Lydian Jackson Emerson, 1802 - 1892

Tragically, Ralph Waldo Emerson's first wife, Ellen Louisa Tucker, died from tuberculosis in 1831 after only two years of marriage.  His second wife, Lydian Jackson Emerson, was a devout Christian, witty conversationalist, feisty debater, and a member of the Transcendental Club when it met in the Emerson home.  A major influence on her husband's thought, she offered trenchant commentary on passing affairs and once wrote of the excesses of American Transcendentalism in a text called "the Transcendental Bible."  She opposed slavery, supported women's suffrage, and considered marriage to an unfit mate to be tantamount to slavery--holding that a childless woman would perhaps do well not to marry.