There is a book out, and the movie has also just recently come out. "The Homesman" by Glendon Swarthout. It details the hardships of the women when they went with their spouses to the "West". It is a gritty, ultra-sad tale of what happens in many cases to the women, most who married young, and undertook this "great adventure". Then they began having children. They had no idea of what hardships would befall them..backbreaking labor, terrible winters, lack of food, Indians, claim jumpers. I think the movie is probably going to be Oscar fodder for the female lead, Hilary Swank, and possibly for Tommy Lee Jones. It is not a happy book by any means, but well written and details a "procedure" that I had never heard about (I use procedure because I can't think of the appropriate word right now!) It's more like a social or legal thing.