Role Of Puritan Women

They were to help at home until they were married. Women would refer to flowers as their menstrual cycle and during their wedding night they would not allow women to fertility drink. They didn’t allow this because during the wedding night they were trying to make the women pregnant. “Women did not push ahead of the men to take their offerings, did not go about the church to collect for vestry, and did not serve as sacristans” [14-15]. The men would travel all the time mostly by sea. When the men would move away from their families they probably weren’t going to inherit their parent’s property. If you had a brother or brothers you shared a house. When one of you became married then you would

Over decades women has always suffered from discrimination and the lax of rights. In the past puritans men were the only one who had benefits; however women play most of the roles. Massachusetts Bay Colony was a place where the masculine sex ruled, female opinion wasn't given importance at all. The Puritans were really strict people and they believed that women weren't capable of contributing any information to the town and church meetings.

(Ulrich p. 5) Her research clearly establishes that despite the hierarchal and patriarchal nature of their society, women during this time contributed in essential and complex ways not only to their households and their communities, but the story of women is a central and crucial part of our American history. Ulrich supports her thesis by showing women adeptly performed any job necessary that benefited the family including that of deputy husband; “women played a central part in the communications network” which connected neighborhoods; women controlled sexual behavior; women engaged in and controlled significant trade; women exercised “considerable influence in the churches” and “enlarged the meaning of their own lives” as Christians; and women demonstrated heroic qualities “in the face of hardships of

The Puritans raised their families to be very reliable on themselves instead of others. As Puritan children got older throughout their life they got taught to be dependable and to take care of themselves to prepare them for their future of being responsible adults. Throughout the young puritan boys’ and girls’ lives, they were expected to take on many hardworking tasks to help their parents and other family members in and outside the house. Puritan women were in charge of the household but were thought of as irrational because they were emotional, but men were thought of as sane and reasonable (Dunklee et al.). Men may have had a lot of power, but “Women exercised considerable power within their families, including the authority to divorce their husbands by setting their belongings outside the longhouse entrance” (Lapsansky). The Puritan boys were accompanied to do outside chores such as hunting, crafting, and also learning carpentry. The girls were to do inside the house chores such as cleaning, cooking, and helping their mothers in the house. The Puritan parents held their children to high standards to prepare them to be proper husbands and

The Puritans belief set is simple: If you commit a sin, you are guilty and punished by execution. The Patriarchy, which is a system, society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line, is the foundation of this religion. Women could be guilty of almost anything if a man accused her of it. The governing council is only made up of men and they keep a strict hold on everyone in the community. Their harsh laws are based off of the Old Testament. “In Hawthorne's story Governor Bellingham and his fellow magistrates used this vision not only to unite the community, but to control, by humiliation, banishment, or death, any wayward member” (Hodges 5). This way of thinking ensued fear into women. They were taught to never speak out or act in any unholy manner. So, when Hester gave birth to a child who did not belong to her husband, she was no longer treated with any respect. “Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the

Puritan society had class system much like every colony now which started with the elite or gantry, middle class, indenture servants and lastly the slaves. The Puritans community was on based off strict religious customs. However, the people do have a voice in this society called Public Opinion which is like a jury. Moreover, Godbeer portrayed the Puritans as abrasive towards

The women were expected to carry out the duties of the house without complaint and to remain diligent to her husband, as well as God. During this time, motherhood transformed from just being a child bearing figure to

In the 1600s there were a certain group of people that took up a vast majority of the population this group was called the Puritans. The Puritans were a strictly religious group of people who had a very strict interpretation of bible and they believed anything as long as they believed it was God's’ will to be done, they only did what the bible could tell them to do, or if they preformed anything different than what was lead to be by the bible they were punished. They had so many restrictions on the littlest of things just like dancing, no fancy clothing and no smoking. But they did have restrictions on pretty big things as well like you can’t miss church no matter what even if someone were to be sick, people had to pay to celebrate christmas.

The Puritans were a group of people with strong beliefs, ideas and values in the 1630’s to the 1660’s. Their ideas influenced society in multiple ways during this time including politically, economically, and socially. Politically, they believed in having a theocratic government , economically, they used the value of hard work to run the economy and stimulate prosperity and also, socially the influence of the religion and the need for a tight knit communtiy influenced New England in many more ways than one. All of these influences were part of the ideological belief of the Puritans to attain a “City Upon a Hill” society where they would have the perfect community and established ethos for other communities to later follow in their footsteps.

While we have come farther than the 1600s, there are still lots of misogynistic views and blatant sexism prevalent in media and even taught to children. In Puritan society, women faced inequality too. Like most of their social, economic and political policies it relied on religion. Document H quotes “Limitation of Government” which states that, “It is there fore fit for every man to be studios of the bounds which the Lord hath set: and for the people, in whom fundamentally all power lies, to give as much power word gives to men…. it Is good for the wife to acknowledge all power and authority to the husband…” This created many issues. Men having all the family power meant also political and economic power. The women had little to no rights and were expected to care for the family instead of attending the local school or going to look for any sort of job. These sorts of beliefs were passed down and upheld for centuries. Even today we are still pushing for women of all races and ethnicities to be represented in government and in all fields of academia. The Puritans religious beliefs had a negative effect on the gender hierarchy of the 1630s that would later lead to more serious

As the years progressed from the 1700s into the 1800s, women started to see that they were not treated as equal as men even though they could do anything men could. During the late 1800s was when women first started to fight for more rights and equality. They started forming more and more women groups, and even went on labor strikes to protest the diversity. Although it seemed that as hard as they tried to gain this equality, the harder it was for them to obtain it. They were treated horribly and unequally to men. While African American men received the power to vote in 1870, women still did not have a chance at that right. Even though many people disagree that women were treated fairly, the studies show that they were discriminated against. The treatment of women in the late 1800s was discriminatory because they

Cleaning, cooking and worshipping would be a few of the little jobs that can be performed by a woman. Not only would women be doing these things, but in the past it was very difficult for a woman to have a real job. It was the husband who had to bring home the money and the wife, who had to get groceries, cook and clean for her husband and their children. “This debate over women’s capacities was theoretical, of course, and few colonists, male or female, had the time or inclination to engage in it” (pg. 4). The funny thing about this is that it has not changed and some women still think they are supposed to do these frail actions while some take further steps into life. But however this plays out, I believe some women worked as hard as the men during the time of war. “As their men went off to war, these women took on the task of managing shops and farms in addition to caring for large families and coping with shortages of food and supplies…many spoke with satisfaction about how well they had adapted to new roles”(Making America: pg. 156). So what exactly was the role of women in the

The Puritan family had significant patriarchal authority. The father owned most of the property, and represented their households in the Puritan social and governing circles. The father also orchestrated his children’s marriages and decided how his property would be distributed among his inheritances. The church doctrine was what ultimately

Woman and family roles are considerably different today than they were back in Puritan times. Puritans thought that the public’s foundation rested on the “little commonwealth”, and not merely on the individual. The “little commonwealth” meant that a father’s rule over his family mirrored God’s rule over creation or a king over his subjects. John Winthrop believed that a “true wife” thought of herself “in [weakness] to her husband’s authority.” As ludicrous as this idea may appeal to women and others in today’s society, this idea was truly necessary for colonies to be able to thrive and maintain social order.

Women have always taken a back seat to men in American society. There has always seemed to be one set of standards that apply to men, and another set of standards that apply to women. This is evident in the home, workplace, and all throughout society.