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Puritanism influence
Puritan sexual practice
Beliefs of puritanism hypocrisy
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Puritanism influence
Puritan sexual practice
Beliefs of puritanism hypocrisy
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The author, Edmund S. Morgan thesis is that the Puritans were not simply a strong religious group of fanatics who prohibited all earthly pleasures, but were actually influenced by human desires and weaknesses. The author uses many main points to support his thesis, one main point is that sexual intercourse was a human necessity and marriage was the only supply for it, but for some puritans marriage did not matter. A few more main points are that, sex could not interfere with religion, on days of fast sexual intercourse was not permitted but some did anyways. Many laws were passed to prohibit adultery Another point is that it was necessary for a servant to go outside his master’s house in order to satisfy his sexual urges. Also marriage was
From its earliest days, religion played a vital role in the colony of Virginia like it did in England. Its first charters enforced social and religious norms by threatening settlers with imprisonment if they disobeyed. A great example is the sin of fornication. One of the main themes in Anne Orthwood’s Bastard, Fornication was seen as a big crime in the eyes of the church. The church taught that all acts of fornication was sinful and as a response, the public would humiliate people challenging the sexual norms.
The average age of marriage was 23 for women and 26 for men (http://www.austincc.edu/jdikes/Marriage%20Ways%20ALL.pdf). Puritans aimed to live lives that promoted fair treatment of husbands and wives in the home. “…his Government of his Wife should not be with rigour, haughtiness, harshness, severity; but with the greatest love, gentleness, kindness, tenderness, that may be” (The Obligations of a Wife, Primary Source). They tended to get married a bit later than in other colonies because every family member was needed to run the farm and marriage laws required the man to have certain property items in his possession before they tied the knot. Community life was fairly simple.
It was against the law to speak out and have opinions, being expected to work hard was not out of the ordinary. Puritans were expected to live by a strict moral code. Believing that all sins should be punished. “They believed that God would be the one punishing for sins and bad behavior. Friends that suffered from loses, and misfortunes would not be helped by Puritans” (Marvel 73).
About a century later, during the 1630’s, the Puritans decided that the best way to reform was to emigrate away from the Church of England. Author David Hall claims “excitement ran high that a new kind of society was being created, a community without “the unclean conversation of the wicked” as Thomas Weld reported to his former parishioners in England.” They called this society “New England” and the puritans were one of the many religious movements able to escape to it, but their historical timing was in no way unique. The Puritans eventually realized that they’re next step was developing their society, shaping its system to fit their beliefs.
According to the book Give Me Liberty by Eric Foner, the government of London imposed a new set of taxes on the Americans. The Chancellor of the Exchequer; the cabinet’s chief financial minister, was the one who established the taxes on Americans. His intention with the taxes was the pay the salaries of American governors and judges, as well as freeing them from dependence on colonial assemblies. After more in depth research I came across a lot more information.
Society was very strict in religious practice and in education. In Nathaniel Ward’s excerpt “The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam” he said that, “He that is willing to tolerate any religion, or discrepant way of religion, besides his own, unless it be in matters merely indifferent, either doubts of his own or is not sincere in it” (Doc E). This shows religious intolerance which wasn’t strange in this time period and it is most likely heavily emphasized because the Puritans still felt persecuted from when they practiced their own religion back in their time in England. Another example of the dedication to their religion is when William Bradford wrote about his attack on the Pequot’s Mystic River village, he said, “But the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the praise thereof to God.” This shows their dedication to God, as they justify burning the entire village by saying it was for God and saying it was a merciful death for them because it happened so fast.
The Puritan colonists were bound by laws of morality with judgments with sentences that were the base of fear. The laws were centered on the basics of not going to church daily to practicing witchcraft, adultery, even not having regular sex to procreate. There were many laws of the time with cause and effect that harmed many people. Through the seventeenth century, laws were connected to morality, reflected in the ways Puritans used religious beliefs in the process of rendering judgment and assigning punishments to keep colonists from leaving their colony and gaining freedoms of their own. Puritan Religion ~
The Roman civilization, strongly influenced by ancient Greeks, adopted several aspects of Greek religion and mythology, combining them with their beliefs and creating a unique religious system. This cross-cultural exchange developed in the adaptation of various Greek gods into the Roman pantheon, while they were frequently altered to associate with Roman values and lifestyles. The Greek goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite, was associated with Venus in Roman mythology. Like Venus, she conserved her role as the goddess of love, fertility, and beauty, while also being linked with prosperity and victory (Britannica, 2023).
Recreations such as dancing, gambling, and drinking were banned by puritan law and anyone caught violating the law would be heavily punished. The puritans believed such activities were inherently harmful and immoral. They believed that reading the bible was the only recreational activity needed after working. As a result, the puritan society strictly enforced parents to teach their children to be literate in order to read the bible and attend orations in church. In addition, the role of men and women was unequal in their society.
They also believed that anyone who didn't agree with there religion that it was satan's work. They also valued education which was the bible. If you were a puritan how could read then you read the bible. They believed in predestination because they thought that god would save the choose ones ors the sanctification ones and the rest would be damned to hell, and they also believed in ethnocentric. Ethnocentric is when people are evaluating other people and cultures according to their standards of their own culture.
Puritans believed pleasure to be a sin and that a person's life should be spent either working or at the worship of God (“Pilgrims”). They emphasized severe punishment and public acknowledgement of sins, while Catholics believed in forgiveness and private confession of sins for God’s forgiveness (Lowance). Puritans thought pastors should be married men with families, while Catholics believed in the practice of
In the powerpoint of “American Literature, Puritanism” tells a reader what other commandments these people have that they had to follow along with the other commandments that many know today. Many stories had told many people that if you don’t follow the ten Puritan’s or the bible’s commandments then you are evil, a sinner, someone who follows the devil, or you are a witch. One of the stories that show this is ‘The Crucible’ where the town was believed that there were witches in their town. In ‘The Crucible by Arthur Miller’ Hale was at Proctor house and asked John if he knew his commandments and to say them, but also asked him why he hasn’t be to church that much and why he hasn’t baptize his son yet, causing Hale to question John for a while. Even though Hale later on trusted John it doesn’t mean others did and let alone stop bring fear to
Essentially, Puritans are expected to follow a strict set of religious and moral guidelines from which their actions and morality are derived. According to Hall’s A Reforming People, these moral expectations first introduced by the pilgrims were the driving force behind the power that the Puritan ministry had over society: “Ministers and laypeople looked first to congregations as the place where love, mutuality, and righteousness would flourish, and second to civil society. …Alongside love, mutuality, and righteousness they placed another set of values summed up in the word “equity.” Employed in a broad array of contexts, the concept of equity conveyed the colonists’ hopes for justice and fairness in their social world.”
The Puritan society thinks that it was their job to punish people who committed crime severely because they believe they were doing god’s work. They persecuted Hester for committing adultery while they are blinded by