The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #133094 Message #3026250
Posted By: Gibb Sahib
07-Nov-10 - 07:40 PM
Thread Name: To 'marry out of hand'
Subject: RE: To 'marry out of hand'
The fact that only three of us seem to have any interest in what the song says seems significant.
! Well, the ~three~ is pretty incidental! Mostly you've got people like me, on the sidelines, who assume they know what the song says, and they are content with it!
Back when the issue of "good usage" was raised, I started to post on that, but then deleted it. Basically, I wouldn't have been adding anything by way of evidence, just by way of personal feeling -- similar to the way my personal feeling (i.e. while singing/performing the song) is that "out of hand" connotes not only "immediately" but also "unusually casually". No need to muck up "good usage" with another one of my idiosyncratic and purely personal experienced-based interpretations :)
But as I see we are building an army and more soldiers are needed... then I will chime in and say that my original feeling about the line is exactly as Lighter says:
Personally I think reading sex into the line "she gave us all good usage" is historically implausible and undermines the tone and seriousness of the whole song in a number of ways.
I have no evidence for how the phrase "good usage" may have been used in 19th century texts. But as I sing the song, I understand it to mean "good treatment" -- and by that I understand it to be that she was kind to the men, by way of providing small comforts (not sexual) -- a cup of cool water, a blanket, even a kind smile.
It is out of character of the song to talk of sexual favours. Given the context, the convicts were suffering so badly aboard the ship, that their very basic comforts and immediate needs would have been the concern. While the make crew would have taken a generally cold attitude towards the convicts, the woman (who was not occupied with other duties) could have attended to small ways to alleviate their condition.
The song could just talk about pain and suffering, but by adding the female characters in, it gives more a feeling of not only the physical but also the sentimental hardships...the (female) warmth that would be missed.