Shaggy Muses by Maureen Adams

Author:Maureen Adams [Adams, Maureen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-49080-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

Teddy Wharton with his dog Jules, ca. 1855.

Edith and Teddy enjoyed the summer together in Newport. Lucretia, clearly pleased, arranged an elaborate dinner party in Teddy's honor. The courtship lasted two years, until 1885, when the confirmed bachelor finally asked Lucretia for permission to marry her daughter. Lucretia happily agreed to the proposal, and Edith seemed contented. She was comfortable with Teddy, whose affability reminded her of her brother Harry.

Edith looked forward to marriage and to being in charge of her own household. Even so, as the wedding drew closer, she became fearful, overcome “with dread of the whole dark mystery.” As she later described in her more honest, unpublished autobiography, Edith went to her mother for reassurance about her wedding night: “I'm afraid, mamma—I want to know what will happen to me!” Lucretia was shocked, reminding Edith of all the statues and paintings of nudes she had seen in museums. Surely, she asked her daughter, you must have noticed “that men are—made differently from women?” When Edith continued to question her, Lucretia snapped, “For heaven's sake don't ask me any more silly questions. You can't be as stupid as you pretend!”

Edith and Teddy were married on April 29, 1885, at Trinity Chapel, New York City. Edith was twenty-three, Teddy thirty-five. The wedding was small, and Edith had no bridesmaids, a sign of her isolation considering the social set she traveled in and her numerous cousins. The wedding invitation reveals a startling oversight, which was as conspicuous in 1885 as it is today:

MRS. GEORGE FREDERIC JONES

REQUESTS THE HONOUR OF YOUR PRESENCE

AT THE MARRIAGE OF HER DAUGHTER TO

MR. EDWARD R. WHARTON

AT TRINITY CHAPEL ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL TWENTY-NINTH AT TWELVE O'CLOCK

Lucretia failed to include Edith's name. Such a flagrant omission demonstrates how easy it was for Lucretia Jones to overlook her daughter.

Edith's anxiety about the sexual aspect of marriage proved justified. She and Teddy did not consummate their marriage for weeks, and within a few years, they had apparently settled into a sexless marriage. Furthermore, while they seemed to have much in common because of their similar family backgrounds, Edith soon realized they were seriously mismatched intellectually. Her interests in literature, art, and architecture bored Teddy, and he felt ill at ease among her clever friends.

In the early years of her marriage, however, Edith was able to ignore these problems as she and Teddy stepped into the roles expected of them as a young married couple in Newport society. Teddy resumed his life of parties and sports and Edith the tedious rounds of calls that took up most of a married woman's day. Until they could afford their own home, the newlyweds lived on the grounds of Lucretia's estate, in a small but charming cottage. Edith set up housekeeping under the direction of Catherine Gross, who had formerly been Edith's personal maid and who had taken the place of Doyley, long since retired. As Edith's housekeeper, the indispensable Gross, as Edith called her, firmly guided the young wife in setting up a smoothly ordered household.

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