Declared “Unfit for Marriage”: How an 1856 Virginia Father Used Slavery Law, Disability Stigma, and Property Power to Decide His Daughter’s Fate

When a Woman Became a Legal Problem

In antebellum Virginia, marriage was not a romantic milestone. It was a legal safeguard.

A husband meant:

·       Protection under coverture laws

·       Control of property and inheritance

·       Social legitimacy

·       Physical security

For women deemed unmarriageable, the consequences were severe.

This is the story of Elellanena Whitmore, a white, educated, wealthy Virginian woman whose physical disability turned her into a legal liability—and how her father’s desperate solution collided with slavery law, racial hierarchy, and moral contradiction in ways that shocked everyone involved.

I. Disability in the Old South Was a Social Verdict

Virginia, 1856.

At twenty-two years old, Elellanena Whitmore was already considered finished.

Not because she lacked wealth.
Not because she lacked intelligence.
Not even because she lacked family name.

But because she could not walk.

A childhood spinal injury had left her dependent on a wheelchair—an object that, in 19th-century Southern society, symbolized weakness, dependency, and failure.

Disability was not seen as a medical condition.
It was interpreted as moral deficiency.

A woman who could not stand was assumed unable to:

·       Manage a household

·       Bear children safely

·       Represent her husband publicly

·       Fulfill gender expectations

In a society obsessed with female productivity, disability erased desirability.

II. Twelve Proposals, Twelve Rejections

Colonel Richard Whitmore was not an unloving father.

He was a pragmatic one.

A widower, planter, and slaveholder, he controlled:

·       5,000 acres

·       200 enslaved people

·       A fortune rooted in tobacco, land, and inherited power

He also understood Virginia law.

An unmarried disabled woman could not reliably:

·       Inherit property

·       Defend herself legally

·       Maintain social protection after a guardian’s death

So he arranged marriages.

Twelve men.
Four years.
Every rejection more humiliating than the last.

Some were polite.
Others brutally honest.

“She would embarrass me in public.”
“I need a wife who can manage children.”
“What use is a marriage without heirs?”

The whispers grew worse when rumors of infertility—medically false—spread unchecked.

By 1856, Elellanena Whitmore was socially untouchable.

III. The Legal Trap Facing Unmarried Women

Virginia law offered no mercy.

Unmarried women—especially disabled ones—were legally precarious:

·       They depended on male relatives

·       They lacked independent inheritance rights

·       They could be displaced at will

Colonel Whitmore knew the truth his daughter did not yet fully grasp.

When he died, male cousins would inherit everything.

Elellanena would be evicted politely.
Then forgotten.

Marriage was not love.
It was survival.

And when white men refused her, Whitmore turned to the only legal resource society still granted him full authority over:

His enslaved property.

IV. The Radical Decision No One Was Meant to Hear About

In March 1856, Colonel Whitmore made a decision that violated every unspoken rule of Southern respectability.

He assigned his daughter’s care—and protection—to Josiah, an enslaved Black blacksmith known for his enormous physical strength.

Seven feet tall.
Three hundred pounds.
Labeled “the brute.”

The logic was horrifying—and legally sound.

An enslaved man:

·       Could not legally abandon her

·       Could be compelled to physical labor

·       Could protect her body when society would not

·       Had no legal power to refuse

This was not marriage in the eyes of the law.

It was ownership repurposed as guardianship.

V. When Stereotypes Collapsed

What no one expected was Josiah’s mind.

Illiteracy was assumed.
Violence was feared.
Intelligence was denied.

All of it wrong.

Josiah could read—illegally.
He read Shakespeare.
He understood philosophy.
He spoke with insight rarely found in polite society.

What Virginia had labeled a brute was, in reality, a man starved of opportunity.

And what Virginia had labeled worthless was, in reality, a woman of extraordinary intellect.

Two people discarded by the same system—meeting in its blind spot.

VI. When Protection Became Partnership

Their relationship began cautiously.

Then carefully.

Then honestly.

Josiah treated Elellanena with dignity she had never known.
She treated him as a human being in a world that denied his humanity daily.

Affection followed.
Then love.

What society feared most had happened quietly:

·       A disabled white woman found worth

·       An enslaved Black man found recognition

·       Power dynamics inverted

This was not scandalous lust.

It was mutual respect forged under constraint.

VII. Discovery and Reckoning

When Colonel Whitmore discovered the truth, he faced a choice history rarely acknowledges.

He could:

·       Sell Josiah south

·       Destroy his daughter emotionally

·       Restore social order

Or accept the truth his own actions had created.

After weeks of reckoning, Whitmore chose a third path—one few slaveholders ever did.

He freed Josiah.

Legally.
Irrevocably.

Then arranged their marriage beyond Virginia’s jurisdiction.

VIII. Exile as the Price of Freedom

In 1857, Elellanena and Josiah left Virginia forever.

They settled in Philadelphia, where:

·       Josiah opened a blacksmith business

·       Elellanena managed finances and accounts

·       Disability became adaptation, not erasure

·       Freedom became reality, not theory

They built a family.
They built wealth.
They built dignity.

The Old South had called her unmarriageable.

History would call her free.

IX. What This Story Really Reveals

This is not just a love story.

It is a case study in:

·       Disability discrimination

·       Women’s inheritance law

·       American slavery’s moral contradictions

·       Racial hierarchy’s collapse under proximity

·       Legal definitions of personhood

It exposes a truth too often ignored:

The same legal system that enslaved millions also trapped white women—especially disabled ones—inside rigid survival frameworks.

And sometimes, the only escape required breaking every rule.

Conclusion: Who Decides Worth

Elellanena Whitmore was never unmarriageable.

She was simply inconvenient to a society that measured value by physical conformity and control.

Josiah was never a brute.

He was dangerous only to lies that required ignorance to survive.

Together, they exposed the cracks in an entire civilization’s moral foundation.

And history, long after Virginia fell silent, finally listened.