The “Rights” of Husbands and the “Duties” of Wives: Power and Desire in the American Bedroom, 1850-1910

Abstract

Historians of the nineteenth-century American family have long argued for the dominance of a patriarchal model of marital relations in which demanding husbands subjected their passionless wives to a continual grind of emotional and sexual brutalization. This perspective has been challenged by revisionist historians who have argued that the companionate marital ideal, characterized by considerate husbands and sexually satisfied wives, best reflected the experiences of middle-class married men and women. Based on the sexual experiences described in the pamphlets, letters, and newspaper articles written by sexual radicals known as “Free Lovers,” this article argues that the late nineteenth-century marriage bed still was a site of conflict. Opening the door into the Victorian bedroom, the Free Lovers provide a unique view of both marital models in operation and transition that sheds light on the dynamic of change in which married couples struggled, failed, and sometimes achieved the erotic relationships promised by the companionate ideal.