the pre-Civil War era, only about 5% of Southern white women actually lived on plantations, and about half of Southern families did not own any slaves . However, slavery defined everything about life in the South, including the status of white women. Southern culture orbited around the strong father figure, who simultaneously governed and cared for his dependents: Mary Hamilton Campbell was impressed when her servant Eliza referred to Campbell's husband as "our master." Black and white women never seemed to develop any sense of common cause, but every Southern woman, from the plantation wife to the field slave, was assigned a role that involved powerlessness and the need for the constant guidance of a white man . A Southern slaveholder named George Balcombe advised a friend: "Leave the women and the negroes alone. Leave them in their humility, in their grateful affection, in their defeatist loyalty, in their subservience of heart, and let it be your study become worthy of them." be the object of their feelings." Southerners compared themselves to the ancient Romans, another proud slave-owning race. Going back two millennia, they gave their slaves names like Cato and Cicero and celebrated a culture in which families they were strong, men were in charge, and slaves did the physical labor. Women were expected to follow the example of the Roman matron, who presided over the hearth, cared for the children, and entertained her husband's guests They, of course, could not stay at home. They worked as seamstresses and laundresses, often to support a family where the man had run away or failed in his duties as breadwinner. Slave women were expected to work with their men in the fields But the plantation wives, who set the tone for Southern culture, despite their small numbers, did not do physical housework. Their letters, filled with accounts of gardening, smoking meat, cooking, and sewing, they actually referred to the work done by the slaves, which the white mistress supervised. The overwhelming impression of the lives of most plantation wives is one of isolation. When Anne Nichols moved to her husband's estate in Virginia, she wrote that it was "absolutely as far away from everything...as if I were in a lonely grave." Homes were far apart, and Southern customs prohibited women from traveling alone or even with another woman. “It is quite out of our power to travel any distance this summer as we have no gentlemen to accompany us,” wrote one stranded plunatation lover.