“A Look At the Colonial World Through the Eyes of….”

I am woman in the gentry class named Lucy Harrison. I am 16 years of age and I still live with my family. I am soon going to get married to an extremely wealthy man named Robert Baker and will soon move in his house. I will then work as a housewife tending the daily needs of the home. I have lived in Colonial Williamsburg for my whole life with my European parents. We are one of the richest families in our town so my parents are making me marry this stuck up, white man who I haven’t met yet. I hear only bad things from the other women my age but my parents seem to love him. I don’t really get how I am going to have to spend the rest of my life with a man that I have never met, in two weeks! Right now, my mother ( a housewife) is training me to do the daily chores of the house that I will soon move into. I have finished schooling so therefore, I have a lot of time on my hands to train for my new “job” and get ready for the wedding.

I am meeting my fiancé in about a week. Our engagement story isn’t as interesting as I would have liked. We have written back and fourth for a while set up by our parents and he asked me to marry him through one of our letters. He will give me a ring symbolizing his affection when I meet him in person but to be honest, I am a little but nervous. I don’t think I am ready for a commitment like this yet. I mean I am at the right age to marry, but to him? I don’t know if this will be right. I will surely disappoint my parents if I tell them my feelings about the wedding but probably nothing will change. I can’t change their decision for my marriage. No matter what I do.

Right now I am sitting in the front room with my mother, silently embroidering pillows. We do this everyday for hours. This is my time to think. She is a strong yet stubborn woman with a lot of thoughts as well. We can almost hear ourselves thinking. Im just going crazy about my upcoming wedding and I would die to know what she is thinking about right now. She is completely on board for this commitment and hardly cares about what I think.

I barley see my father since he is always working. This makes my mother the person in charge the majority of the time. She just wants me to marry the man because he is rich and she will gain a lot of money and land from him and his family. What could be better? A good future when her only daughter is off and married. It’s very smart of her. I can see the delicate stitches of her needle going in, out, in, out, in, out. I’m afraid that this is going to be my day everyday for the rest of my life. I will be lonely just embroidering and cleaning after my slob of a husband. And the sad part, is when he comes home from work, I will be even more lonely than I was, alone in a room with the man that I am supposed to love practically slaving over his every need. I don’t love him and I’m afraid that I never will.