Captain Ahab Had A Wife, By Lisa Norling

Adapting a Puritan lifestyle drastically affected Winthrop’s perspective on the world and his role in it. He knew that he could not completely disconnect himself from it “as monks and hermits do” (Morgan 6) so he had to adapt to the struggle of finding a balance of his role of worshiping God and “lending his hand to shape [the world]” (Morgan 14).

Again stated, the book demonstrates the roles that different women faced during the Home Front War. In Chapter 1, Berkin describes the role of “colonial women” (page 5). She explains that these women were to be companions for their husbands. For example, John Winthrop, the first governor of Massachusetts believed that his wife’s job was to attend “her household affairs

First Generations: Women in Colonial America delivers a broad analysis over American women in the colonial period. It is evident that married women in colonial America were not considered equal to their husbands or to society in general. The rights of American women have come a long way in regards to civil rights. The control a woman in early Colonial America had over her own life was linked to race, religion, and class. Berkin organizes the first chapters according to race and region. Other chapters are organized by African American women, New England, and the middle colonies, Native American Women, and white women in the Chesapeake. Within each chapter, Berkin gives details about one woman from the region. European, Indian, and African women of seventeenth and eighteenth-century America were protectors of their native land, pioneers on the frontier, like-minded immigrants, and courageous slaves. They were also, as most scholars tend to leave out, just as important as men in shaping American culture and history.

Colonial America was a time of great change and discovery. The era was a time of conflict between people’s secular desires as innovation boomed and their spiritual growth as they discovered more about God and explored new religious ideas. In his essay, Worlds of Wonder in the Northern Colonies, David D. Hall accurately argues that despite the secular advances of the Colonial Era, religion was undoubtedly the most prevalent area of Americans’ focus because the power of God was being manifested into their lives in so many irrefutable ways.

After marriage, the husband was considered lord and master of the family. But not all the women were meek and submissive. By the 1700's, the woman’s status had rapidly improved in colonial America. A wife and child made as much as a man did. Although women did not have equality with men, their status greatly improved from their status in Europe. A woman’s station in life was determined by the position of their husbands or fathers. The women of the poorest families, compiled to work in the fields, stood at the bottom of the social ladder. One of the surest signs of the accomplishments a family had made, was the exemption of their women from the fields. Before 1740, girls were trained in household crafts and the practical arts of family management. But afterwards they began to study subjects that required reading and studying such subjects as grammer and arithmetic. The women of the upper classes occupied themselves mainly with planning the work of the home and with supervising the domestic servants. Along with these tasks the women also baked, nursed, and sewed. But there were many social restrictions placed on the women of that time. One such restriction was that a wife, in absence of her husband, was not allowed to lodge men even if they were close relatives. For

In Document B on the list of emigrant bound for New England, it is mostly family oriented. Families were coming and units. These people were mostly the Puritans who were coming to New England for religious purposes. The New England colonies were founded as examples of pure religion. The New Englanders would come to prosper through their hard work, thrift, and the quality of their commitment to God and each other. The Christian values of charity towards another man resulted in tight knit communities that embraced the idea to care for every member. John Winthrop wrote, A Model of Christian Charity, while he was aboard the Arbella on the Atlantic Ocean in 1630. In this writing he states that no matter what social class you fall under everyone must say close together and work in unison as one man. Not as many men working but coming together. Showing the affection one would give to their brother. One must make their fellow colonist conditions their own, whether it is good or bad. Laugh together, cry together, rejoice together, mourn together, work together and even suffer together. They are as “a city upon a hill”. Meaning that other colonies will see what they do. They will notice everything they do

Throughout most of history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as women's most significant professions. Since early times women have been uniquely viewed as a creative source of human life. Historically, however, they have been considered not only intellectually inferior to men but also a major source of temptation and evil. Colonial women faced the harsh realities of childbirth, housework, and serving their husbands because it was tradition. The ways of the ‘old country’ culture was forced upon a new one, disallowing any room for new ideals. Although constrained by society Colonial women have had their part in shaping America.

Within the New World, individuals such as William Bradford, a separatist religious leader as well as governor of Plymouth (131), and Thomas Morton, a lawyer and social reformer, were both very significant men within our history books. The story of Merry Mount/Ma-re Mount is shown from two different perspectives which offers the readers an awareness and understanding of the way religion and government influenced the lives of those who dwelled in Plymouth Massachusetts, and Ma-re Mount. Thomas Morton and William Bradford are somewhat like Tom and Jerry for the reason that they dislike one another and have different accounts of Ma-re Mount/Merry Mount and that they tend to dispute with one another often when it comes to religion. Bradford’s writing tells the story of Merry Mount in a narrative and formal way whereas Morton’s writing is unlike any writing during his time, it’s humorous and also told from a non-Puritans perspective. Although Bradford claims Morton to be an anarchic drunk there are many reasons to say that he was in fact a comedic hero.

The travelers from England that headed for the Chesapeake Bay were predominantly men, which led to an unbalanced society and lack of wives to promote a family-based culture. The passenger list for one boat had a sex ratio of sixty-four men to eleven women. Not only was there a radical imbalance, only four of the men were above forty, while only eight total were above thirty (Doc. C). That left fifty-six young males headed to a new land with only their self-government of a House

In the Quaker community on Nantucket Island where Mott was born, fishing and whaling were the two primary enterprises. The men of the families were almost all employed in one of these two industries. Consequently, much of the time, the men would be out at sea and the women would be charged not only with taking care of the family, but were also responsible for keeping the home, tending any crops, and harvesting from any animals on the land in order to maintain financial security when the men were away. An unexpected repercussion of this arrangement was that the women who were

In the trial of Anne Hutchinson, we meet a well intentioned yet lost people described and labelled as the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Company. These self governing Puritans, once a people who sought God to set them on their way, settled only to be found as a people who simply lost their way. This journey to lost began when first motivated by a desire for religious reform and separation from the liturgy, ceremonies and practices of the Church of England. Once they banned together, they set on their way and traveled in groups to the New World. With the Word of God as their ultimate authority and the desire for a personal relationship with God, these people landed in Boston in 1630 united to self govern the newly founded Massachussets Bay Colony. Unfortunatly, this self rule resulted in a government of intolerance, fear and a liturgy not much different from what was once found in the Church of England. A system designed to set apart outward morality, or sanctification, to strengthen the authority of the Church only worked to neglect the place of true piety purposed to strengthen the spiritual lives of the people it served.

Puritan beliefs reflected in Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity, Suffering and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson”. The beliefs are depicted in her eleven weeks of captivity after being captured by the Wampanoag tribesmen.

1. The first essay clearly shows the impact that an ideology of domesticity on women in New England in the 1830’s. The writer at first calls this time period a “paradox in the “progress” of women’s history in the United States”. During this time apparently two contradictory views on women’s relations to society clashed, unusually, those two being domesticity, which essentially limited women, giving them a “sex-specific” role that they must abide to, this mostly being present at the home with their husbands and whatever kids they may or may not have had at that time, and feminism, which essentially tried to remove this domesticity, trying to remove sex-specific limits on women’s opportunities and

The call of John Winthrop for the Massachusetts Bay colony to be a “City on a Hill” literally meant for the members of the colony to be a spiritual example and guide for others, but also implies the ontological statement of exceptionalism through capital gain. In this paper, the reader will discover the connection between John Winthrop and mercantilism, which is a branch of capitalism that focuses on merchants trading using the government to help regulate the expansion of capital. In addition, the content of this paper will extrapolate on the pragmatic implications of this economic system and its effects on the people involved. John Winthrop’s sermon, “On the Model of Christian Charity,” establishes a pre-capitalist ideology through the presupposition of Winthrop’s personal/political beliefs, Puritan thought, and the manifestation of these thoughts actualized in the marginalization of Native Americans.

Because of this, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony the women “did not participate in town meetings” and “were excluded from decision making in the Church”