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Margaret Lawrence: An Eighteenth-Century Midwife Marie Nelson It is early in the year 1786-three years since the end of the civil war that made traitors of men loyal to their king and patriots of rebellious colonists. Women reckon time in an alternate manner and so it has been twenty years since the beginning of Lucy Hannah Trevor's "long war" that began with her "foolish marriage" to James Trevor. Fourteen years have passed since the deaths of her three children from a summer diphtheria epidemic in Boston and eight years since her husband, a Loyalist, fled to Quebec, leaving her penniless to fend for herself in a "cold, half-ruined cottage down by the docks" of Rufford, Maine on the banks of the Manitac River (Hearts 13). Taken in by her uncle, Henry Markham, prosperous owner of a lumber mill and a grist mill, Hannah has learned midwifery from her Aunt Julia. Her medical skills include the knowledge of herbs and other natural remedies and enable her to provide for her daughter and contribute to the family economy. Although she is skilled in housewifery as well as midwifery, Hannah is an unconventional woman. "Educated above her station" (Hearts 9), she can read and write, keeps a journal, and is the owner of three books, The History of Rasselas, Prince ofAbyssinia, by Dr. Samuel Johnson; The Tragedie of King Lear by Mr. William Shakspear, with Improvements by the Famous Actor, Mr. Colley Cibber; and Poor Richard's Almanack, by Mr. Benjamin Franklin. She provokes censure from the other women of the village for any number of indiscretions including refusing to wear a demure cap over her curly hair cut short or, except when it is cold, a decent scarf to cover her bosom. When she uses a horse, she rides astride rather than sidesaddle. And "when a thing seems useless nonsense, she takes pains to ignore it" (Hearts 10). What she cannot ignore is the precarious position she and her daughter occupy in society. While married, James Trevor treated her as a possession as the law allowed. He wasted her dowry, set the constable upon her when she attempted to save their children from diphtheria by taking them out of Boston during the epidemic, used her body as he wanted without regard for her feelings , and prostituted her to pay his gambling debts. When he fled from persecution for his Tory politics, his properties, including personal possessions she brought to the marriage, were seized by the Rufford Committee of Public Safety. His creditors looked to her for payment of his debts, but her dower rights which should have entitled her to a third of his goods were denied her 202 Margaret Lawrence 203 by the patriots' committee who declared that as Tories "kept no laws, they could have no legal wives" (Blood 165). After eight years without any word from Trevor, Hannah mourns not the loss of a husband. Indeed she has no desire to be any man's wife, but she does mourn the loss of her children. Soon after Trevor's flight to Canada, Hannah discretely took a lover in order to get pregnant and have a child "of her own." Though tongues wag that deaf-mute Jennet's birth occurred a bit too long after her putative father's departure, Hannah bears no shame over her daughter's suspect parentage. For her it seemed a rational way to circumvent a social and legal system that denied women independence and self-determination even as that rhetoric served to incite men to war. Abandoned by her husband and without property of her own, Hannah is dependent upon her uncle for protection and support. But it is a dependence that will last only as long as he allows it, or as long as he lives and is in a financial position to shelter her. And it is not enough to protect her from being summoned to Orphan's Court under the aegis of the Poor Laws to show cause why her eight-year old daughter Jennet should not be indentured until adulthood. Even her Aunt Julia uneasily contemplates how drastically her own circumstances will be altered if she should survive her husband. Regardless of the contributions she makes to the family economy during the marriage, her dower rights entitle her to her clothing and her linens. When her husband's property passes to his heirs, her use of the house or other property will be limited. In a society...

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