Better a Bridesmaid than a Bride: Nuptial Sisterhood in Maud Hart Lovelace's Betsy's Wedding

Sweeney examines the final novel in the popular Betsy-Tacy series by Maud hart Lovelace: Betsy's Wedding. She argues that while the book is part of the mid-twentieth-century marriage mystique, it also challenges normative gender roles. In many books of this period, weddings isolate romantically entwined couples from their family and friends in order to emphasize their dependence upon one another. In Betsy's Wedding, however, weddings actually expand notions of fidelity and intimacy to include the female friends so important to the eponymous Betsey Ray throughout the series. By reworking the tropes of coupledom, Lovelace presents her readers with a new way of characterizing relationships that Sweeny terms "nuptial sisterhood."