FLEXIBLE GENDER-ROLES DURING THE MARKET REVOLUTION - FAMILY, FRIENDSHIP, MARRIAGE, AND MASCULINITY AMONG US ARMY OFFICERS, 1815-1846

This article examines the gendered dimensions of U.S. Army officers' relationships with family wives and male friends. While not political feminists, many of these men were open to more flexible gender roles than those of the separate spheres. They supported their sisters' aspirations for education and economic success and some wrote to them about politics and military affairs. Other officers formed in intimate homosocial networks and spoke in ''feminine'' language to one another. Officers did not try to escape women by serving on the western frontier; most married, seeking companionship as much as patriarchy. As fathers, officers stressed duty using the language of affection. These patterns were due more to dissimilarities than to similarities between officers and the commercial and professional middle class of which they were generally a part Officers were motivated by a desire for security rather than competition; their professional ideology stressed service and obligation (''duty'') to others; and their positions were highly secure during an era of economic tumult. These characteristics may have disposed them reward an easier acceptance of intimacy and female activism than men competing in the marketplace.