womanhood.[90]

Some years later an incident occurred which, as Bishop Meade well
remarks, speaks ill for the chivalry and decorum of the times.[91] A
dispute arose between Col. Daniel Parke and Commissary Blair, the
rector of the church at Williamsburg. Mr. Blair's wife, having no pew
of her own in the church, was invited by Mr. Ludlow, of Green Spring,
to sit with his family during the services. Col. Parke was the
son-in-law of Mr. Ludlow, and one Sunday, with the purpose of
insulting the rector, he seized Mrs. Blair rudely by the arm, and
dragged her out of the pew, saying she should no longer sit there.
This ungallant act is made all the more cowardly by the fact that Mr.
Blair was not present at the time. We learn with pleasure that Mr.
Ludlow, who was also probably absent, was greatly offended at his
son-in-law for his brutal conduct. The incident is the more
suggestive in that both Col. Parke and Mrs. Blair were members of
leading families in the colony.

In matters of courtship there was little of romance and chivalry.
Women did not care for the formalities and petty courtesies of the
gallant suitor. Alsop, in describing the maids of Maryland, whose
social life was quite similar to that of their sisters of Virginia,
says, "All complimental courtships drest up in critical rarities are
meer strangers to them. Plain wit comes nearest to their genius; so
that he that intends to court a Maryland girle, must have something
more than the tautologies of a long-winded speech to carry on his
design, or else he may fall under the contempt of her frown and his
own windy discourse."

We will not attempt to trace through successive years the chivalric
view of womanhood. The movement was too subtle, the evidences too few.
At the period of the Revolutionary War, however, it is apparent that a
great change was taking place. The Virginia gentleman, taught by the
experience of many years, was beginning to understand aright the
reverence due the nobleness, the purity, the gentleness of woman. He
was learning to accord to his wife the unstinted and sincere homage
that her character deserved.

It is unfortunate that we should be compelled to rely to so great an
extent upon the testimony of travelers for our data regarding the
domestic life of the Virginia aristocracy of the 18th century. These
writers were frequently superficial observers and almost without
exception failed to understand and sympathize with the society of the