Robert Todd Lincoln --The vitals

[RJNorton]

(01-28-2018 09:40 PM)Anita Wrote:  Were Mary and Lincoln often alone together? As mentioned in this thread, some believed Lincoln married Mary because she was pregnant based upon Robert's birth being 9 months from the day of the wedding. I was under the impression that in the Victorian era single women were chaperoned.

(01-29-2018 04:03 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  We call that a "praline wedding" (bride with sweet filling). However, Robert's birthday more perfectly matches wedding night.

I would think they were mostly alone. And after the "break-up" allegedly secretly met at the home of Simeon Francis and his wife. Weik later tried to get details from Eliza Rumsey Francis but she refused to share.

Anita and Eva, about 10 years ago I received a lot of emails on this very question. Most of the emails were related to one book: Janis Cooke Newman's MARY Mrs A Lincoln. The book is historical fiction, and I believe it sold quite well. Typical of the emails I received was this statement from a lady who wrote me: "I am very uncomfortable with some of the authors assertions about Mary's sexual life. She insinuates that Mary purposely loses her virginity to make Mr. Lincoln marry her. She suggests that act resulted in the birth of Robert."

Most all the emails I received were from people who liked the book as a whole, but who were upset with Newman's analysis of the quick wedding.

https://www.amazon.com/Mary-Lincoln-Jani...015603347X

Roughly at the same time another book came out that apparently suggests similar (but I received only one email on this book). The novel was called "The Emancipator's Wife" and is written by Barbara Hambly. The email I received said, "It is a novel, I understand, but it "suggests" that Mary tricked Lincoln into marrying her by seducing him and then the very next day told him she was with child. Is there any evidence at all that she had done such a thing?"

https://www.amazon.com/Emancipators-Wife...0553585657

Dr. Wayne Temple has also suggested the possibility. See pp. 27-28 of his Abraham Lincoln: From Skeptic to Prophet. Dr. Temple writes:

"Those inquisitive, prying and meddlesome Springfield busybodies, who always counted on fingers until the first child was born, must have gossiped behind closed doors about the Lincolns...Robert Todd Lincoln arrived promptly on August 1, 1843, exactly nine months to the day after the unexpected marriage of his unlike parents."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-...e-marriage

Many feel the topic itself should be taboo, but we have had authors openly write about it, and this gets people wondering and asking.