“Bless your beautiful hide.  Prepare to bend your knee and take that vow, ’cause I’m tellin’ you now you’re the gal for me!” (Johnny Mercer, Gene DePaul 1954)

No bouquets, shared jokes, or attempts to please her parents, just a simple statement and an expectation of acceptance.

The man’s vision is clear.  He has his eye on a prize.  For Oklahoma cowboy Curley it’s a date to the box-social with Miss Laurey Williams.  For Backwoodsman Adam, it’s a wife.

Welcome to the May - June  2023 Edition  ~ Love in a Man’s World ~ Oklahoma and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ~.

A world of hard work  (farming, logging, cattle rustling) that leaves little time for co’rtin’.  (Adam to Millie:  “I’ve gotta be home to tend to my stock.  It’ll be another five months before I get down again with my grain.  You gonna keep me waiting that five months just for your pride?”).  However, Curly does find a brief moment to make up a few “purties” about The Surrey With The Fringe on the Top that leads Laurey to believe he’s a liar.

Although characterized as a liar, neither Curley nor Adam sees themselves this way.  Curley may fantasize about snow, white horses, and long nighttime rides to get close to Laurey.  Adam may omit some harsher details about life on the mountain.  He may:  Encourage his brothers to read the Sobbin Women tails and take what they wish (kidnapping the girls) and dismiss Millie when she scolds him about how he treats the girls.  (“You’re takin’ this too hard.  Everything’s gonna work out fine!  Me and the boys get a parson up here someway.”). 

These men are not well-versed in the art of wooing women.  They do not have the style and vocabulary of a Don Hughes or the charisma of a Tommie Albright.  They are simple men who see marriage as an agreement between men and women to build a future.  Love is an afterthought.

Not until other men attempt to buy their affections or spirit them away from their homes do these men see the value of a “good woman.” Adam is willing to swap his gun and mule for a woman who will say, “I do,” but it’s Curly who does it. 

In a bidding war for Laurey’s affections (masked as a monetary war for her picnic basket at the boxed social), Curley offers his saddle, horse, and gun as “payment” and wins the fight and the girl. 

Following a winter’s separation, Adam returns to his brothers, the brides, and Millie, who has borne a daughter.  With Hannah’s birth, Adam discovers a greater understanding of his part in kidnapping the girls.  (“I got to thinkin’ about the baby and how I’d feel if someone came and carried her off.  I’d string ‘em up from the nearest tree.”) and a  blossoming love for Millie.  (“When you’re in love, really in love.”) 

Bolstered by this insight, he confronts his brothers and discourages a fight ordering them to return the girls to their families.  (“Don’t you know?  Taking them back is the only way you’re gonna get them?”)

As the brothers gather, the girls, who refuse to return home, their families climb the mountain, preparing for a fight.  To avoid a feud and get what they want, each girl professes to be the mother of the “wee babe” crying from the cabin and becomes the bride she wishes to be.

As each story ends, each man has the woman he needs to build a bright future, and each woman has found the love she wants in Man’s World.

~~Lori