17 th Century. Overview, North versus South North = Massachusetts Bay Colony, Pennsylvania, Maine,...
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Gender in British North America 17 th Century
17 th Century. Overview, North versus South North = Massachusetts Bay Colony, Pennsylvania, Maine, etc. –Families –Intentional Communities (utopian goals)
Religious beliefs Protestant and Catholic religious beliefs shape ideas about proper role of women Sin of Eve means all women untrustworthy Eve’s disobedience to God means she should be under the authority of Adam to limit her potential for transgression Paul: “women should keep silence in the churches” – taken to mean women should not teach, nor hold authority over men in church
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Gender in British North America17th Century
–Families
–Single (wealthy) males
–Slaves
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Religious beliefs
Protestant and Catholic religious beliefs shape ideas about proper
role of women
Sin of Eve means all women untrustworthy
Eve’s disobedience to God means she should be under the authority
of Adam to limit her potential for transgression
Paul: “women should keep silence in the churches” – taken to mean
women should not teach, nor hold authority over men in church
Religious beliefs
Patriarchy is the biblically ordained social order and correctly
expressed in all things from the home to church to the state
Within a patriarchy, people need to understand their place within
it, act accordingly, and structure their expectations to meet their
role
Legal status
Married women are “feme covert”
no legal identity after marriage (legal status “covered” by their
husbands’ = “two become one”)
Not able to own personal property – what she brings into the
marriage belongs to husband (can be seized for debts, etc)
May own real estate, but cannot control it
“feme sole traders” or deputy husbands in extreme
circumstances
Single women are “feme sole” with the same legal rights as men, no
political rights
Legal status
Dower Rights
Set amount (usually 1/3) of “life interest” in her husband’s real
property after his death
e.g. can have 1/3 harvest from farm
Called “widow’s thirds”
Inheritance generally goes to eldest son unless will declares
otherwise
Wealthy fathers may try to protect daughter’s inheritance
Poor Laws
Destitute widows or orphans (mainly) must be cared for by the
community
Puritan beliefs
Individual bible study and interpretation
Constant self-examination and policing
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Puritans and Women’s Souls
Patriarchal authority through the church (St. Paul’s edict: “Let
the women keep silent in the churches.” -- 1 Corinthians
14:34)
Anne Hutchinson told: "You have stepped out of your place, you have
rather been a husband than a wife, and a preacher than a
hearer.“
Puritan belief: "the soul consists of two portions, inferior and
superior; the superior is masculine and eternal; the feminine
inferior and mortal."
Puritan families
Individual congregations, whose leaders have demonstrated their
conversions, agreed that the Gospel would be preached and
discipline maintained among the congregation, then God would bestow
“saving grace” within the church.
“National” covenant means Puritans also apply these ideas about
covenant and mutual assent to state
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Puritan families
Coming from stratified society where status and its meaning are
vital: deference, respect, order
Somewhat mitigated by fact many arriving initially from middle
strata of English society
Family is core of Puritan society – mirrors larger society and
prepares members for Godly lives (as befits saints)
Familial hierarchy and recognition of place in it vital to
understanding of larger society and individual
responsibilities/order: family covenant
Orderly families = orderly society
In fact, Puritans leaving are worried over new “landless class” and
worried about possible breakdowns of English social order.
Master, misstress, goodwife, etc.
John Winthrop, from “A Model of Christian Charity” 1630
God Almighty…hath so disposed of the condition of mankind [that]
some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and
dignity; others mean and in subjection…
The Reason Hereof:...so that the rich and mighty might not eat up
the poor, nor the poor and despised rise up against their superiors
and shake off their yoke; second, in the regenerate in exercising
His graces in them, as in the great ones their love, mercy,
gentleness, temperance, &c.; in the poor and inferior sort,
their faith, patience, obedience, &c.....
When God gives us a special commission He wants it strictly
observed in every article....
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Puritan families
“…a familie is a little Church, and a little common-wealth, at
least a lively representation thereof, whereby triall may be made
of such as are fit for any place of authoritie, or of subjection in
Church or commonwealth. Or rather it is as a schoole wherein the
first principles and grounds of government and subjection are
learned: whereby men are fitted to greater matters in Church or
common-wealth.” William Gouge, Of Domesticall Duties (1622)
William Gouge (1575-1653)
Cohort to MA includes preachers, merchants, primarily
families
2:3 sex ratio (very good for new settlement)
Main unit of economic production (external and household economies)
and property transfer
Main educational, religious, political unit
Desire for order, godly lives of citizens
Town layouts
Policing of all, including unmarrieds
By coming with families, insuring children don’t grow up in
goddlessness; can “transplant” society rather than rebuilding it,
but transplant without faults; can reproduce ideal structure,
conditions, relationships; kin groups moving together – enhances
broader social ties as well as inter-familial ties; give stats.
Means family is true bulwark in new conditions.
1672, John littleale of Haverhill MA was living by himself and the
Essex County Court found “he is subject to much sin and iniquity,
which ordinarily are the companions and consequences of a solitary
life” and ordered him to “settle himself in some orderly family in
town, and be subjected to the orderly rules of family
government”
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Puritan women
“he for God only, she for God in him” Milton Paradise Lost
Women and men are equally able to be elect and to develop
understandings of God’s word and many women more pious and devout
than men.
Subordinate status and pain of childbirth makes them more open to
spiritual (deaths during childbirth/childbed mean it is constant
part of women’s lives – either directly or indirectly)
Bradstreet: “Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are, Men
have precendency and still excel, It is but vain, unjustly to wage
awar; Men can do best and women know it well.
Point 3: however, women’s understandings is different than men’s so
Winthrop’s case of Misstress Hopkins who went insane
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Choice frequently guided by family
Type of partnership with shared responsibilities
“to guid the house &c. not guid the Husband” (Increase Mather
sermon 1672)
Husband should “make his government of her as easie and gentle as
possible; and strive more to be lov’d than fear’d: though neither
is to be excluded” (Benjamin Wadsworth, Well-Ordered Family)
Subjection, but not “slavish” obedience – turn to hatred
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Responsibilities lay inside a specific “private” purview –
maintaining home, household economy, children, servants, but could
be “deputy husband” under specific circumstances
“An old (or Superannuated) Maid, in Boston, is thought such a curse
as nothing can exceed it, and look'd on as a dismal Spectacle.“ --
John Dunton, bookseller, 1686
Ulrich: winthrop instance of women claiming right ot specific
midwife
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Well-ordered home, frugal, clean
Household production – individual and supervision of
production
Early market society means home production crucial for most
Egg and butter money, candles, spinning
“women’s work” for wages as cities and towns expand
Informal authority
Male and female adulterers punished differently –Illustrates
different role of women
Male adulterers had wronged their partner’s husband
Female adulterers had wronged their own husband AND the wife,
children, and relations of their partner
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Puritan women
Women’s sexual nature is welcomed within the bounds of marriage b/c
it is necessary to reproduction
Bible says to multiply
Orgasm necessary for conception (difficulty of rape suits)
Heavy punishments for sexual contact outside of marriage
Talking about good and bad sexuality meant to educate children -
public punishments and sermons:
“F is for fornication”
Adultery, premarital intercourse, bestiality, sodomy all subject to
strict penalties for men and women
Women tried in Essex county avg younger age than women married and
many of the men named were married – may indicate predatory
relationship or women in weaker social status: Use priscilla
willeston case as example
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Puritan women
Essex County Court records from 1641 and 1685, 135 married women
and 131 unmarried women cited for fornication
Brides with “early babies” fall into same age category as women who
marry with 9-12 month children (early to mid 20s)
62 percent of unmarried mothers are between 15 and 20 and the
fathers named avg 25-29 yrs
Single mothers cannot duplicate godly family model and are in
economic danger – may become a drain; woman’s carnal nature has
been tapped
Midwives as witness
Risky
Mercy Bradstreet – 3 children lost, died in childbirth at 28
Average woman has 7 children, with last at age 37
Does not include stillbirths or miscarriages
Most women spend adult lives childbearing and childrearing
High infant survival rates – could read 80% (London was 20% and
Chesapeake could be 40-50%)
Multi-generation families in communities
Anne Bradstreet childless her first 6 years of marriage “It please
God to keep me a long time wihtout a child, which was a great grief
ot me and cost me many prayers and tears before I obtained
one”
Mary Clap (bore 6 children, buried 4) died at 24: childbearing was
“the work she was made for and what god in his providence had
called her to”
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Salem Witch Trials, 1692
Women in the colonies almost always women – European witchcrazes
also targeted men
Most accused exhibit behavior that challenges “goodwife”
image
Tituba
Sarah Good (homeless, destitute, mumbled to self) H
As hunt continues, others pulled in
Rebecca Nurse (elderly widow who had never remarried)H
John Proctor (tavern owner, objected to accusations towards his
wife) H
Salem Witch Trials, 1692
Up to 13 died in prison
Why?
Ergot blight
Frontier unrest, Indian victories
Captive for 11 weeks
Daughter of a clergyman, one of 13 children.
She was independent minded, assertive, and well trained in
religious discourse by her father.
At age 21, she married William Hutchinson.
She was a good Puritan woman
16 pregnancies in all.
She was a good homemaker and housekeeper.
Practiced folk medicine and acted as a midwife when called
upon.
•In 1634, she and her husband came to America in a group led by the
Reverend John Cotton, one of the primary Puritan divines. •Opened
her home to post-church discussions.
Anne Hutchinson
At these meetings 60 men and women discussed theology
Hutchinson became a leader and teacher on the newer ideas of the
“Puritan Divines” led by John Cotton
Local authorities told her to stop – Cotton was the enemy of the
current governor, John Winthrop.
Hutchinson brought to trial 1637
Banished for “disorderlyness”, then appealed
Imprisoned for a year and brought to trial in church a second time
in 1638, convicted and banished.
58 Bostonians took up arms in support of her.
She left colony with small group supporters, followed by husband
and children.
Later she and her children killed by Indians; husband had already
died
Gender in Anne Hutchinson’s Case
•Anne Hutchinson believed that women should teach and preach
because they were as likely as men to have a true covenant of grace
with God.
John Winthrop felt that too much reading and studying would drive a
woman mad.
He found Hutchinson haughty, aggressive, disorderly, unfeminine,
and suspected her of practicing free love and witchcraft.
John Winthrop feared this woman, and particularly her influence
over other women.
Women were too weak and unintelligent to resist her message
weak women would, like Eve, lead their husbands to evil.
Gender in Anne Hutchinson’s Case
At her second religious one, Hutchinson was told that her problem
was that she would "rather be a Husband than a Wife and a Preacher
than a Hearer; and a Magistrate than a Subject."
In other words, she lacked submissive spirit and dependent demeanor
of a true Puritan woman.
The charge of witchcraft raised at the end of the second
trial.
Told story of a deformed baby that Hutchinson had delivered as a
midwife as evidence of her being a witch.
Winthrop continued to harass Hutchinson in exile.
She was seriously ill after her long confinement and at age 46, in
the final stages of her last pregnancy.
She delivered prematurely, the child died.
Winthrop sent for details and published, "that she had produced 30
monstrous births, or thereabouts."
Southern Colonies
first women in 1608
“These Savages have no particular propertie in any parcell of that
country, but only a general residence there, as wild beasts have in
the forest” – Robert Gray “A Good Speed to Virginia”
Cycle of violence and truces
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Unbalanced sex ratio
A few female “headrights” (50 acres of land – women who bought own
passage are eligible)
Easier marriage – sex ratio and VA Company wants more married men
b/c they cause less trouble
Marrying Native women not a respectable option after earliest
period
Female indentured servants
70 to 85 percent of all emigrants in first half of 17th Century are
indentured
Cannot marry until indenture is served:
Later marriage = fewer children
Family in the Chesapeake
life expectancy only 43 years
most marriages lasted only 7 years
men outnumber women 3 to 1
pregnant women especially vulnerable to malaria
few children reach adulthood with both parents living (and almost
no grandparents)
widows prized (inheritance); remarried quickly
Family in the Chesapeake
Coming from stratified society where status and its meaning are
vital: deference, respect, order
Intent to model English gentry
Familial hierarchy and recognition of place in it vital to
understanding of larger society and individual
responsibilities/order
Orderly families = orderly society
In fact, Puritans leaving are worried over new “landless class” and
worried about possible breakdowns of English social order.
Master, misstress, goodwife, etc.
Marriage in Chesapeake
Institution of marriage shaped by sparse settlement and lack of
community control as existed in New England
As result, many early marriages were informal, “common-law”
But with fragile families, inheritance becomes an issue
As result, pressure to form more rigid and solemnized
marriages
Marriage in Chesapeake
Tension as racial inequalities increase
Sexual violence
Comparison
Marriage differed in British colonies north and south, largely as a
result of the institution of slavery.
(While there was slavery in the North, it did not predominate as a
social form.)
In South, where slavery resulted in creation of significant peoples
of mixed race and numbers of illegitimate children, control of
white, landed or upper class women’s sexuality (fertility) became
very important.