Southerners too lonely not be hospitable?

“Southern hospitality was to a great extent the creation of a desperately lonely people…. ‘Strangers are sought after with Greediness,’ wrote an observer. A circuit judge in North Carolina in the Revolutionary War era stopped at the home of some well-to-do newlyweds who were living on the husband’s farm, 18 miles from the nearest neighbor. He wrote that when a male visitor told the young bride he would bring his own wife to visit, she wept with gratitude.”

— From “America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines” by Gail Collins (2003)

‘A nest of the most notorious profligates on earth’

“Some women came to the new world to get away from a man, in the form of a harsh master or unsatisfactory lover…..Women who were independent enough to sail to America by themselves were also inclinded to take matters into their own hands if they got stuck in unhappy marriages after they arrived. In the early 18th century, a minister described North Carolina as ‘a nest of the most notorious profligates on earth…. Women forsake their husbands, come here and live with other men.’ ”

— From “America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines” by Gail Collins (2003)

Support the Lost Cause, marry a handicapped vet

“Nearly a quarter of the men of military age in the South were killed, and perhaps another quarter returned home wounded. To make up to the men for what they had lost, Southern girls were urged to do their part by marrying handicapped veterans.

” ‘Girls have married men they would never have given a thought of had it not been thought a sacred duty,’ wrote a North Carolina woman whose daughter had just taken the plunge. ‘You would never believe how our public speakers… excite the crowd to this thing.’ ”

— From “America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines” by Gail Collins (2003)