Killing Romance Tropes: The Mail Order Bride and her Handsome Pioneer/Rancher/Cowboy

 

           

         How romantic the idea of finding the perfect mate by chance, and the myth of the blissful union between the lovely blue-eyed mail-order bride and her handsome pioneer/cowboy/all Western virile he-man prevails to this day. However, it’s just… another myth. It might have happened sometimes, but that was probably as rare as finding the proverbial needle in a vast scratchy haystack.

         In the 1800s, women arrived in abundance in the Far West, fleeing domestic service, poor farms, millwork, and factory toil. Men could take their pick, and they sought the youngest and freshest, women who would replace wives who had died in childbed or from exhaustion, strong women who would raise their children, attend to harvests, do garden work, laundry, scrounge for firewood, cook, tend to a man’s sexual needs and produce even more children — preferably males who would eventually help out on the ranch/farm.

         There was no better way to find a suitable mate than through a marriage broker, and once a potential fiancée was found, she had to be wooed with letters. Since many men were either illiterates or were immigrants with a scanty knowledge of English, public scribes were hired churn out the proper sentiments on Remington Standard typewriters, and churn they did. They concocted fairy tales of successful homesteading and the wealth to be had in the Far West, promised husbandly devotion, fertile land, and a cozy home.

         What did mail order brides find when they stepped off the trains that had brought them west? Shanty stations in the middle of nowhere, and their future mates — coarse men honed by the elements, a hard life, failure, and the roughest alcohol. The luckiest women had a clapboard house waiting for them, but most discovered a one-room shack with windowpanes of greased paper, or only a hole in the ground with a roof made of twigs and branches. And all around was a vast lonely wasteland of bleached-out colors.

     From now on life would consist of raising numerous children, endless washing, cooking, fighting vermin, bugs, weather, illness, and hopelessness. And far from being partners, western men thought their role was to dominate women, and domestic violence was widespread. Yet, most abused wives stuck it out, believing their married status and a promised place in God’s heaven were worth beatings, black eyes, split lips, and broken bones. Others stayed because there was nowhere else to go; distances were so great. Even if a runaway wife did manage to reach a neighbor’s farm she rarely found safety or sympathy: a wife’s duty was to stick by her man, despite the violence.

     One runaway bride was found by her new husband. She was starving, half-mad with thirst, and wandering around in the middle of nowhere. When he brought her home, he chained her to the doorpost to prevent further disobedience… and that wasn’t a rare occurrence either.

A Room in Blake's Folly
If only the walls could speak…

In one hundred and fifty years, Blake's Folly, a silver boomtown notorious for its brothels, scarlet ladies, silver barons, speakeasies, and divorce ranches, has become a semi-ghost town. Although the old Mizpah Saloon is still in business, its upper floor is sheathed in dust. But in a room at a long corridor's end, an adventurer, a beautiful dance girl, and a rejected wife were once caught in a love triangle, and their secret has touched three generations. Six stories in A Room in Blake’s Folly tell the tale.

Purchase Links: https://books2read.com/BlakesFollyRomance
Author Link: https://linktr.ee/j.arleneculiner
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt3VkYUTVNk