more children. Alternatively it is supposed to have ended
in 1856 when the Lincolns enlarged their house at Jackson and Eighth and
no longer shared a bedroom, a conclusion which removes the couple from
the growing affluence of mid-century middle-class Americans who sought
bigger houses with more bedrooms. By the 1850’s many middle- class couples
slept in separate bedrooms. For example Laetitia and Adlai Stevenson of
nearby Bloomington did so, and managed to add to their family. Despite
malevolent speculation there are almost no gynecological conditions resulting
from child birth that prevent sexual intercourse save a prolapsed uterus
which, given Mary Lincoln’s life style, she clearly did not suffer from.
Again the removal of marriage from its life and times has distorted
our view on these matters.
Listen to the letters that Abraham and Mary Lincoln wrote
to each other in 1847- 1848 when Mary Lincoln had gone to Lexington to
visit her family and Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois congressman, was living
in a boarding house in Washington during the winter. Lincoln had encouraged
her departure; she was cooped up in two small rooms with two children under
five, but as he acknowledges, “in this troublesome world we are never quite
satisfied. When you were here, I thought you hindered me some in attending
to business.” Now he wants her back. “Come along as soon as possible,”
he writes in June 1848, signing himself “affectionately” and “most affectionately.”
“I shall be impatient till I see you... . Come as soon as you can.” It
is not the lament of a man who hates his wife. Nor are his telegrams to
Mary Lincoln in the White House when she has left for the summer and he
hopes that she will come back soon.
Earlier Mary has written a long letter to him that has a
strain of sexuality in it: “How much, I wish instead of writing, we were
together this evening. I feel very sad away from you. . .With love I must
bid you good night.” Then she scratched through with love, knowing that
this night at least she would not physically love her husband.
34
Several times Mary Lincoln is quoted by neighbors as wishing
that Mr. Lincoln was home more often so that she could love him more. And
while women are ever accused of dressing for other women, Mary Lincoln’s
low-cut dresses and flirtatious style certainly drew attention to her,
but they also pleased her husband.
On more than one occasion, her husband praised her stylishness
in the presence of bystanders. He noticed when she adopted low necklines.
“Whew,” the President was quoted as saying, “our cat has a long tail tonight.”
Always moved by her looks in the way of long-married couples who pass imperfections
lightly by (and Mary Lincoln did not age well), he praised his wife’s appearance.
Once Lincoln remarked at a White House reception that “my wife is as handsome
as when she was a girl, and I a poor nobody then, fell in love with her
and what is more, have never fallen out.”
35
Indeed Mary had become pregnant almost immediately after
their wedding, and while this was not unusual for American brides in an
era without many effective means of
22
