Oh those mailorder brides

Why???
Why should women wish to become mail order brides?

To leave home and established society, a woman often never saw her home, childhood friends, or parents again took great courage. Perhaps, the reason can be found in the ratio of men to women in the Old West. With the Civil War taking up to three million men, most at the prime marriageable age of  25 years, left many young women fearing the life of spinsterhood. Women needed a man to provide financially for them. If widowed, they needed a husband to feed the children.

Western expansion also left woman alone in cities and small towns as well. Another underlying reason could be the fact that since localities needed women to become wives and mothers, they enacted laws that allowed women to retain and keep property. They also provided legislation that allowed women to get out of bad marriages. One carrot that was definitely a good draw was the right  to vote. Women, out west, would enjoy that privilege years before their counter parts in the East. The right to vote : Utah in 1870, Washington 1883, Montana  1887, Colorado in 1893, and Idaho in 1894.

On the down side, some women viewed the written courtship as a joke. Often writing on whims, leading the anxious groom the butt of jokes. Others might have started out as a lark, but ended up married to men that would make them happy.

Perhaps the biggest factor was - loneliness.Courtship was often chaperoned. To see a young woman, a man must practice genteel actions: speaking to parents to ask permission to see their daughter, leaving a card with his name with the parents, never holding hands ( shocking ). A suitor could ruin his chances by showing crudeness or brazenness, both were unacceptable and often got you banned from the home.

So, how did they go about it? Two magazines were published weekly in San Francisco and Kansas City. There a man would list what he brought to the marriage and hope that a young, strong woman, would bare him sons to keep the family name and help him work in the fields. Often, there were scams just as today. Men or women would have to pay to ship their loves out west by wagon trail, boat, stage, and/or train. It was surprisingly easy to scam off the top of the 'fee' for sending for your bride.

In my new release, Riding from Richmond, my heroine Caledonia McBride, is leaving the aftermath of Civil War and reconstruction in her state. She answers letters she thinks is from Seth Nolan. But nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, three cowhands, who felt they were having too much work, wrote the heart felt letters and paid for her passage as a surprise for their boss. It was their hope, Nolan would then become so besotted with his bride, they could find other pursuits.

The one problem that arises, Mr. Nolan has come back from purchasing a bull with a new bride in tow. Now those cowboys have a problem of major proportions. In comes, Maxwell Barringer. His friends help him when he lost his father. So he takes the job of trying to keep Miss McBride from finding out the mixed up mission. Now, the plot backfires and Max finds himself longing for Miss McBride.

Be sure to check out, Riding From Richmond on Amazon  https://amzn.to/2PPA2P8

Till next time,

Nan