Would women today resolve, as Elizabeth “Betsy” Foote Washington did when she married her cousin Lund in 1784, “never to hold disputes with my husband”?
One of my first resolutions I made after marriage was never to hold disputes with my husband—never to contend with him in my opinion of things—but if ever we differed in opinions not to insist on mine being right, and his wrong—which is too much the custom of my sex—they cannot bear to be thought in the wrong—which is the cause why there is so much contention in the married state—and the Lordly Sex they can never be in the wrong in their own opinion—and cannot give up to a woman but I blame my sex most. It is their business to give up to their husbands—our mother [Eve] even when she transgressed was told her husband [Adam] should rule over her—how dare any of her daughters to dispute the point. … I think a woman may keep up the dignity of a wife and mistress of a family without ever disputing with her husband.
