Older women: did you have a hope chest? Did your mother or grandmother?
Do you even know what a hope chest is (or was)?
Does anyone still have them?
My mother, a pretty conservative, traditional woman from the southeastern U.S., encouraged me to have one, at least conceptually; I think she meant a trousseau, because I didn’t actually have a wooden box. (“Every girl should have a hope chest.”) I never got further than collecting one pair of pillowcases with lace edging crocheted by my grandmother, one china teapot, and a pair of bookends.
On the other hand, by the time I got married I’d been on my own for 10 years and had my own decently furnished and equipped apartment, so it wasn’t as if I contributed no material belongings to the marriage. But the idea of a “hope chest” was completely irrelevant and forgotten.
Tags as I wrote them: marriage, trousseau, dowry, hope chest, social customs.
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