Tenney, Tabitha (Gilman)

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TENNEY, Tabitha (Gilman)

Born 7 April 1762, Exeter, New Hampshire; died 2 May 1837, Exeter, New Hampshire

Daughter of Samuel and Lydia G. Gilman; married Samuel Tenney, 1788 (died 1816)

Tabitha Tenney was descended from early pioneers in New Hampshire who had raised themselves to prominent social positions in the town of Exeter. She was the oldest of the seven children, and probably remained at home with her mother to help raise her younger siblings after the death of her father. Tenney was somewhat older than was typical for her time and social class when she married; the couple had no children. Her husband, who served as a physician in the Revolutionary army, later directed his attention chiefly to politics and scientific inquiry.

Although Tenney was described as an "accomplished lady," it is unlikely her formal schooling differed greatly from that of other respectable 18th-century American women, or from that form of "female education" which she satirizes in her novel, Female Quixotism: Exhibited in the Romantic Opinions and Extravagant Adventures of Dorcasina Sheldon (1801). Her education, like Dorcasina's, would have provided her with a command of the fine points of fashion and household management, some acquaintance with the classics, and a fuller knowledge of contemporary novels. While married, Tenney produced two books which largely derived from her reading. After her husband's death in 1816, she spent the remainder of her life concentrating on her needlework, which was renowned for its intricacy.

Tenney's first publication was The Pleasing Instructor (1799), an anthology of classical literature addressed to young women. It was intended to "inform the mind, correct the manners, or to regulate the conduct" while at the same time blending, in best classical fashion, "instruction with rational amusement." Tenney dedicated Female Quixotism "to all Columbian Young Ladies, who Read Novels and Romances." But unlike most novels so dedicated, Tenney's book satirizes both sentimentality and sentimental fiction in general. Female Quixotism is roughly modeled on Charlotte Ramsay Lennox's The Female Quixote; or, The Adventures of Arabella (1752), but Tenney alters the pattern of her model to emphasize a different message. In the earlier book, the main character is basically innocent but is corrupted by the ideals of the sentimental fiction she reads. Tenney, however, portrays a character who rationalizes her foolishness by blaming it on the novels she has read.

This change gives Female Quixotism an effective focus. Dorcasina, who is an adolescent when we first see her, remains frozen in the kind of prolonged adolescence that sentimental fiction requires. She is intelligent, occasionally witty, but entirely blind to the increasing disparity between her own life and the sentimental life she envisions for herself. Dorcasina early rejects a sensible suitor, Lysander, because his letter proposing marriage fails to use words like "angel" or "goddess." Ironically, Lysander is as close as Dorcasina ever comes to making the sentimental match she aspires to.

Over the years, Dorcasina is duped by and deceives herself about men who seek to humiliate her or gain her fortune. Finally, the malicious ridicule of Seymour, a most despicable character who intends to marry the toothless, white-haired Dorcasina and then have her committed to a mental institution so he can enjoy her fortune unhindered by her company, leads Dorcasina to recognize the folly of her life and warn her young readers "to avoid the rock on which I have been wrecked."

The novel is a satire, but it is written with a sensitivity to its main character seldom encountered in satire. As silly as Dorcasina's version of reality is, it is in many ways preferable to the world she faces. Most of the men she meets are singularly cruel, spiteful, misogynistic creatures, and, on this level, Tenney's novel covertly warns women that they must be particularly cautious in a world where they have little place and little power. Tenney's satire is also effectively double-edged in another sense. While she criticizes the women who get their education from fiction, she equally criticizes a social system that denies women any real education.

F. L. Pattee once described Female Quixotism as the most popular novel written in America before Uncle Tom's Cabin. This is not the case, but Tenney's novel did run through at least six separate editions between the time of its publication and 1841. No current edition, however, of the novel is available. Ironically, Female Quixotism fell into obscurity by the middle of the last century, while novels it satirized, such as Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple (1791), continued to be popular into our own century, and even now are available in modern editions.

Bibliography:

Bell, C. H., History of the Town of Exeter (1888). Brown H. R., The Sentimental Novel in America, 1789-1860 (1940). Davidson, C. N., Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (1986). Gilman, A., The Gilman Family (1869). Hoople, S. C. Tabitha Tenney: Female Quixotism (dissertation, 1985). Loshe, L. D., The Early American Novel, 1789-1830 (1907). Petter, H., The Early American Novel (1971). Tenney, M. J., The Tenney Family; or, The Descendants of Thomas Tenney of Rowley, Massachusetts, 1638-1890 (1891).