A North Star Called Marmee

Little Women is one of the most famous pieces of literature in the English canon. It is taught in schools and passed from parent to child as a loving gift or family heirloom. Even those who are not deep readers have some idea of the adventures shared by Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. The many film adaptations have only increased our interest in returning to the original classic.

We celebrate Jo’s courage and fiery personality. We laugh at the antics of Amy as she attempts to find her way in a rapidly changing world. We grieve Beth as she struggles with an illness and, ultimately, succumbs to it. But behind all of these iconic characters stands a voice of reason, a North Star guiding them all: Marmee March.

All great novels have a Marmee March, a guide. These are the characters whose influence we sometimes fail to notice until we see how their actions have shaped the ending. Quiet as they might have been for the forty chapters of drama, by the end it is inconceivable that the novel could have taken place without them.

In novels, as in real life, there is often a person behind the successes or failures of our protagonists. This wise man or woman offers comfort and sage advice when the protagonist finds themselves in a crisis. Sometimes they are the ones quietly pulling the strings, shaping the people around them without ever demanding the spotlight for themselves.

Little Women’s wise woman, without a doubt, is Marmee. Whenever her daughters find themselves in one of their famous mishaps, she is ready with a word of advice or a life lesson that will ease their mortification or strengthen them to move forward with the choices they have made.

Without Marmee, Little Women would be a very different story. Imagine Little Women if Marmee did not hold this worldview:

“I’d rather see you as the happy wives of poor men, or even respectable old maids, than queens on thrones without peace or self-respect.”

That single conviction changes everything. Marmee does not raise her daughters to pursue wealth, status, beauty, or even marriage for its own sake. She raises them to become women who know their own worth. Whatever happens to them, she wants them to have something that cannot be given to them by a husband, a fortune, or a place in society: self-respect.

Who Was Abby May?

It is natural that Mrs. March should be such an important presence in the March household. Louisa May Alcott herself had a very special relationship with her own mother, Abby May. In the biography Marmee and Louisa, Eve LaPlante explores this relationship in depth, and I believe it is an important book for any admirer of Alcott to read.

Because Louisa’s writing career has so often been discussed alongside the work and philosophy of her father, Bronson Alcott, it can seem as though Abby May has disappeared from the story.

But many mothers prefer to care for their children and help build their lives from a place in the shadows, allowing their sons and daughters to grow—and even make mistakes—on their own.

Of Louisa’s two parents, Abby May was clearly the one of saner mind. While Bronson was off preaching his strange philosophy and planning the Fruitlands plantation, Abby May was worrying about how she was going to raise her four young daughters into strong women. Many times, Bronson went away on “work trips” and returned home with little to show for them.

When, in Little Women, Mrs. March is the parent who is most present, we have to ask ourselves: Is that a coincidence?

Louisa May loved her father, but can a woman who endured so many struggles as a child truly bear to put Bronson and Abby May on the same level?

How Abby May Survives in Marmee

Abby May may have disappeared somewhat from the popular story of the Alcott family, but she did not disappear from her daughter’s imagination. She survives in Little Women as Marmee, the doting mother who can keep a home in her husband’s absence—and yet is not above letting her daughters make mistakes and learn from them.

Marmee is the person who holds the family together when circumstances threaten to pull it apart. She manages the household, comforts her daughters, disciplines them when necessary, and—perhaps most importantly—teaches them that becoming a good woman requires more than being obedient or pleasant.

But, in my opinion, the most important thing Marmee did was allow her daughters to become their own people. We can see in each of the four March girls that they developed different passions, qualities, and tempers. Marmee never insists that one daughter must become like another. She meets her girls where they are.

She knows that Meg does not have to be Jo, that Beth does not have to be Amy, and that each of them will have to discover her own way of becoming a woman. Marmee gives them guidance without trying to live their lives for them.

She doesn’t only guide Jo through anger, but confesses that she can relate to it:

“I am angry nearly every day of my life, Jo, but I’ve learned not to show it. And I still hope not to feel it.”

Marmee understands that Jo is a soul who can lose her temper with ease, and reminds her that words said in anger cannot be taken back. Meg, who recalls a life before the Marches fell into poverty, continues to live with vanity in her soul. Marmee is sympathetic to her nostalgia, but reminds her that it is possible—and necessary—to be happy with what we have.

Amy is spoiled and thoughtless. Beth, quieter than her sisters, must learn to confront the limitations imposed upon her by her own nature and circumstances. Each of the four girls is a challenge of her own, and Marmee takes on this challenge with joy.

She even opens her heart to Laurie, the neighbor boy who does not have a mother figure of his own.

We All Need Marmee

Abby May Alcott had a unique sort of love herself. Even when her husband returned from his long business trips with little to show for them, she welcomed him into the home with tender arms. She taught her daughters to respect him and even followed him when he came up with new schemes, absurd as they might have been. Her love for him did not mean she could not see his faults. Perhaps it meant that she understood how to love someone while seeing them clearly.

In Little Women, Marmee is absent in the first chapter because she has gone to visit her husband, who is ill in the hospital in Washington, D.C. We all remember the opening pages of Little Women: “How dreadful it is to be poor!” And we remember the lengths to which the March girls go together to ensure that their mother’s homecoming is warm and comfortable.

In raising her four daughters to be themselves, seeing their strengths as well as their weaknesses, Marmee also saw us. We, the readers, might not have realized at the time of reading how special Marmee was becoming to us. Now I’m in my thirties, and I realize that she is one of the most sensible women I’ve ever “met.”

Aspire to Be Like Marmee

Perhaps this is why, as I grow older, I find myself admiring Marmee more than I did when I first encountered Little Women. As a girl, I understood that she was kind. As a woman, I realize that kindness was only the beginning.

Marmee was patient without being passive. She was loving without being indulgent. She knew her daughters intimately—their weaknesses as well as their gifts—and she never seemed to confuse loving them with pretending they had no faults.

Most importantly, she wanted them to become women in their own right. She did not need them to follow the same path she had followed. She did not need them to make the choices she would have made. She simply wanted them to become women who could stand firmly on their own feet, make their own choices, and live with peace and self-respect.

We do not all have four daughters to raise, or a March household to manage, or a husband away in Washington. But we all have people whose lives we touch. We can be the person who offers wisdom when someone is ashamed of a mistake. We can be the person who reminds a young woman that her life does not have to look like anyone else’s. We can make room for people to become themselves.

Abby May gave Louisa an example of that kind of woman. Louisa gave that example to the world in Marmee. And more than a century later, Marmee is waiting for us in the pages of Little Women, reminding us of what a woman can be.

Marilla Cuthbert taught Anne that family can be formed from people we’ve never met before. Marmee taught her daughters that sisterhood, in this case bound by blood, can be stronger than any quarrel. Indeed, there are many ways to be a family.

May we all have a Marmee who will give advice like this:

“Oh, Jo. Jo, you have so many extraordinary gifts; how can you expect to lead an ordinary life? You’re ready to go out and—and find a good use for your talent. … Go, and embrace your liberty. And see what wonderful things come of it.”

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