Amelia Earhart's Letter to Husband From 1931 Suggests They Had Open Relationship

Amelia Earhart is remembered for many things, but the ins-and-out of her marriage is not one of them, which is just the way she wanted it, according to a letter sent to her husband George P. Putnam.

Pioneering aviatrix Earhart's letter outlying her idea of what their marriage will be has resurfaced online after NBC's resident presidential historian Michael Beschloss shared it on Twitter.

After tweeting an image of Earhart's trip to the White House in 1932, the same year she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, Beschloss went on to share an image of the letter, gaining over 2,000 likes.

The letter itself was written in 1931, just before their marriage and it is little-known, likely in part to its publication being in an out-of-print book titled Letters from Amelia.

Readers have been both intrigued and entertained by Earhart's matter-of-fact attitude to how she sees their marriage and future together. Penning letters may be a forgotten communication, but their relationship seemed to be that of a very modern one—an open relationship of sorts, with Earhart denying them to be considered "bound" to one another.

"There are some things which should be writ before we are married — things we have talked over before — most of them," she began the letter.

"You must know again my reluctance to marry, my feelings that I shatter thereby chances in work which means most to me. I feel the move just now as foolish as anything I could do. I know there may be compensations but have no heart to look ahead.

On our life together I want you to understand I shall not hold you to any midaevil code of faithfulness to me nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. If we can be honest I think the difficulties which arise may be best avoided should you or I become interested deeply (or in passing) in anyone else.

Please let us not interfere with the others' work or play, not let the world see our private joys or disagreements. In this connection I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself, now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinements of even an attractive cage.

I must exact a cruel promise and that is if you will let me go in a year if we find no happiness together.

I will try to do my best in every way and give you that part of me you know and seem to want."

Earhart did marry Putnam, an established American publisher, in 1931 and not only made it past their one-year-long trial period, but stayed married until she went missing during a flight in 1937.

The letter has split readers with different opinions on what it suggests about her feelings towards Putman.

"That's a letter from a woman who was not in love and is doing her best to make him call it off. You can feel her regret that she agreed to this union. How sad," wrote one Twitter user.

Others, however, felt the letter simply showed a realist, with different views on what a traditional marriage should be for a woman at the time.

"I think it's a letter from a woman whose vision of love and marriage was very much her own, and differed from the prevailing sentiment," countered another reader.

"She was looking for strong equal footing. Not the traditional BS on what marriage meant for women in those days, and apparently the same to some people in this day and time," added another.