In Mere Equals, Lucia McMahon narrates a story about how a generation of young women who enjoyed access to new educational opportunities made sense of their individual and social identities in an American nation marked by stark political inequality between the sexes. McMahon's archival research into the private documents of middling and well-to-do Americans in northern states illuminates educated women's experiences with particular life stages and relationship arcs: friendship, family, courtship, marriage, and motherhood. In their personal and social relationships, educated women attempted to live as the "mere equals" of men. Their often frustrated efforts reveal how early national Americans grappled with the competing issues of women's intellectual equality and sexual difference.

Introduction: Between Cupid and Minerva1. "More like a Pleasure than a Study": Women's Educational Experiences2. "Various Subjects That Passed between Two Young Ladies of America": Reconstructing Female Friendship3. "The Social Family Circle": Family Matters4. "The Union of Reason and Love": Courtship Ideals and Practices5. "The Sweet Tranquility of Domestic Endearment": Companionate Marriage6. "So Material a Change": Revisiting Republican MotherhoodConclusion: Education, Equality, or DifferenceList of ArchivesNotesIndex