Acknowledgments -- Preface: "Miss Bryant and Miss Drake were married to each other" -- A child of melancholy, 1777 -- Infantile days, 1784 -- O the example!, 1787 -- Mistress of a school, 1797 -- So many friends, 1799 -- Discontent and indifferent, 1800 -- Never to marry, 1800 -- Charity and mercy, 1805 -- Charity and Lydia, 1806 -- Charity and Sylvia, February 1807 -- The tie that binds, July 1807 -- Their own dwelling, 1809 -- Wild affections, 1811 -- Miss Bryant was the man, 1820 -- Dear aunts, 1823 -- Stand fast in one spirit, 1828 -- Diligent in business, 1835 -- The cure of her I love, 1839 -- Sylvia drake W, 1851 -- Afterword: "We spend our years as a tale that is told" -- Notes -- Index.
Summary
Charity and Sylvia is the intimate history of the extraordinary marriage of two ordinary early American women. Their story, drawn from the women's personal writings and other original documents, reveals that same-sex marriage is not as new as we think.
