We can not be whole without a mate for this enables us to practice everything together and have no sin involved. . But rather than focusing on the devastation caused by the disease, Franklins coverage dealt primarily with the success of smallpox inoculation. 7) They who have nothing to trouble them will be troubled at nothing. And when Franklin sailed for London in 1757 he made no secret of his ambivalence about leaving his 14-year-old daughter with Deborah. Did I say a? Where there's marriage without love, there will be love without marriage. An undutiful daughter will prove an unmanageable wife. In a sense, though, this was Franklins portrait, too: With no likeness of Franky to work from, the artist had Benjamin sit for it. But if you will not take this Counsel, and persist in thinking a Commerce with the Sex inevitable, then I repeat my former Advice, that in all your Amours you should prefer old Women to young ones. Soon she took in the infant son her new husband had fathered with another woman and began running a small stationery store on the first floor. If youre Having the goutI wish I was near enough to rub it with a light hand.. Benjamin, now 16, read and perhaps set in type these contributions and decided that he could do as well himself. Though Deborah and Ben would enter into a common-law marriage that lasted over 40 years, they never officially wed. Those four decades held plenty of upset. LOL. 7. 1731-1775. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. Not until December 30 did he break his silence, in a stunning 137-word note at the end of that weeks Gazette. Benjamin Franklin was the George Clooney of his day. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). She is best remembered as the grandmother of Benjamin Franklin. In a June 1770 letter, an elated Deborah wrote to her husband that William Franklin believed Benny Bache is like Frankey Folger. Benjamin Franklin. If you get a prudent healthy Wife, your Industry in your Profession, with her good Economy, will be a Fortune sufficient. Advertising Notice The way to wealth is as plain as the way to market. The Truth About Benjamin Franklin's Relationship With His Wife. Your email address will not be published. I have been so happy as to receive several of your dear letters within these few days, she began, adding that she had read one letter over and over. I call it a husbands Love letter, she wrote, thrilled as though it were her first experience with anything of the kind. Much has been made of Franklin being a womanizer, especially in Europe. Franklin was born in 1706 in Boston on a Sunday, which for the Puritans was reason enough for him to be morally weak; they believed that any child born on the Sabbath was conceived on the. the state in which you will find solid happiness.". On September 1, 1730, he began a common-law marriage with Deborah Read, a carpenter's daughter. In an age that privileged the firstborn son, Franklin was, as he tartly noted in his Autobiography, the youngest Son of the youngest Son for five Generations back. He learned to read very early and had one year in grammar school and another under a private teacher, but his formal education ended at age 10. He was buried beside Deborah at Christ Church Cemetery in Philadelphia. Failing to find work in New York City, Franklin at age 17 went on to Quaker-dominated Philadelphia, a much more open and religiously tolerant place than Puritan Boston. But we cant understand him fully without considering why he treated his wife so shabbily at the end of her life. While Franklin was away from Deborah for over a decade, she sent him romantic letters but he only responded in terse replies. This was the flux that Franklins editors note referred to. 6. He wrote that Franklin fully intended to inoculate the boy, but that Frankys sickness dragged on and smallpox took him before his recovery. Indeed, Lemay went even further in providing cover for Franklin, describing Franky as a sickly infant and a sickly child. This, too, has become accepted wisdom. He was telling a young man how to choose a mistress, but while doing so, he talked about the wisdom of marrying and the qualities of older women. Deborah Read, who he had courted before going to England, had married Roger Potter during his absence. "Founding Father," "Inventor," and "diplomat" are all terms usually applied to Benjamin Franklin. Stephen Coss is the author of the book The Fever of 1721: The Epidemic that Revolutionized Medicine and American Politics. Benjamin Franklin was bedridden during the final year of his life, escaping severe pain only by the use of opium, and he died on April 17, 1790, at age 84. Franklin said as much many years later. Clearly Franklin believed he had had a choice and had chosen wrong. In August 1737, less than a year after Frankys death, he lashed out at her for mishandling a sale in their store. Sherry Riter a.k.a. "A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short." -Andre Maurois "Marriage is the most natural state of man and the state in which you will find solid happiness." -Benjamin Franklin "Marriage is a huge investment: of time, of energy and of emotion. As a scientist, Franklin took great interest in inoculating against the disease. Your Reasons against entering into it at present, appear to me not well-founded. 1. She saw him and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward ridiculous Appearance.. Marriage is the proper Remedy. They are these: 1. While in London, Franklin wrote A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain (1725), a Deistical pamphlet inspired by his having set type for William Wollastons moral tract, The Religion of Nature Delineated. There he made a shallow incision in the patients arm and deposited material from the vial. public. Deborah left him and moved back in with her mother. How Many People Signed the U.S. Constitution? , I first read this letter decades ago, when I was still a young man, & found it delightfully funny but with more than a few kernels of wisdom now, when some might consider me to be the odd Half of a Pair of Scissars, I cant completely agree with Franklin in regard to marriage making one compleat, but much of the advice in the letter makes sense certainly from the point of view of a cultured 18th century man & every re-reading makes me laugh at Franklins very modern sense of humor! Benjamin and Deborah Franklin spent all but two of their final 17 years apart. William Franklin was Benjamin's first child and his only son to survive into adulthood. Marriage is the proper Remedy. The answer isnt simple. A ship under sail and a big-bellied Woman, / Are the handsomest two things that can be seen common, Benjamin would write in June 1735. In the Autobiography he wrote that he should have beenashamd at seeing Miss Read, had not her Friendspersuaded her to marry another. If he wasnt ashamed, what was he? All rights reserved. Follow your bliss. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. In 1730, when Boston had another outbreak, he used his own newspaper to promote inoculation in Philadelphia because he suspected the disease would spread south. Benjamin Franklin (1819). And in turn, Benjamin wouldn't be liable for the debts of Rogers as Deborah's common-law "husband." . In 1730 he and Meredith were named Pennsylvanias official printers. In June 1728, he launched a printing house with a partner, Hugh Meredith. At some point she was told that Rogers had died in the West Indies, but proving his deathwhich would have freed Deborah to remarry formallywas impractically expensive and a long shot besides. After six months, he and the young woman were in love. Having been to "Hell and back," her passionate writing will inspire, motivate, educate and make you laugh. Franklin had endured sadnessthe death of his brother James, the man who had taught him printing and with whom he had only recently reconciledand a serious health scare, his second serious attack of pleurisy. The budding friendship between the two young people soon developed into mutual attraction. Prose writing became, as he recalled in his Autobiography, of great Use to me in the Course of my Life, and was a principal Means of my Advancement.. Add to Favorite List. Poor Richard's Almanack, p.17, Barnes & Noble Publishing. He even turned them into poetry and then back into prose. Did it render the boy too sick to be inoculated? A Benjamin Franklin Reader, p.53, Simon and Schuster, There is a mistake in the text of this quote, Occupation: Founding Father of the United States. Nothing went as planned. Franklin didnt return Benny Bache to his parents for nine years. Franklin agreed to take custody of the babya gesture as admirable as it was uncommonbut that decision made his need for a wife urgent and finding one problematic. Oh my! Benjamin Franklin pioneered the spirit of self-help in America. ( 337 ) $9.99. The couple had two children. 8) Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. Deborah appears to have embraced it without qualmand over time seems to have accepted it as a surrogate for her son. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Benjamin Franklin Schenck found in Indiana, Select Marriages Index, 1748-1993 Benjamin Franklin Schenck found in 1860 United States Federal Census Benjamin Franklin Schenck found in 1870 United States Federal Census Benjamin Franklin Schenck found in 1850 United States Federal Census Potential photos and documents Benjamin Franklin Schenck Some months later, after a bitter quarrel, Benjamin secretly left home, sure that James would not go to law and reveal the subterfuge he had devised. In May 1771, on a kinder note, he wrote: I am much pleased with the little Histories you give me of your fine Boy.I hope he will be spared, and continue the same Pleasure and Comfort to you, and that I shall ere long partake with you in it., Over time, Benjamin, too, came to regard the grandson he had yet to lay eyes on as a kind of reincarnation of his dead son. Franklin was born the 10th son of the 17 children of a man who made soap and candles, one of the lowliest of the artisan crafts. He was appointed the first postmaster of Philadelphia and was heavily involved in social and political affairs that would eventually lead to the establishment of the United States. A Quick Biography of. In April and July he assured her he would sail shortly. Franklin, Benjamin Date 17 April 1746 Reference Cite as " [Reflections on Courtship and Marriage, 17 April 1746]," Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-03-02-0030. As for the letter, it seems to me he had a lot of experience to be able to go on with so much knowledge. A few months later she pressed him: I hope you will not stay longer than this fall.. Benjamin Franklin was a printer, publisher, author, inventor, scientist, and diplomat. He considered becoming an itinerant teacher of swimming, but, when Thomas Denham, a Quaker merchant, offered him a clerkship in his store in Philadelphia with a prospect of fat commissions in the West Indian trade, he decided to return home. 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