Year of Publication
2025
College
Undergraduate Education
Abstract
In 1928, the Carter Family released “Single Girl, Married Girl.” The recording featured only Sara and Maybelle Carter, and in three short stanzas, highlighted the vastly differing lives of the single girl, who dressed fine and went where she pleased, and the married girl, with a baby on her knee, who rocked the cradle and cried. Sara and Maybelle Carter weren’t the only people who knew this song – before they recorded it for Ralph Peer at the famous Bristol sessions, it was alive as a part of musical traditions not just in their home in Scott County, Virginia, but across the Appalachian region. The Roud Folk Song Index, which catalogs English-language folk songs, lists this tradition as #436, “Single Girl.” Due to processes of oral tradition, virtually no version of Roud #436 is exactly the same, or even shares the same title. Common titles within this tradition include “When I Was Single,” “I Wish I Was a Single Girl Again,” or simply “Single Girl.” However, different iterations within the same tradition often share lyrical trademarks allowing them to be grouped, categorized, and described. This paper refers to the entire Roud #436 tradition collectively as “single girl” songs. This is not, to my knowledge, a category in standard use by scholars or performers, but a term I utilize to refer to the Roud #436 tradition and describe the tradition’s focus on married women reflecting on their days as a “single girl.” Versions of the Roud #436 tradition had been recorded by early country artists including Vernon Dalhart and Kelly Harrell beginning in 1925, about three years prior to the Carter Family’s “Single Girl, Married Girl.” The Carter Family’s version was not the end of the tradition, either—folk song collection efforts by the WPA show variants of Roud #436 were still alive in the Appalachians during the Great Depression, and they enjoyed a new life during the American Folk Revival. 2 “Single girl” songs represent an institution of marriage that has changed vastly over time. Early versions (1900s-1940s) focus primarily on the hardships of rural life on housewives and mothers raising children in poverty, sometimes in relationships where they experienced domestic abuse or violence, and almost always experiencing a lack of security and agency. The Carter Family’s “Single Girl, Married Girl” is lyrically sparser than many versions from this era, but is similar in its themes and tone. Beginning in 1939, more lighthearted, almost comedic versions crop up, focusing on disagreements between the central married couple, unpleasant aspects of caring for children, and stricter gender roles surrounding women’s role in the home. Other versions from this era continue to reflect the form and melodies characteristic of the earliest commercially available recordings, along with versions recorded by early collectors. In the late 1950s and on, versions performed primarily by folklorists and artists involved with the folk revival take on a more somber tone, utilizing the same sets of lyrical motifs as early versions, but generally sung slower, with more romanticized melodies and stripped-down instrumentation. This essay examines the “single girl” song as a female-narrated folk song tradition that describes differences in narrator’s life before and after marriage, specifically the ways in which being married has negatively impacted her financial security, personal agency, and overall wellbeing. Specifically, this refers to songs within the Roud #436 category, as well as their roots in broadside ballad traditions and context in contemporaneous female-narrated folk song traditions. The modern “single girl” tradition is centered primarily in Appalachia, but examples have been surveyed coming from all over the United States, with early written examples dating from 1904. The tradition spans the length of the 20th century and has persisted into the 21st, with new versions recorded as lately as 2023. These songs pose questions about the lives of married women (specifically Appalachian women) in early 20th century America. This analysis also 3 explores reasons for the persistence and continued relevance of this tradition, while aiming to understand how it has changed over time in relationship to differing social and political contexts. The longevity of any folk tradition begs the questions of why and how it has persisted: which sentiments pervade in our collective conscience over time can tell us something important about ourselves and our society. Utilizing Cecil Sharp’s idea of communal effort, this examination aims to understand processes through which the traditions in question have both been changed and kept alive over time. Folk song, as a form of expression reliant on shared memory and existing outside increasingly commercialized mainstream music, can provide a candid medium for singers to record their own lives and perspectives and actively retell traditionally under-recorded or misrepresented stories. I argue that the continued tradition of “single girl” songs has allowed a documentation of women’s lived experiences even as their roles and realities have changed over time and across geographical regions. Examining the ways in which these song traditions have varied based on era and location, from the British Isles to Appalachia and the American West, can help us understand how economic and social forces shape the ways women operate in and are affected by patriarchal realities. This paper considers political and cultural context to the song traditions discussed to specifically analyze changes in their purpose and significance over time. This analysis also taps into the unique power of folk song as a vehicle for generational knowledge, especially among women. While this concept has been explored in depth in scholarship on the murder ballad genre, less attention has been paid to the wide variety of traditions that represent this power outside of a lens of sexual violence. In exploring one such tradition, this paper aims to address the gap in scholarship addressing the ways this process of 4 oral tradition within folk music has both documented and guided the lives of women as individuals with their own agency, experiences, and obligations.
Recommended Citation
Schanbacher, Avery, "“Single Girl, Married Girl:” Female Perspectives on Marriage, Maidenhood, and Motherhood in English-Language Folk Music" (2025). Gaines Fellow Senior Theses. 29.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/gaines_theses/29
