‘Making us one’: courtship and marriage in colonial New Zealand

Turnbull Library Record, Volume XIX, Issue 1, 1 May 1986, Page 7

‘Making us one’: courtship and marriage in colonial New Zealand

RAEWYN DALZIEL

Poets, novelists and playwrights have for centuries regarded love as the quintessential human emotion, the most commanding and demanding of all the subjects they could deal with. Historians have been much more cautious in engaging with such a topic. Love, its encounters and summations, neither seemed appropriate nor amenable to historical analysis and discourse. This has recently changed. Historians, too, largely under the stimulus of family and women’s history, are daring to explore the realm of the emotions. They are beginning to understand what women and men have meant when they have written and talked of love, beginning to chart the processes by which women and men meet and commit themselves to life together. 1

For women in nineteenth-century New Zealand courtship and marriage was a more common experience than in England at the same time, yet it is an experience we know very little about. 2 Did the migrant women of the time follow women in other western countries, insisting on love as a pre-requisite to marriage and demanding autonomy in their choice of partner? Was the experience different for young women born in New Zealand? Did colonial conditions bring men and women together in a more equal personal relationship as has often been suggested? 3 These questions, and many others, about the relations between men and women in the nineteenth century remain to be answered. The following material is presented as one example of courtship and marriage which, by its very detail, provides us with some clues as to the nature of these all-important events and perhaps indicates where future work should be carried out.

We often enter into a small world when studying personal relations. The scenes are local, the movements sometimes barely perceptible, the action often domestic. But the emotions can be intense and the tragedy, or joy, overwhelming. The personal life can spill over into the public arena and the public life has a powerful potential for shaping the private. This was the case in the courtship and marriage of Susan Strang and Donald McLean. Their courtship was lengthy and their marriage brief. It is our good fortune that they left behind a rich store of letters which, although they do not

allow us to recreate totally their experience, provide a fascinating glimpse into the minds and hearts of one very Victorian couple. 4 Although Donald McLean, civil servant and politician, is a wellknown figure in New Zealand history, Susan Douglas Strang is largely forgotten. This is not surprising. She died in childbirth at the age of twenty-four having done nothing to bring herself to the attention of the historian other than marry Donald McLean and write a number of letters. Yet in those letters Susan emerges as a complex person, finding her own way to deal with the major life course events —marriage, death and pregnancy —that she experienced within the space of a couple of years. Susan Strang arrived in Wellington in March 1840 with her parents, Maria and Robert Strang, on the Bengal Merchant , an early New Zealand Company ship. Susan was almost twelve, an only

child. The Strangs came from Glasgow, where Robert had been an insurance broker and writer, or legal practitioner. Like many a middle-class emigrant family the Strangs had recently suffered from financial disaster. Strang had been bankrupt." 1 Even in 1839 the family relied on assistance to emigrate. The allowance on their cabin fare was claimed on the strength of land purchases made not by Robert Strang but by one James Lumsden. ’ However in Wellington the Strangs prospered. Robert was first employed as the New Zealand Company solicitor, then in 1846 he became deputy registrar of the Supreme Court. In the 1840 s he built Dalmuir Hill, a large and comfortable house in an acre of gardens at the south end of Wellington Terrace. Donald McLean was also from Scotland, born in 1820 into a substantial farming family. When Donald was just a child the McLeans

lost the farm they leased and in all likelihood suffered a decline in their fortunes from then on. After the death of their parents the McLean children scattered, Donald leaving Scotland for New South Wales in November 1838. In the early 1840 s he sailed to New Zealand, setting up as a trader in the Hauraki Gulf. Coming under the patronage of the Colonial Secretary, Andrew Sinclair, he was appointed to a position in the Aborigines Protectorate Department in April 1844 and shortly afterwards posted to Taranaki. 7

Donald McLean’s work occasionally took him to Wellington and it was there that he met Susan Strang, probably in January 1848. 8 It would appear that during 1848 he became quite intimate with the Strangs for when he returned to Wellington for three weeks in December he visited Dalmuir Hill repeatedly. On Friday, 15 December, he attended a dance given by the Strangs and called on them the following Monday, doubtless to proffer his thanks. He spent the following two Saturdays at the Strangs and on Christmas Day, after a boisterous and exhilarating afternoon with his ‘Highland friends’ tossing the caber and engaging in other Scottish games, he visited Dalmuir Hill again. 9 Susan dated ‘the first commencement of our love’ from that Christmas. 10

Susan and Donald’s courtship was no whirlwind affair. It proceeded gradually and with propriety. On reflection Susan regarded this as wise ‘as it enabled us to know each others temper and dispositions before our marriage as well as we do now’. 11 Although they reached an ‘understanding’ in February 1849 this was not formalised until mid-1850 and even then it remained a matter gossiped, rather than known, about. During this period, and up until their marriage on 28 August 1851, Donald was only in Wellington certainly on five occasions, and perhaps on a further two. These visits, except for his marriage visit, were brief, one as short as two days, none longer than a month.

Donald’s absence from Wellington meant that his courtship of Susan took place largely by correspondence. These letters are not simply the record of their developing relationship; for much of the time they were the relationship. The correspondence falls into four long and two short sequences. McLean’s first letter to his future wife was written on 25 July 1849. At this point he had already established a correspondence with her parents and, in a delicate signal to her suitor, Susan had addressed an envelope containing a letter from her mother. McLean approved this becoming modesty. ‘So far correct my gentle Susan’, he wrote, ‘I ought to have been the first to write having done so now I trust I may hear from you shortly. ,12 Susan’s first surviving letter, however, dates from several months later, 26 February 1850, when Donald was in Taranaki. The first long sequence of letters runs from 25 June to 12 October 1850, after

Donald had visited Wellington and made certain of his suit. There are some twenty-seven surviving letters from this period during which McLean, having been appointed a land purchase commissioner in April, was negotiating land purchases in the Rangitikei and Wanganui districts. Susan wrote almost every week, usually on a Friday or Saturday and usually late at night when the house was quiet. Donald wrote less regularly but sometimes two or three letters in the space of a few days, depending on his work and whereabouts.

McLean returned to Wellington on 18 October 1850 and left a month later on his first visit to Ahuriri (Hawke’s Bay). He was away nearly six months and then merely passed through Wellington in May 1851 on his way to Rangitikei. Fewer letters survive from this absence and fewer were probably written as it was more difficult to get letters to and from the east than the west coast. Communicating by letter was in fact always a rather haphazard business. Many of the letters in this collection were carried by messenger or by friends travelling between Wellington and McLean’s various staging posts. On one occasion letters Susan entrusted to a messenger only got as far as the upper Hutt Valley where the messenger left them at a farm saying his feet were sore and he would walk no further. 13 Other letters went by ship and there was always anxiety as to whether or not they would arrive. Each partner eagerly awaited letters and expressed disappointment when none arrived.

The letters do not stop after the couple’s marriage. McLean’s work continued to take him away from Wellington. Barely a month after his marriage day he left again for Ahuriri and did not return until just before Christmas. The correspondence recommenced. At this time Susan began the practice of writing serial letters, beginning one day and adding to the letter until the mail was ready to leave. During 1852 Donald was away from Wellington in January and May, when only a few letters were exchanged, and then from 30 June to early September. The longest sequence of letters, twenty-eight in total, dates from this last separation. Susan’s are nearly all serial letters, often added to daily. Few of her letters are dated with more than the day of the week but internal evidence makes it possible to order and date these letters accurately. What is more infuriating for the reader is her practice of crossing the letters, writing four pages, then turning the paper round and writing across the same page.

These letters, along with other brief notes, Donald’s diary and his correspondence with Robert Strang, enable us to follow the development of the relationship between Donald McLean and Susan Strang in a manner seldom possible. They allow us to explore the patterns of courtship and the expectations and hopes of marriage. It

is however a tragic relationship that the correspondence reveals, for four months after Susan was married her mother died. Before the following year was out Susan herself had died in childbirth. Donald’s and Susan’s letters tell us not only about courtship and marriage, but also about childbearing and death.

Most historians agree that by the mid-nineteenth century love was the major determinant in the choice of marriage partners in the western world. Love was certainly an emotion Susan Strang and Donald McLean believed they experienced but it was an emotion that developed gradually. Friendship and sincere affection were seen as the necessary bases upon which love could grow. The few letters written before McLean visited Wellington in May-June of 1850 reveal little about the state of either Susan or Donald’s heart. Although Donald’s form of address, ‘My dear Susan’, and closure ‘ever yours sincerely Donald McLean’ suggest some kind of mutual possession, he did not openly acknowledge the understanding that existed between them. (Indeed even after they had firmly committed themselves to marriage both Donald and Susan regarded the decision as a very private one.) 14 During Donald’s stay in Wellington in mid-1850, the relationship moved into a new phase of a firm, although still private, engagement. Susan felt both more secure and more aware that her future happiness now depended on someone else. Nevertheless for a time she continued to use the terminology of friendship and affection rather than love. Shortly after Donald left Wellington she wrote to him that she felt ‘much more happy and contented . . . now I feel assured of your affection for me and know that no absence will ever cause you to forget me’. Three weeks later, in answer to a question from Donald about her happiness, she wrote:

I am sure I would be very discontented if I were not so, for I have everything that I can wish in this world, I enjoy good health, I have a kind Father and Mother, and in you I have a friend on whose affection I can place the greatest reliance.

In September she wrote that there were ‘no trials or suffering’ she would not undergo for Donald’s sake and added, ‘if your affection is as sincere as mine I am sure you would do the same’. A month later, however, as Donald’s absence stretched past its expected span, she freely confessed that she loved him; she wrote,

do dearest take care of yourself, remember if anything were to happen to you, I would never have a happy day in this life again, it is perhaps wrong in me to say this, I know it is sinful to love anything in this world so much as I love you, but I hope it will be forgiven .... 15

Donald was more careful to conceal his feelings before marriage. His form of closing letters changed to ‘yours affectionately’ or even

‘believe me, always yours affectionately’ and he began to use pet names for Susan such as ‘puss’, a family nickname, and Douglas, her middle name, but he was more likely to send his ‘blessing’ or tell her to ‘be a good girl’ than to express his emotions. It was only in September 1850, after he failed to write for almost three weeks, that he assured Susan that the longer he was away the fonder he became and the more frequently he thought of her. 16 Even as the time of their marriage drew closer Donald held back from a written declaration of his love. His letters from Ahuriri between November 1850 and May 1851 followed some rather unpleasant episodes with Mrs Strang and he retreated into cold and aloof language. He frequently signed himself‘yours sincerely’, scarcely reassuring to Susan whose low spirits and depression during this time are obvious. Donald considered himself‘naturally of a reserved disposition on any subject which engages my thoughts and attention’ and continued to use the language of affection, friendship and duty even after he was married. 17 Leaving Susan in Wellington while he visited Ahuriri, he wrote, ‘I cannot help feeling the extreme affection you evince towards me, and I sincerely trust that I shall ever prove equally dutiful to you however cold I may at times appear.’ Although the fortnight they had spent honeymooning was the ‘happiest’ he had known since leaving Scotland this was not because he had found true love but because he now ‘had a bosom friend and should the cold calculating envious world desert me she at least would ever prove a faithful affectionate and true friend. . . 18 On the same day he confided to his diary that the past month had embraced

a very important epoch in my lifetime, the most important circumstance being that I have got married and enjoyed 5 weeks of extreme happiness with a wife that promises to be kind faithful and affectionate indeed she is all that I could desire and I wish that heavens blessing may attend us both, other circumstances fall into obscurity as far as my private relations go compared to that of having united myself to a young lady I have long at least ever since I knew her loved and esteemed and I trust will always continue to value as the dearest treasure I have on earth, poor thing she cried bitterly when I parted with her but duty must be attended to and its stern demands complied with to the sacrifice of all other feelings. 19

This private admission of love perhaps unleashed his pen for within a few days he was writing to Susan: my heart is now securely fixed on an object it loves. . . . strange to say I read over all I see about love marriage etc with greater interest than I did before I became wedded myself for there is a sort of enchantment about the feeling that renders me more cheerful than during our courtship days and happier probably . . . than I have ever been at any period of my life. . . .

He now found he thought constantly of Susan ‘at all hours morning

noon and night’. By 1852 he was sending love that he described as ‘ever as constant and durable as the sun that shines’. 20 If Donald’s emotions were liberated by marriage, Susan’s were intensified. She wrote that she could ‘scarcely yet believe that it is reality that nothing but death can part us, it seems to be too much happiness for me’. J Every day she felt ‘more and more the comfort and blessing of being married to one who loves me as you do’; each day seemed ‘to bind us more closely together’; she had ‘not a single wish or hope that is not connected with my husband’. 22 Nor did either of them shrink from expressions of physical love, at least after their marriage. Susan finished one letter ‘I send you a thousand kisses’; Donald responded with ‘hundreds of fond and affectionate kisses’. 23 Perhaps even more revealingly Susan wrote in August 1852:

I hope I shall dream again as I did the other night that my darling had come home I dreamt that I was sitting with my arms round your neck and kissing you I felt so happy and was quite disappointed when I woke and found it was but a dream. 24

There were however considerations other than love in the choice of a marriage partner and these do seem to have played a part in bringing Donald and Susan together. Their common Scottish background was of some significance. In one of his earliest surviving letters to Robert Strang, McLean enclosed a sprig of mountain heather sent to him from Scotland ‘for presentation to Susan although in itself it is not worthy of her acceptance it is nevertheless emblematical of the country to which we both belong’. Strang replied that the memento was ‘highly prized —it brought back recollections of earlier days pleasure to all of us and is now I believe in [the] charge of Susan who appears to have a peculiar liking for it’. There are other references to Mrs Strang preparing haggis for McLean’s visits and Donald exhorted Susan to ‘become perfect in playing the “Dalhousie March” and never so many Scotch marches and tunes besides’. In writing to his family about his marriage Donald noted that Susan came from Glasgow and relatives in Scotland exchanged visits. 25

Related to a common ethnicity was a shared religious faith. The Strangs belonged to the Free Church of Scotland and attended St Andrew’s regularly. McLean also belonged to the Free Church but he tended to be eclectic in his churchgoing, recording in his diary attendance at the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches as well as the ‘Scotch kirk’. Perhaps more important than church attendances was the fact that both Donald and Susan were religious, or, by today’s standards, religiose. Donald especially was given to

expounding on their spiritual state and the hereafter at the slightest opportunity. A fourth factor of significance in Susan and Donald’s courtship was position. Robert Strang had a good position in Wellington and it could not be disputed that Donald was an up and coming man in the service of the government. This was not a marriage where status would be compromised.

Lastly we must consider money. Did wealth, actual or anticipated, influence either partner in their choice? And if not did any other financial considerations have a role to play? Susan brought no immediate dowry into her marriage; nor was Donald a wealthy man. All he had, and he added it up before his marriage, he had accumulated while in New Zealand. His assets consisted of property at Wanganui and Taranaki worth some £590, stock scattered round the country which he valued at £742, his salary, and roughly £l5O owed to him by various friends and acquaintances. In total he reckoned he was worth nearly £1,500, enough to get married on but no great fortune. 26

Although love ruled, money was not to be ignored when choosing a wife. McLean had a chance to reflect on this when he received a letter from a friend, William Halse, telling him of the arrival in Taranaki of a wealthy settler with two eligible daughters. Halse considered that if McLean were ‘not too deep with Miss S. you may depend on Miss R. and money, which in spite of all that is advanced against it, is a necessary ingredient in the cup matrimonial’. 27 However Donald was not motivated by actual wealth. Much more to the point, in his view, were Susan’s careful habits. In telling his aunt of his marriage to Susan he commented:

I do not get much property with her but she is entitled to some annuity at her mothers death, but from her careful prudent habits she will be a great saving to me even if she had not a sixpence ... 28

And so it proved to be. Susan, perhaps because of the awful lesson of her father’s early financial troubles, extracted a promise from her suitor ‘to become more economical after marriage’ and by 1852 Donald claimed she had cured him of‘all extravagant habits’. On her part Susan spent hours sewing as she could not ‘bear to spend more than I can help of my dear husband’s money he works so hard for it’. 29 It is usually argued that by the mid-nineteenth century parents in England and other western countries had little control over the marriages of their children. They had given up trying to choose marital partners and dictate the timing of marriages, although they might still make some attempts to regulate the pre-marital envi-

ronment so as to limit the range of potential marriage partners, or to exercise some control over behaviour. 1,1 What parental, or other control, was apparent in Susan and Donald’s courtship? Donald had no parents, indeed no kin in New Zealand at this stage, so he was free to choose when and whom he should marry. Nevertheless he did receive advice from Helen Wilson, wife of Peter Wilson, the colonial surgeon at New Plymouth. Helen Wilson was one of McLean’s oldest and closest friends in New Zealand. Some twentyeight years older than McLean, she regarded him as a son, addressing him as such in letters. They both referred to her as his ‘mother’. In July 1850, hearing rumours of McLean’s engagement, Helen Wilson wrote:

all the world seem determined to marry you in spite of your teeth —so now, mind if you don’t wish it yourself, be on your guard for many a man has been talked into a marriage, and they are not the happiest. . . .' 1

Despite such well-meaning warnings there is no evidence that Donald consulted anyone other than himself in making his choice of a marriage partner. Susan’s parents, on the other hand, were a constant presence. Donald McLean got on well with Robert Strang with whom he had a close business and personal relationship from 1848 until Strang’s death in 1874. Whether it was Robert or Susan who drew Donald into the family circle is unclear. The relationship between Maria Strang and her prospective son-in-law was not so cordial. Perhaps angered by the effect on Susan of McLean’s prolonged absences from Wellington or annoyed by gossip about the engagement, which Donald insisted should remain private, Mrs Strang could hardly bring herself to be civil to him when he reappeared in Wellington in October 1850. She was so rude on a couple of occasions when McLean visited Dalmuir Hill that he refused to make further calls and arranged to meet Susan elsewhere. 32 The incident shows how little control the Strangs were able to exercise over the relationship. Mrs Strang could drive Donald from her house and show her disapproval of his behaviour but she could not prevent his meeting with and writing to Susan.

The chances for meeting when Donald was in Wellington were frequent and often unsupervised. Meetings took place at Dalmuir Hill where Donald visited, dined and sometimes slept. They could take place at the homes of friends, at church and by arranging ‘accidental’ encounters around the town. Very little control seems to have been exercised over these meetings which could take place at any time. Susan had special memories of a ‘delightful walk’ to Dalmuir Hill from a friend’s place one night and of a moonlight

walk ‘the night you say “you were taken” ’. Her teasing view on the latter was that ‘moonlight walks are very dangerous and I would advise young ladies to beware of them’. 3 ' Except for the temporary acrimonious relations between Mrs Strang and McLean, the Strangs approved of Donald. This approval was clearly desirable but probably not essential to his pursuing his suit. He did not regard his own actions as under the Strangs’ authority, although their blessing on the marriage was important to him and he was a firm believer in the fifth commandment when applied to others. He took pains, both before and after their marriage, to remind Susan of her obligations to her parents. In the early days of their courtship, when Susan was being plagued by questions from those curious to find out about her romance, McLean told her to reject

all approaches of familiarity with your feelings except what is sanctioned by your Father and Mother whose kind parental care is ever alive to the interest and happiness of their dutiful and affectionate child. 34

After their marriage he urged Susan not to let it interfere or lessen her respect and esteem for her parents, a respect ‘due to their age and experience independent of being your affectionate parents’. 33 None of this was without self-consideration. McLean believed that the duty, respect and kindness shown towards parents was of a similar order to that which a wife should show to her husband. He wrote to Susan, ‘if you are dutiful and kind to your mother I am sure you will always prove equally so to your husband of whose fond attachment you have the most convincing proofs’. 36 The analogy between the parent-child and husband-wife relationship could scarcely be more direct. Indeed throughout the correspondence it is possible to discern Donald establishing his concerns and wishes as paramount. The eight year age gap between them gave him an advantage he was not averse to using. At the same time if Susan behaved in what he regarded as a childish manner he did not hesitate to remind her of her own mature years, describing her conduct on one occasion as ‘ridiculous nonsense .. . unbecoming at your age’. 37 Other advantages stemmed from Donald’s work and his ability to withdraw from Susan. His absences, always longer than planned, caused her first to be anxious and then to become sadly resigned. She was acutely conscious of the unimportance of her daily round of activities compared to Donald’s work. She often expressed the fear that her letters would be uninteresting, ‘but I have got nothing more to tell which you would wish to hear’. Her time was spent doing ‘much the same as when you were here, my occupations

principally consist in sewing and attending to some of the household duties’. 38 Donald, on the other hand, enjoyed his work. The outdoor life, the long discussions with the Maori tribes from whom he was buying land and the sense of participating in significant events, gave him immense gratification. He might refer to ‘stern duty’ keeping him from Susan but he was much happier when out of Wellington and engaged on ‘real’ work. A major difference between them during their engagement was that Donald had a life independent of Susan whereas Susan could no longer envision life without Donald. She was simply waiting to become a married woman. Suspended between the states of girlhood and womanhood she was both dependent and vulnerable.

As their courtship progressed through letters Donald and Susan had the opportunity to spell out their expectations of each other and of the future. Susan’s hopes were for happiness and a long life together. Donald however had more precise ideas about the direction their relationship should take. He urged Susan to tell him all about her ‘amusements books employments thoughts wonderings and little changes or disappointments’, adding that ‘these should be all candid communications in as much as they are now of more concern to me than at any previous time’. She was to unfold her feelings ‘without formality or restraint’ and he doubtless felt that he was doing the same. 3 ' More than this, however, Donald tried to encourage habits in Susan which would ensure their future happiness and harmony. History and religion were widely regarded as suitable avocations for young women in the nineteenth century and Donald urged Susan to read the popular multi-volume histories of the time —Charles Rollin’s Ancient History of the Egyptians, Archibald Alison’s History of Europe and William Robertson’s History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V. Sometimes he teased her about this reading, doubting whether history would ‘always be of sufficient interest to keep you amused’, but more often he spelled out the virtue of such a pastime:

My great anxiety is that you should lay in a good store of religious and historical knowledge as it will be of infinite advantage and great pleasure to both of us through life. I regard external accomplishments as altogether subordinate to the careful improvement of the mind which should be nourished with as much system and regularity as we provide wholesome food for our bodily sustenance. What is more delightful' than to read and converse over what we read by a nice clear winter fireside when we are relieved from the cares of the day enjoying that agreeable evening relaxation that most persons feel when the duties of the day have been ended. 0

He was most anxious that Susan pursue her historical and religious interests ‘not in a trifling putting off way but in sincere reality

determined to improve your mind and establish your faith on the unchangeable principles of Christianity’. He would have been gratified to hear that Susan found Sarah Ellis’s Women of England, an advice book on the duties of women, ‘a beautifully written book and full of Instruction’. 41 Early rising, work in the garden (‘a delightful healthy occupation’), 42 more exercise and less procrastination were other habits and improvements Donald urged on Susan. What little advice Susan gave Donald was directed at his welfare, on which her happiness had come to depend. He was to take care of himself in bad weather, not to sleep in the damp, and not to travel by ship. There was however one major area of potential conflict in their lives. Donald was a country person, Susan a town person. Many of her pleasures were social and urban—churchgoing, her friendships with other women, visiting, dinner parties and balls. Donald could only feel his ‘intellect’ clearly when he could ‘breathe the country air and enjoy the relaxation and ease it affords’. Bush scenery and bush life, with their stimulating effects on mind and body, were, in his view, far superior to the ‘more civilized state of society, where late luxurious meals and dainties are imperceptibly killing the frame and injuring the mind’; the ‘sweet solitude of the river side with its lovely placid stream’ far outstripped the social attractions of the town. 4 ' Donald’s attempts to persuade Susan to accept the bush life were an exercise in asserting his dominance in their relationship. Before their marriage he wrote:

I have greater hopes than ever of your making a “gude wife” for the bush and you may even arrive at the wonderful distinction of being an excellent highly accomplished dairy maid, when decorated off in your white short gown and Grey petticoat with sleeves tucked up and fat arms slappering away among cream cheese butter and all the niceties of the dairy.

And to persuade her he was serious he added ‘do not laugh at this because I intend it in reality’. 44 After their marriage this image of Susan as a ‘bush wife’ recurs repeatedly. The ‘bush’ would be a transforming agency for Susan. Once Donald got her to the bush ‘then I am certain she will be quite a model wife for affection and obedience’; he explained her reluctance to go the bush in terms of his failure to treat her as well as he should ‘but I know you are becoming more obedient & more affectionate every day’; once she got to the bush ‘I shall expect you to work a little more than you do at present. . . \ 45 Susan expressed no opinion on these bush ‘fantasies’; her mind was much more on the immediate problems she had to deal with than on what might or might not happen some years hence. Nevertheless it is clear from

McLean’s cajoling that she had no great desire to be the wife of a bush settler. Following months of correspondence Donald McLean and Susan Strang were finally married in late August 1851. After the wedding party at Dalmuir Hill they spent a fortnight at Taita, often referred to by both of them as the happiest time of their life, and then took up residence in a rented cottage on Wellington Terrace. On 30 September Donald was off again on another land purchasing trip to Ahuriri, saying on his departure that he would be absent no longer than six weeks but in fact not returning until just before Christmas. This separation could not have come at a worse time for Susan. The sudden loneliness was difficult to cope with. She avoided the parlour in their small cottage for ‘I cannot sit alone in that room where I have spent so many happy hours with my dear husband without feeling very dull’. Without Donald around the cottage ‘everything seemed changed’. 46 The feelings of loneliness were soon displaced by a growing anxiety and distress over her mother’s health. Mrs Strang had not been well for some time and was now getting thinner and weaker daily, confined to her bed with a racking cough. Within a few days of Donald’s departure, Susan was spending most of her time at Dalmuir Hill. At first she went for the days, then the nights as well. Early in December she decided that she would be unable to return to the cottage and most of her furniture and other belongings were moved back to her parents’ house for safety’s sake. Mrs Strang was clearly dying. She had a close circle of women friends who could be called on to sit with her at times but the burden of nursing fell mainly on Susan.

Susan was distraught at the thought of her mother’s death and, lacking her husband to ‘comfort’ her, found prayer her main solace. Her prayers were not for her mother’s recovery, although she hoped this might occur, but that she would be granted the strength and resignation to submit to God’s will. This was a ‘proper’ Christian response and occupied much of Susan’s thoughts. After her mother died on 30 December she gave way to a terrible grief but still felt that this was ‘very wrong’. It was six months before she was able to accept that the strength to nurse her mother had come from God and no longer to ‘think of my dear Mother as laying [sic] in that grave over which I have wept but [to] think of her singing the praises of her Saviour in his Kingdom, often I think that her spirit watches over me’. 47

To add to the trauma of these months, early in November Susan had a miscarriage. Her first reaction to this was disappointment but disappointment gave way to a feeling of relief as she realized that a continued pregnancy would have made it difficult to give her mother the attention she needed, and which Susan wished to give. 48

The events which followed the first month of their marriage caused both Susan and Donald to be very aware of the fragile nature of human relationships. From marriage they had expected affection, friendship, comfort, happiness and kindness. They had no expectation that this attachment would be broken by anything other than death, but death now seemed closer than ever before. Donald reminded Susan in January 1852 ‘to acknowledge the various blessings the Almighty bestows upon you, without his aid what are we my dearest pussy but perishable mortals liable every moment of our lives to be called unto eternity . . . ’. Susan wrote in July:

I often think dearest when you are away how dreadful it would be to be sepperated [he] for ever, one of us must leave the other but I hope my dearest husband the parting will be but short and that we will soon meet again to spend our endless eternity together in that world of happiness where our dear Mother has gone. . . , 49

Each of them feared that in their love for the other they might be in danger of forgetting God ‘who has blessed us by making us one’. McLean even suspected that Susan’s miscarriage was ‘chastisement from the Almighty’ for their being ‘too much wrapped up with each other’. 50 Although both Susan and Donald professed to find true happiness in marriage it is obvious from their correspondence that true happiness, conflict and disillusionment were in some sort of tension. The overt criticism came mainly from Donald who had fixed ideas about the appropriate behaviour for his wife. A good wife was dutiful, affectionate and obedient. She had to live up to his standards of industry in her ‘proper department’ as he considered ‘idleness a great evil as well as a sure precursor of want’; through marriage women attained ‘a certain dignity and respect’ which they had to uphold by ‘well regulated prudence and discretion’. 51 He based these beliefs on the demeanour of one or two women he knew, mainly women older than Susan, and in particular on Helen Wilson.

On his return visit to Taranaki in 1852 McLean realised that Helen Wilson, then nearly sixty, had virtues Susan lacked. He much admired her ‘lady like manners and behaviour’. She made him feel perfectly at ease, yet he had to conduct himself ‘with great propriety’. Mrs Wilson was ‘a quick discerner of character’ and McLean felt ‘flattered by the affectionate notice’ she paid him. According to Donald, Helen Wilson took the ‘lead’ in New Plymouth society despite the presence of women of greater wealth. More tellingly he commented that Susan would be surprised ‘how she anticipates every wish of the Doctors and how devoted she is to

him . . . ’. Mrs Wilson was the arbiter of good taste and proper form and Donald was mortified to discover that Susan had neglected to write to his ‘old mother’ first, as etiquette apparently demanded. It was surely the example of Mrs Wilson that led Donald to write to Susan that he trusted

that no imprudent acts or conduct of yours will cause jours] to be an unhappy life . . . nothing delights me more than to see a good and an amiable wife who anticipates her husbands wishes, and calmly undergoes every trial to make him happy. 52

Renewed friendship with Mrs Wilson also led Donald to find fault with Susan’s friends. He told her in no uncertain terms that he had often felt her inclinations lead her ‘to associate more intimately with persons of a doubtful position in society than with those of a more genuine and respectable description, and the sooner you change your sentiments on this subject the better’.' 23 Susan had to learn that she was married to a man of substance whose position she had to maintain.

Susan however was high-spirited, did not take kindly to being told what to do and reacted strongly to unjust criticism. There is a hint of this in a semi-jocular remark Donald passed to her mother after their marriage. Referring to Susan he wrote, ‘she is such a frolicsome wayward lassie that she even already begins to assert greater independence than expected at least for the next six months to come, but I shall just let her have her fling and give her time to sober down by degrees’. 54 There are frequent references to Susan’s ‘rebelliousness’, her ‘disobedience’ and Donald’s ‘indulgence’ in both her own and his letters. One such incident clearly gave Donald an awful shock and prompted this self-pitying outburst from him in May 1852:

I often think my pussy would never have displayed some fretful little changes of temper had she placed more confidence in God and I sincerely trust that my own pet will never even in a trifling manner give her devoted husband any cause however slight to be displeased with her, only imagine how painful it is to be absent from you, and how often I must suffer cold, wet, and various other hardships and self denial for my pussys sake remember that you are everything to me and that I cannot help feeling any appearance of ungratitude on your part not my pet that I accuse you of such but that I think it just as well as the thought has struck me to warn you that I expect to be loved with equal devotion and self denial as I experience on your account, and never to leave me as you did on that foolish night the remembrance of which and some of the circumstances connected with it still rush through my heart in a painful manner. 55

In linking Susan’s disobedience or waywardness towards him with her lack of confidence in God, Donald was setting up an order of authority for their marriage. If Susan’s heart was right with the

Almighty, it would follow that she would treat her husband properly. The converse also operated—if Susan treated him badly, her heart and soul could not be straight with her Maker.

Donald and Susan McLean spent six of the fourteen months of their short marriage apart. Susan could not reconcile herself to these separations, nor to the way in which proposed short trips away from Wellington stretched on for week after week. Not long after her mother’s death she and Donald moved out of their own cottage and into Dalmuir Hill with Robert Strang. He proved to be of little comfort and less company to Susan in Donald’s absences. Wrapped up in his own grief, he had little to talk about and night after night Susan sat with him while he remained silent or dropped off to sleep. Jessie McKenzie, the McLeans’ servant, was closer to Susan than her father. In the end Susan took to inviting other young women, doubtless some of the friends Donald frowned on, to stay with her and keep her spirits up.

This was necessary because in February 1852 Susan once again became pregnant. The course of the pregnancy did not run smoothly. In May, when Donald was away at Rangitikei, she suffered acute pains and Jessie sent for her mother, who had already agreed to help at the delivery and through the period immediately after the baby was born. 56 From late June Susan’s health was very up and down and by early August she became convinced that the baby would be born much sooner than expected.^ 7 Donald was absent at New Plymouth, winding up his affairs in Taranaki, and Susan’s growing conviction that he would not be back in time for the birth of her child made her anxious and morbid. She missed her mother terribly and begged Donald to return to Wellington as soon as possible, using the veiled threat that ‘no woman can feel certain of recovering and if anything were to happen while you are away how dreadfully you my darling husband would feel it’. 5x A few days after writing this she went for a walk on the beach and was taken with pains on the way home; the following night the pains returned and her father sent for Dr Featherston immediately. Featherston announced that the baby would probably be born within a fortnight and ordered Susan to stay at home and rest. Donald finally began to make plans to return to Wellington. 59 Susan’s pains of mid-August were false labour pains. Her husband arrived back in Wellington early in September and was at home when the baby, a boy called Douglas, was born on 7 November. Susan died the same day. Sitting in the house with his

young wife’s body Donald turned to the diary he had neglected since July. He wrote: You are gone to the world of spirits my own dear Douglas and left me to mourn my loss when I can share death with thee then happy shall be my lot, but thou hast left a pledge of affection which I must not now neglect and oh may his mothers affection be renewed in this little prise [slc] I have got, may his heavenly father protect him as mother he has got none, thou art still in my presence my Susan but alas its lifeless form and soon shall that same be taken from me to mix with its kindred worms. 60

The cause of Susan’s death was not uncommon in the nineteenth century but that did not lessen the pain for those close to her. McLean never remarried. Their son was brought up by nurses, friends, family and then sent to school in England. It is futile to speculate how Susan and Donald’s marriage would have fared if Susan had not died. Nevertheless some comments may be made on their relationship, which even if it has some unique features has others which fit established historical patterns. There is no doubt that Susan and Donald experienced what they perceived to be love. It was, as Donald described it, an ‘affection that commenced in such a romantic manner’ and which he hoped would ‘end in our hearts being knit together’. 61 From an early stage in their ‘friendship’ each realized that their happiness depended to some extent on the other. For Susan this dependence was total. She had no happiness, no future without Donald, without a husband. Donald’s life gained meaning through marriage. He seems at times to be surprised at the impact it had on his sensibilities. However his work, his business affairs, his other-relations provided him with a life outside of his relationship with Susan. Although his happiness depended on Susan, it was a different dependence, in kind as well as degree. Susan depended on Donald being-, Donald depended on Susan acting towards him dutifully, kindly and affectionately.

Both Susan and Donald were people of their time. Donald believed that his wife should be subject to his authority, follow him wherever he wished her to go, and obey his instructions. Susan was anxious to please and do her duty, but she was not submissive. She clearly found it difficult to sit at home sewing while her husband went about his business. She was however bound by the conviction that her security and happiness lay in marriage. One feels sure that Susan would have been prepared eventually to sacrifice her independence and identity for her husband. She had no alternative.

REFERENCES 1 Pioneers in this field werej. L. Flandrin, Families in Former Times (Cambridge, 1976); Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800 (London, 1977); Edward Shorter, The Making of the Modern Family (London, 1976); Randolph Trumbach, The Rise of the Egalitarian Family (New York, 1978). In 1981 a collection of essays Marriage and Society: Studies in the Social History of Marriage, edited by R. B. Outhwaite, appeared and the fournal of Social History, 15, no. 3 (Spring 1982) was a special issue on the history of love. More recent is Ellen K. Rothman, Hands and Hearts: A History of Courtship in America (New York, 1984). 2 See K. A. Pickens, ‘Marriage Patterns in a Nineteenth-Century British Colonial Population’, fournal of Family History, 5, no. 2 (Summer 1980), ISO--96. 3 See my article ‘The Colonial Helpmeet: Women’s Role and the Vote in Nine-teenth-Century New Zealand’, The New Zealand Journal of History, 11, no. 2 (October 1977), 112-23.

4 These letters are in the Alexander Turnbull Library, McLean Papers, MS Papers 32. Hereinafter references to these papers are given as 32/ with the folder number following. The abbreviations SS are used for Susan Strang (before and after her marriage) and DM for Donald McLean. McLean’s diaries, to which reference is also made, are in the Library’s MS sequence. Punctuation used in quotations is as in the original letters and diaries. I would like to thank the Turnbull manuscript librarians for their assistance to me when working on these papers. 5 See 32/1004. 6 Public Record Office, London, Colonial Office 208/3, 39/1501, Robert Strang/New Zealand Company, 30 September 1839. 7 On Donald McLean see James Cowan, Sir Donald McLean: The Story of a New Zealand Statesman (Dunedin, 1940); R. W. S. Fargher, ‘Donald McLean Chief Land Purchase Agent (1846-61) and Native Secretary (1856-61)’ (unpublished M. A. thesis, University of New Zealand, 1947); Bruce C. Parr, ‘The McLean Estate: A Study of Pastoral Finance and Estate Management in New Zealand, 1853-9 T (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Auckland, 1970).

8 SS/DM, 4January 1851 (32/827). 9 Donald McLean Diaries (Box II). 10 SS/DM, 6 December 1851 (32/827). 11 SS/DM, 19January [1852] (32/828). 12 DM/SS, 25 July 1849 (32/826). 13 SS/DM. 5 November [lßsl] (32/828). 14 See DM/SS, 25 July 1849, 2July 1850, 24 September 1850 (32/826); SS/DM, 19 July 1850, 14 September 1850 (32/826); SS/DM, 20January [1852] (32/828). 15 SS/DM, 29June, 19July, 7 September, 5 October 1850 (32/826). 16 DM/SS, 17 September 1850 (32/826). 17 DM/SS, 24 September 1850 (32/826). 18 DM/SS, 30 September 1851 (32/827). 19 Diary, 30 September 1851 (Box III). 20 DM/SS, 6 October, 15 November 1851 (32/827), 14 August 1852 (32/828). 21 SS/DM, 9 October 1851 (32/827). 22 SS/DM, 18 October 1851 (32/827), [2O May 1852], [2B August 1852] (32/828). 23 SS/DM, 5 July 1852, DM/SS, 13 August 1852 (32/828). 24 SS/DM, 24 August 1852 (32/828). 25 DM/Robert Strang, 28 February 1849, Robert Strang/DM, 2 May 1849 (32/ 823); DM/SS, 25 July 1849 (32/826); DM/Annabella McLean, 5 September 1851, cited Parr, pp. 8-9.

26 Diary, 30June 1851 (Box 111). 27 William Halse/DM, 6 October 1850 (32/318). 28 DM/Annabella McLean, 5 September 1851, cited Parr, p. 8. 29 DM/SS, 8 October 1851 (32/827), 13 August 1852 (32/828); SS/DM, [8 July 1852] (32/828). 30 See Daniel Scott Smith, ‘Parental Power and Marriage Patterns: An Analysis of Historical Trends in Hingham, Massachusetts’, Journal of Marriage and the Family, 35 (August 1973), 389-405; Rothman, pp. 119-22. 31 Helen Wilson/DM, 5 July 1850 (32/644). 32 DM/SS, undated [lßsl] (32/828). 33 SS/DM, 23 August 1850 (32/826), [3O July 1852] (32/828). 34 DM/SS, 25 July 1849 (32/826). 35 DM/SS, 30 September, 6 October 1851 (32/827). 36 DM/SS, 8 October 1851 (32/827). 37 DM/SS, undated [lßsl] (32/828). 38 SS/DM, 13, 19 July 1850 (32/826). 39 DM/SS, 2 July, 27 August 1850 (32/826). 40 DM/SS, 27 August, 17 September 1850 (32/826). 41 DM/SS, 2 December [lßso] (32/828); SS/DM, 7 February 1851 (32/827). 42 DM/SS, 30 July 1850 (32/826). 43 DM/SS, 27 June 1850 (32/826); Diary, 25 July 1850 (Box II). See also Donald’s letter to Susan, 6 October 1851 where he wrote that when he was engaged with his duties ‘my mind gets a degree of repose that I never enjoy in the fictitious employment and society of a town let it be ever so small’ (32/827).

44 DM/SS, (June 1851] (32/828). 45 DM/SS, 14January, 30June, 13 August 1852 (32/828). 46 SS/DM, [3 October 1851] (32/828). 47 SS/DM, 9, [l9] October 1851 (32/827), [2O October 1851] (32/828), 11 November 1851 (32/827), [l7January 1852], [l3, 14]July 1852 (32/828). 48 SS/DM, 9 October, 5 November, 6 December 1851 (32/827). 49 DM/SS, 14January 1852; SS/DM, 3July 1852 (32/828). 50 SS/DM, 3 August 1852 (32/828); DM/SS, 15 December 1851 (32/827). 51 DM/SS, 18 August 1852 (32/828), 6 October 1851 (32/827). 52 DM/SS, 26, 30 July, 7 August 1852 (32/828). 53 DM/SS, 30 July 1852 (32/828). 54 DM/Maria Strang, [29 August 1851] (32/823). 55 DM/SS, 24 May 1852 (32/828). 56 SS/DM, 24, [27] May [1852] (32/828). 57 SS/DM, [2], 3, [l3] August 1852 (32/828). 58 SS/DM, 8 August [1852] (32/828). 59 SS/DM, 14 August [1852] (32/828); Robert Strang/DM, 14, 16 August 1852 (32/823); DM/SS, 24 August 1852 (32/828). 60 Diary, n.d. [November 1852] (Box III). 61 DM/SS, 24 May 1852 (32/828).