Phil Egan

At the time of Confederation fewer than than 3,000 people lived in Sarnia, which was a smaller town than the City of Port Huron across the St. Clair River.

And few people here worked as hard or as tirelessly as the wives of the many farmers who lived in and around the town.

A letter to the editor of the Observer in December of 1866 mused on the value of that labour in a column, curiously entitled “Do Farmer’s Wives Pay?”

The letter asked the question: “Does a young woman, who comes to her husband with little or no dowry but with willing heart and hands, and a fair share of intelligence, who takes care of him, of his home and his family as it increases, without hired help – really earn anything more than food and clothing?”

A dowry, for those unfamiliar with the term, was money or property brought to a marriage by the bride. The custom of dowries is an ancient one, not common today in Canada but still traditional in some cultures.

The letter-writer mused on the commercial value of the effort undertaken daily by farm women, and questioned whether that value was appreciated by their husbands.

The letter might have been a response to a July, 1866 editorial entitled, “The Duties of Canadian Farmers’ Wives.” The editorial described the daily ritual of waking early to milk the cows, making breakfast for the family, dressing the children, washing dishes, skimming the milk, churning butter, sweeping the farmhouse, making the beds, preparing lunch and dinner, cleaning up, milking again, washing dishes again and putting the children to bed.

After her husband went to sleep, the article noted, the farmer’s wife would sit up to midnight sewing, so as to avoid paying a seamstress.

It was a life of washing, ironing and scrubbing. There was no lunching with girlfriends, golf outings, or winter holidays in the Caribbean. But there was the ongoing risk of sickness and disease — her own and her children’s.

The letter writer wanted to know whether a farmer appreciated the never-ending toil that was his wife’s lot in life.

“When she asks for a few dollars for the purchase of something not strictly necessary – a book, perhaps,” the letter writer asked, would the farmer consider that an impertinence and waste of money, or his wife’s proper due.

One hundred and fifty years ago the man was the unquestioned master of the house. Women couldn’t vote. Sarnia was a much different world then.