Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I got to thinking the other day about this. It was unusual for Emma and Lizzie not to have married.

What I got to thinking about was this: it is to my understanding that in that day it was accepted or the tradition that the woman had a dowary. Something that was given like a wedding present from the brides parents to the man for taking the daughter as his wife kind of thing.

With Andrew being so tight with his money, think that maybe he was offering any of money and wealth. Maybe looking at it as the guy is just a money grubber and looking to fleece him?

Snokkums, no disrespect to your question, but when I read your topic title I chuckled.

I read it as "why didn't Lizzie and Emma marry (each other)".

Sorry, but it was rather funny!

To answer you in part, I think Kat has spoken of this in the past in terms of the time period and the lack of eligible men in the US due to the Civil War, which killed over 61,000.

Lots of Lizzie and Emma's friends were single women their entire lives as well. It was not as uncommon as one might imagine.

Your idea of a dowery being the cause is interesting. One I hadn't considered, but also one I couldn't guess at.

I would wonder if the opposite might be truer: that Andrew would gladly pay for someone to marry his daughters off to since then he would not have to be responsible for them any longer.!

If Andrew was concerned that a prospective suitor of Emma or Lizzie might be after his money, then perhaps he would have approved only of someone who had made his own money and was relatively well-off. Anyone fitting Andrew's criteria would likely be looking for a wife somewhere on The Hill rather than on Second Street. While I have no way of knowing Andrew's perspective on the matter, it is not outside the realm of reason.

It’s an interesting question, certainly. But again I wonder if we’re not giving a bit too much weight to the characterization of “Andrew the Cheapskate.” Perhaps we might do better at this by considering the customs and conditions of his parental household (where he spent his own formative years together with those prevailing in the early 1840s when he came of age. The apple falleth not far from the tree, so to speak. Therefore we might wonder, “What was the orchard like where he grew up?” Behaviors and traits are quite often learned, are they not? It seems to me that we do neither Andrew Borden nor ourselves any favors until we give as full and fair a look as we might at those factors which made him who he was. (The scriptures say “Judge not…” but if that’s what we’re up to, then let’s be as fair about things as we can – clearly, and without prejudice.) The man may well have been no different than any other ‘hardscrabble Yankee’ – or indeed his own father.

The dowry? It too bears thinking about, although again it’s not really something to be generalized. We know it was accepted custom at certain times and in certain places, but did that custom extend into the Borden family? See what I’m getting at?

Frugal as he might have been, it’s difficult to imagine that he really cared about money much beyond a certain point – beyond the here and now, that is to say. Where suitors were concerned – realistically, they’d not see one farthing of his money (beyond perhaps a pittance) until both he and Mrs. Borden were dead, cold, and beyond caring. Know what I mean? If he gave it any thought at all, one might suppose his line of thinking as something akin to “Let that feller be well-enough fixed so that I don’t see the two of them crossing the threshold again lock, stock and baggage within a year of their marriage day.”

That sounds a bit more realistic than the thought of Andrew Borden out front of No. 92 (with one or both daughters) hollering out, “What am I bid for this fine specimen of Yankee feminity? What’s --? No, young feller, I’m sorry. No refunds, and both girls go ‘as is.’”

Then too, I should think purely on account of age difference that Emma’s prospects of marriage would have been those most profoundly affected by losses during the war. Lizzie (at least theoretically) would have seen barely a ripple in her own “prospects pool.” As far as it goes, the last known Union veteran of the Civil War (Albert Woolson, deceased 1956) was about 4 years older than Emma, 13 years older than Lizzie Borden.

(The "veterans' marriage boom" we sometimes hear of was a slightly later phenomenon I think; more a product of the latter 1890s and on into the early 20th century.)

I don't see the significance here?

Perhaps Lizzie had High standards.

Perhaps, like me, they were exceedingly high.

Both Lizzie and I had little use for marriage.

Perhaps like me she insulted all her prospects........ un-intentionally you understand.

As you know, Lizzie spoke her mind. Maybe she did not have a way with words, or perhaps was too honest......like, "I love your outfit, but what's up with your fat butt."

Sometimes it is difficult to find your equal, or as some require it, your "superior subordinate."

Perhaps she was asexual. Someone with no interest in sex. Since 99.9 percent of people like sex finding a partner could be difficult for an asexual, who may stop looking early in life excluding marriage all together. This could explain why some see Lizzie as gay.



Lizzie could have had a zest for life and marriage could be like cleaning the house or doing the dishes. There were so many other things to do that one never finds the time.

Either way, no matter how you look at it, or what you think, you and I are probably wrong.

It could well be that any standards in use were those of Emma and Lizzie. They were perhaps more concerned with social standing than Andrew was. The same consideration is the motivating factor, an unwillingness to share the Borden bank account. How could they be certain that a suitor wasn't after their (Andrew's) money?

If this was true, then it may support an argument for Emma and Lizzie being suspicious of Abby and the possibility of having to share with her. They might keep a closer eye on things if they remained in the same household. Andrew's money enabled the desire for social standing and the aspiration to live on The Hill. Having a husband might complicate matters for either Emma or Lizzie, and may have been deemed unnecessary if they thought they could get there on their own. Having to share with Abby would have diminished their ability to do this.

Or, maybe they just simply didn't want to get married. A family fortune would have negated any necessity to marry, it would have enabled independence. It's really anybody's guess!

When I do genealogy research on many New England families, it seems that a large number of adult children remain at home, unmarried. This includes males as well as females. In many cases, the family was there only means of support, and if they did not have permission to leave home or to marry, they were stuck. This was especially true for women. A single woman, alone, without funds of her own would either be a servant or a loose woman (which would make her undesirable as a wife).

I think having 3 women at home, dependent on him, was a boost for Andrew's ego.

Stefani @ Tue Jun 02, 2009 4:02 pm wrote:Snokkums, no disrespect to your question, but when I read your topic title I chuckled.

I read it as "why didn't Lizzie and Emma marry (each other)".

Sorry, but it was rather funny!

To answer you in part, I think Kat has spoken of this in the past in terms of the time period and the lack of eligible men in the US due to the Civil War, which killed over 61,000.

Lots of Lizzie and Emma's friends were single women their entire lives as well. It was not as uncommon as one might imagine.

Your idea of a dowery being the cause is interesting. One I hadn't considered, but also one I couldn't guess at.

I would wonder if the opposite might be truer: that Andrew would gladly pay for someone to marry his daughters off to since then he would not have to be responsible for them any longer.!

Don't worry I wasn't offended. I probably just didn't state the question right.

We have an insiders look at Andrew and money-managing in a news report, and it shows him to be concerned for far into the future for his heirs, Doug-oh. It was some deal he put strings on that would only be beneficial after he was gone. So I do think he was interested in the future revenues he could gain even after death. He even erected a huge building with his name on it to live on into the future. That might be because he had no son, but he could have had a grandson if the girls had been married off.

Also, it's been my understanding that in Fall River it was a custom to have the bride and groom move in with the groom's family until the family built the new couple their own place. That's what they did in society- not sure about the other folks.

Rebello, page 26:

"Did you know Andrew J. Borden? Not intimately, but I know he was a close-fisted business man. Here's an incident: As one of the committee of the Knights of Pythias, I called upon him to see about leasing his lot on Main and Anawan Streets where his big block now stands ... He said he would lease the lot for a term of 20 to 50 years on a sliding scale of its assessed valuation, asking nothing but 6 per cent on that amount. That struck us as very favorable; then he added as the condition that we build a structure costing no less than $65,000. That was all right. Then he added that at the end of the lease the building should belong to the estate.

That knocked the whole thing. But you see how careful he was on behalf of his heirs, for he must have been dead at the expiration of the lease by thirty years at least, living his allotted time. We wanted him to provide for the sale to the estate at a figure to be fixed by judges, but he had said his way and would hear nothing else. This is an incident fairly illustrative of Andrew J. Borden's character. He is well-known to have been a hard businessman, and I do not know that his treatment of his daughters was such as to furnish a possible motive for such a deed as this."

"Real Estate / The Market Inactive at Present / Reminiscences of the Late Andrew J. Borden," Fall River Daily Globe, Friday, August 19, 1892: 7.

--Maybe it was a *control* thing?

[quote="snokkums @ Tue Jun 02, 2009 8:18 am"]I got to thinking the other day about this. It was unusual for Emma and Lizzie not to have married. /quote]

Well, as much as people sometimes like to romanticize about those two, maybe they didn't have a choice. From everything I've read about them they didn't seem like the kind of women that men would be attracted to.

Victorians were pretty practical when it came to marriage. I'd think the Borden girls were nicely eligible because of Andrew's money. They weren't unattractive either.

I think if they had had more social polish at an earlier age they could have prospered in a marriage.
But- maybe neither wanted to trade one man's legal domination for a stranger's?

Kat @ Fri Jun 05, 2009 7:44 pm wrote:But- maybe neither wanted to trade one man's legal domination for a stranger's?

That's always been my feeling.

Andrew's money may have been an attraction, but perhaps his reputation or personality were a repellent. Maybe there were few suitors, if any. It could be that anyone with the means to assure Borden approval thought they could do better elsewhere.

Maybe neither one of them wanted to be married. Course, I've always thought Andrew and Abby didn't make matters easy, and with all the tension between them and the girls, maybe the guys just wanted to stay away.