Preparing for a Quiverfull Future
Pre-wedding investment keeps us from deviating from The Plan
I reached for the blue and white flour container to feed my sourdough starter this morning and thought—as I have hundreds of times—I really should replace these battered canisters. And then as I always do, I replied to myself—16-year-old Abbi worked really hard for these.
Bridal dowries have existed since the earliest civilizations, but the hope chest has a more American flavor. While parents bestow dowries at the time of marriage, hope chests were—and perhaps still are—accumulated in advance by the young woman with marriage aspirations. In 1967, two male researchers surveyed female college students and concluded that “the hope chest represented on a symbolic level a young woman’s aspirations and on a reality level her concrete investment in the marital estate prior to its onset.”1
I couldn’t afford a wooden hope chest, but I began accumulating household items around 15 or 16 years of age. I was invested in the institution of marriage and I knew that my parents didn’t have the resources to furnish my future household. Therefore, it was my job to scan the sale shelves at TJ Maxx and slowly build up a Blue Willow collection to outfit my first home. I hosted Pampered Chef parties and squirreled away the host gifts for later use.
When I turned 18, I didn’t get married. The hope chest items came with me to college in two plastic tubs that adhered to my navy and white color scheme. I won’t deny the utility of a hope chest; the china, mixing bowls, and towels were very useful during my four years at college. Dorm room living didn’t stop me from cooking. I constructed a double boiler using a hot pot and sneaked a bread machine into my room. (My illicit bread machine was an open secret—everyone in the building could smell the baking bread and my RA turned a blind eye as long as I didn’t set off the fire alarm.)
Hope chests are a tool for the patriarchy to ensure that we don’t deviate from our roles as wives and mothers. The sunk cost fallacy is real: if we’ve invested time and money for years before the wedding, we’re likely to escalate the commitment.
Most of my hope chest items were worn out by the time I married at 27, but I’m still using the Blue Willow canisters, chipped enamel and all. There are so many bitter memories tied to these simple containers, but a stubborn part of me wants to honor the girl who carefully chose a classic pattern and prepared for her domestic future because it was the only way she knew how to protect herself.
I’ll keep the canisters for a bit longer.
Herbert A. Otto and Robert. B Anderson. “The Hope Chest and Dowry: American Custom?” The Family Life Coordinator, 16, no 1/2 (1967), 15-19, https://doi.org/10.2307/581576.