I Am Beautiful: A Celebration of Women in Their Own Words

After her husband's attack, Margaret Mitchell bought a small pistoland kept it on her bedside table until his death in 1949.Like the heroine of any good romance novel, PeggyMitchell threw in her lot with love and adventure. Defyingher father and brother and flouting social convention, shemarried Red Upshaw, as likely an anti-hero for her plot asany of the sons of the South. Red, a devastatingly handsomerake with a reputation for womanizing, had droppedout of college and was supporting himself by bootleggingliquor. But there had been more to Red than just the outlawimage. He was the only boyfriend of Peggy's who ever encouragedher rebelliousness, laughing at her risque jokesand never criticizing her for drinking or smoking. It wasobvious to Peggy that the two of them were meant for eachother.But real life is not a novel, and as the spunky heroine ofher own script, Peggy Mitchell never dreamed that herdaredevil marriage would end in attempted rape, a facedisfigured with cuts and bruises, a sordid divorce and aswift retreat into a safe, but suffocating second marriage.Before this second marriage, she made one more attemptto emulate the heroines of a romance novel. The winterafter the assault, she booked passage for Cuba, planning towork her way to the Canal Zone, Honolulu and Tahiti. Butshe was totally unprepared for the sexual predation thatawaits the single woman travelling alone. If chivalry wasnot dead in upper-class Atlanta, it certainly was in thestreets of Havana, and the flirtatious charm that she had assumedas part of her personality was not a distinct liability.She aborted the trip, returned home and married JohnMarsh.And John was a good rescuer. But rescuers exact a price,and although he was neither a violent nor a passionateman, John Marsh had pressured Peggy to quit her job as astar reporter for the Atlanta journal. Childless by choice, shehad enjoyed the fast pace, the challenging assignments andthe social life of a journalist. But even as a staff reporter, shehad not been able to escape the stigma of her gender. Shewas frequently required to write stories like "Should HusbandsSpank Their Wives?" or "How A Perfect Lady RefusesA Proposal." The one time she had been given free reinto write a series profiling some of the strong women inGeorgia's history, the paper cancelled the articles. It seemsthat her real-life heroines had been too "mannish," too unladylike,and too violent for the readers' tastes.After leaving the journal, Peggy embarked on a career asa professional invalid, developing agoraphobic symptomsand a number of physical conditions, both diagnosed andundiagnosed, that were to plague her for the rest of her life.Outnumbered, wounded and badly demoralized, there wasnothing to do except to sound a retreat. And so PeggyMitchell turned inward to the world of her imagination,where she could live all the romance her heart desiredthrough her impetuous and indomitable alter-ego, ScarlettO'Hara. And for seven years she did just that.Peggy Mitchell reinvented herself in the pages of her historicnovel. She rewrote life the way she thought it shouldhave been, and she did it persuasively: The dashing andsexually charismatic alcoholic really was the right man afterall. The attempted rape was only the natural surge of anS p r i n g 1997 • O N T H E ISSUESanimal passion that would sweep up both husband andwife and carry them beyond their pride and their personalitiesto some transcendental realm of psycho-spiritualbonding. The philandering, alcoholic bootlegger only neededthe responsibilities of fatherhood to transform him intoa sober and upstanding citizen. And when the heroinefound herself suffering from the after-effects of the night ofpassion (a later miscarriage of the fetus conceived thatnight), her penitent husband kept watch night and day outsidethe door of the sickroom, racked with guilt that heshould have been the cause of her pain, and waiting anxiouslyfor word that she might forgive him.IN REALITY, PASSION HAD HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THEattempted rape. The marriage had been a disaster fromthe honeymoon. Possibly in a move to curb Red's violence,Peggy had insisted that they both live in her father'shouse. Married in September 1922, they were separated byJuly. Three months later, Red drove up unexpectedly to thedoor. Peggy spoke with him briefly and then invited himinto the house. In the divorce deposition, Peggy stated that"Mr. Upshaw demanded his connubial rights after strikingme with his fist upon my left arm..." She refused on thegrounds that she feared he would treat her in a "cruel andinhumane manner." Her counsel stated that he "jerked heragainst the bed, causing her to be bruised all over herbody." Peggy fought him off, screaming for help. BessieBerry, her housekeeper, appeared in the doorway as Redwas leaving the bedroom. Peggy in tears, ran after him,yelling at him to get out of the house. At that, her husbandturned around and punched her full in the face.Unlike Rhett, Red did not set up a vigil outside his wife'ssickroom door. Instead of going to the hospital, Red paid avisit to his friend John Marsh, who would soon becomePeggy's second husband. He asked John to serve as a gobetweenin negotiating an agreement whereby he wouldnot contest a divorce if she would not file criminal charges.Peggy, unlike Scarlett, did not awake the next day to the realizationthat she loved her husband. She woke up withtwo black eyes, a sense of terror she was to carry with herfor the rest of her life, and a sense of profound humiliation.Far from hoping her husband would visit, she purchased asmall pistol and kept it on her bedside table until receivingnews of Red's death in 1949. A vagrant alcoholic, he leapedfrom the fifth floor of a flop-house hotel in Galveston.Why the lies? How could Peggy Mitchell bring herself toglorify the most traumatic and degrading episode of herlife? Perhaps the question is not "How could she?" but"What else could she do?"Marital rape was not even recognized as criminal. Therewere no shelters, no crisis hot lines, no rape advocates, noliterature on the subject, no television talk shows. Althoughher family had disapproved of the marriage, they considereddivorce the ultimate disgrace. Peggy's friends had allwarned her against Red, so she was understandably reluctantto appeal to them for support, at risk of hearing howshe had "made her bed and could lie in it." Peggy and Redseparated with no closure. He didn't visit the hospital, he35