From: Karmen Lewis
Date: 2/2/00
Time: 10:19:47 PM
Remote Name: 155.247.154.37
Karmen Lewis History 67 Tuesday/Thursday William Cutler 2/1/00
Text Question: What were the roles of women and the family in colonial America? Did they differ by region? The life a colonial women differed from region to region. Most women who lived in Puritan New England worked with their husbands. The amount of labor and effort was equally distributed amongst the couple. The expectations of a common New England woman, where to maintain a family farm and uphold housewife responsibilities. These responsibilities would include raising children, cooking meals, and cleaning house. In addition, the church played a significant role in the way women were viewed and children where raised. For example, New Englanders believed that God ordained the family for human benefit. One minister argued that God had created “far more Godly women than men”(70). They also believed that it was the families’ responsibility to teach the children about the word of Christ. Since women were the main caretakers of the children it was primarily their responsibility to spread the word. Even though women shared the responsibilities of life, they were not given the same rights as colonial men. Our text states, “According to English law, a wife exercised no control over property”(70). This quote makes it evident that society created high expectations for women, but did not reward them with the same rights as men. Women who lived in the Chesapeake area were often subject to the same if not worse unjust as the New England women. However, the Chesapeake family did not originate from a close nit community. These people were often young, unwed, indigent servants coming from Maryland and Virginia. Unfortunately, most women where not allowed to raise a family of bare children until they had completed their terms as a servant. Many of these issues created problems for the women of the Chesapeake area. Thus, women in the Chesapeake died twenty years earlier than New England women.