Sexing the Domestic: Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding and the Sexology Movement

Southern Quarterly, Winter 2004 by Patterson, Laura Sloan

The Family Romance

It is important to note that while Ellis and other sexologists were not ready to forsake the moral stance of doctors, they were able to understand the purpose of, and even approve to an extent, the sexual activity of unmarried young girls. In his chapter on "The Biology of Sex," Ellis notes the importance of the early tactile stimulation of young girls as leading to a type of normative sexuality, remarking that "the sexual awakening of girls at puberty shows itself in a desire for kisses and caresses rather than intercourse" (42). While Ellis overlooks the possibility that a young girl, even under a doctor's questioning, might admit only to this type of desire, he displays a progressive attitude in espousing any type of sexuality at all for girls at this age, an age when they were expected to be at the height of their "purity," both sexually and socially.

Welty, too, reflects the changing sexual mores of the period in respect to young girls, again, largely through Shelley, who is constantly made to defend her lack of marriage prospects. Within the "southern belle" ideal, the type of coquetry that leads to multiple dance partners and "harmless" flirtations is tantamount to social success; one who does not have these social skills is viewed as seriously defective. Shelley, as the oldest Fairchild daughter, is quite literally "out of order": she is not marrying on time (as noted by Dr. Murdoch and many others) and her sister has surpassed her. The discomfort with a younger daughter marrying before an older daughter extends beyond Shelley's emotions and the family's questions, however. Dabney seems to compensate for her unease with the disorder in another way. With all of her breathlessness and flushes, combined with her choice of a less than socially suitable groom, it is as if Dabney must over-act to perform the role of the bride. Dabney chooses her groom (and we can assume this choice is Dabn ay's, based on her active social life with other young men), then sexualizes her performance of the bride role5: "How beautiful she was-all flushed and knowing" (19). The combination of these actions hints at a certain urgency of the marriage, a need to prove the "wild" Fairchild women as marriageable and therefore completely socially viable.

Shelley's reaction to the events around her is not what the reader might expect. But what Shelley lacks in outward displays of jealousy she makes up for in her reaction to Dabney's performative, normative sexuality. When Mr. Rondo, the preacher, comes to lunch, the Fairchilds begin the train trestle narrative. For the Fairchilds, this narrative serves as a quick character sketch and family history all rolled into one. It is as if the Fairchilds use this scenario to explain to themselves and to others their quirky brand of loyalty and bravery, as well as their "natural" tendency to become hapless survivors of near-tragedies. They use the story as a kind of boundary marker: Laura wasn't there, therefore she cannot fully participate in the telling or in Shellmound; she will always experience their world as a visitor. Robbie Reid was there but cannot understand. She will always be marked as "family by marriage" and she will never understand the Fairchild creed of loyalty to family and to family "type." George must always play the role of romanticized defender because that is how his family sees him, just as Battle will always be the harried father because to be a Fairchild means a complete willingness to succumb to the "quirk" that has been assigned by the family.