Call Your Daughter Home

The judgmental behavior and conspiracy of silence within the Branchville community is symptomatic of the wider values of the American South, known as the Southern Culture of Honor. This was particularly prominent during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the time in which the novel is set. One of the book’s characters sums up the attitude, saying, “Polite make-believe is weary business, and there is no one better at this than Southerners” (320).

Honor culture in the South rests on the importance of a person’s reputation. Damage to someone’s reputation has real-world consequences, including creating a stigma that can follow a family for generations. For this reason, members of this society maintain a façade of proper behavior at all times. The novel’s three protagonists go to great lengths to preserve their respectability: Gertrude is afraid to be seen in town with a black eye. Retta is defensive when her Black neighbors disapprove of her harboring a sick white child under her roof. Annie would rather starve herself to death than have anyone know about her husband’s pedophilia.

In the tightly knit, clannish communities of the South, social ostracism can cause damage that goes well beyond hurt feelings. Gertrude’s outcast status initially brings her family to the point of starvation and death. Mrs. Walker’s guilt by association with a husband in prison banishes her to the fringes of the community. Buck Coles’s unwillingness to speak about his father’s abuse causes him to die by suicide rather than tarnish his family’s reputation.

While gossip thrives sub rosa, no one is willing to speak publicly about a person’s shortcomings. Serious crimes go unacknowledged, and exaggerated politeness becomes more important than telling the truth. Exposing scandal is a dangerous business in an honor culture, because the person accused must defend their honor, often through violence. Before the Civil War, dueling to defend one’s honor or the honor of a woman was a common practice among men in the South. Remnants of this can be seen when Edwin draws a pistol and is prepared to kill anyone who casts doubt on his good name. He nearly kills his son Lonnie and actually does kill Retta when she calls him out for his crimes.