in pursuit of the gaudy trimmings of the world, and every poisoning notion passing in the land; so that mourning has been my lot.” Not all Friends took such a dim view of their neighbors, however. Others were happy to join with non-Quakers in any kind of good work. Typical were the Robinsons, who lived at Rokeby Farm in Ferrisburgh, Vermont. They were active in a variety of reform movements, especially antislavery, and cooperated with Baptists, Congregationalists, and others in the work of the Underground Railroad. They tried to make the world a better place, and generally, their neighbors recognized that.

About the Author

Dr. Thomas Hamm, Professor of History Emeritus and Quaker Scholar in Residence, Earlham College

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