Gender in British North America

Gender in British North America 17th Century

Overview, North versus South • North = Massachusetts Bay Colony, Pennsylvania, Maine, etc. • –Families • –Intentional Communities (utopian goals) • South = Chesapeake Bay Colony, etc. • –Single (wealthy) males • –Indentured (poor) females and males • –Slaves

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” • Primogeniture • 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 • Personal understanding of God and self • Individual bible study and interpretation • Constant self-examination and policing • Constant self-doubt • Living example of adherence to God’s laws

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 • Church covenant mirrors individual covenant: • 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

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

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....

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)

Puritan families • 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

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)

Puritan women • Marriage key event in women’s lives • 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)

Puritan women • 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

Puritan women • “Goodwife” or goody (80-90 percent of Puritan women marry) • Well-ordered home, frugal, clean

Puritan women • Women crucial to household economy • 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 • Midwives • observers • “exemplars”

Adultery • 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

Puritan women • Women’s sexual nature is welcomed within the bounds of marriage b/c it is necessary to reproduction • Bible says to multiply • Strengthens “marriage covenant” • 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”

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

Puritan women • Childbirth • Communal activity • Expression of status of mother and caregivers • Risky Anne Bradstreet – 8 children, 7 who outlived her 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

Elizabeth Freakeand daughter, 1670

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 • Bridget Bishop (fought with husbands, kept taverns, dressed immodestly) • 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 • 20 executed (1 by pressing) • Up to 13 died in prison Why? • Teenage hysteria bolstered by parents • Ergot blight • Economic and social tension • Women who had unsettled social order • Frontier unrest, Indian victories

King Phillip’s War, 1676 • Captive for 11 weeks • “savages” “barbarous” • “dirty”

Anne Hutchinson • 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 1607 Virginia Company: Jamestown men: search for riches, resources 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

Women in the Chesapeake • 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 • Families fragile for biological reasons (malaria, etc.) • 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

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 • For upper-class, model marriages were English aristocrats – women firmly subordinate, expected to turn blind eye to infidelity, etc. • Tension as racial inequalities increase • Sexual violence • Gender expectations racialized

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. • Male privilege was protected in South by civil law which forbade divorce for male adultery (although did allow for separation in certain circumstances).

Gender in British North America