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Virtuous Women Found Summary

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Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, in her article “Vertuous Women Found: New England Ministerial Literature, 1668-1735,” argues the ministerial writings of New England during the late seventeenth-early eighteenth century promoted an ideology of gender equality within a larger paradoxical environment. The dominant Puritan culture in which they lived created a separation of status within diverging social and spiritual fields. While legal, economic, and educational opportunities for women were severely limited in society, there existed a pervasive inherent equality among the sexes in regards to godly matters. (Ulrich, 37) To Support her claim, Ulrich relies heavily on ministerial literature, which consisted of marriage sermons, childbirth treatises, and funeral eulogies.
Through the examination of funeral literature Ulrich is able to describe the behavioral characteristics of a virtuous Puritan woman; s.g., a desire to seek god early, to read the bible, to converse through pious discourse, to write, to love to go to church and have the willingness to submit to God’s will. (Ulrich, 22-26) To the author, these traits imply that “while a godly woman was expected to act appropriately in all …show more content…

Dallet hemphill focuses her study, “Women in Courts: Sex-Role Differentiation in Salem, Massachusetts, 1636 to 1683” on reconstructing the social life of women in the first five decades following colonization. Hemphill approaches the article from a legal standpoint, choosing to emphasize primarily on women’s rights within the laws of society by examining Essex county court records and depositions. In doing so, she differentiates between the experiences of women pre and post 1670s. According to Hemphill, prior to the late 1670s the daily experiences of men and women were difficult to separate. Women likely assisted in farming and trade activities, contributed to familial economic decisions, and owned and sold property freely. (Hemphill,

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In her book, ‘A Midwife’s Tale’, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich explores the social position of women in society and the subsequent change in their roles in early American society by studying the life of Martha Ballard. In her book, she questions the impact that the Revolutionary War and the independence of the United States of America had on the lives of American women like Martha Ballard. Martha’s apathy toward politics, her silence of gender inequality of that time and her continuous focus on her daily routine to earn for her family demonstrate that Martha Ballard’s identity of being a colonial goodwife remained unchanged economically, politically and socially by the Revolution and the decades that followed. From 1785 to 1812, Martha Ballard tirelessly

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Abigail adamantly advocated for women’s education. She believed that in order to be a good wife, mother, and citizen, it was essential that women received at least a small amount of education. Abigail wrote, “It is very certain that a well-informed woman, conscious of her nature and dignity, is more capable of performing the relative duties of life, and of engaging and retaining the affections of a man of understanding, than one whose intellectual endowments rise not above the common level.” (216). Abigail did not demand sexual equality, she only hoped for a legal system where women could find fulfillment in their roles as wives and mothers (48).

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Around the late 18th to early 19th century, colonial American New England life was centered on living independently and being finally free from the British Empire after the Revolutionary War. Establishing control of a newly founded government with set functions and a first president, there were progressive changes that America had to act upon post-war. However, behind the political aspects that are greatly highlighted in American history, the roles of women in society, particularly midwives shouldn’t be cast aside. Although women were largely marginalized in early New England life because of their gender, nevertheless Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s A Midwife’s Tale is instructive because it demonstrates the privilege of men’s authority in society

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1000 Words | 4 Pages

Jonathan Edwards’s sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and Anne Bradstreet’s “Upon the Burning of Our House” seem at first glance quite similar to one another regarding context, however, after taking a closer look, it becomes apparent that there are some substantial differences. These differences cannot be understood without the knowledge of cultural context concerning the Puritan belief system and their lifestyle. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was written with the sole purpose of scaring and intimidating the people that purtinans believed to be sinners. Edwards’s work contributed to a movement called “The Great Awakening”. It’s objective was to make the so-called ‘sinners’ aware of their wrongdoings and compel them to repent.

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Eva Peron, also known as Evita, was the most powerful woman in Latin American history and encountered a great deal of attention because of this. She was truly a fascinating person who the people admired and looked up to. Eva was the second wife of Argentina’s president Juan Peron and served as the First Lady from 1946-1952. Evita is possibly the most powerful woman of the 20th century and this is due to her being a caudilla: a political leader, even though she was not directly in power and it was her husband who was president. Eva was able to take on the role of a caudilla through her appeal of the lower class people, the fact that both she and her husband represented a larger world response to the terrible consequences of the depression as well as her follower’s devotion and mourning after her death.

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A woman’s place in Puritan society was very limited during these times. A preface was added to her narrative by a puritan pastor as approval for her to publish her prose. Before her captivity Rowlandson didn’t know what a struggle consisted of. She was the typical housewife in a Puritan society. She never went without food, shelter, or clothing before her captivity.

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In her article, “Three Inventories, Three Households”, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich argues that women’s work was crucial not simply for subsistence but that “women were essentials in the seventeenth century for the very same reasons they are essentials today-for the perpetuation of the race” (Ulrich 51). She believes, women were expected to do everything. They were not only to take care of the children, but they were also cook, clean, raise the greens and ranches. Mainly, women plays important role for the survival and continuation of life.

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252 Words | 2 Pages

Gender roles played a heavy role in colonial society, and the women who did not conform to these roles were easy targets for witchcraft accusations. Women who were post-menopausal, widowed, unmarried were not fulling their “duty” to society of bearing children and thus could come under fire (Lecture.) Those who were aggressive, out spoken, or did not do as another wished could also bring cries of “witch!” (Lecture.) This is highlighted in Cotton Mather’s Accounts of the Salem Witchcraft Trials, one of these accused women Susana Martin stands trial with many of the testifiers being men who had been wronged by Martin in some way or another.

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615 Words | 3 Pages

Surprisingly, Native American women had more freedom than the white women in the Chesapeake, Middle Colonies, or New England region. Some Native American women were given rights such as controlling land, political power, marriage and divorce in choice. There were matrilineal kinship system, in fact, marriage was not the most top rite of passage for them. The author covers around the 1600s- 1800s century time period while focusing on mainly white women but also women of color.

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Essentially, marriage in the 1700’s was seen merely as a means of birthing heirs and finding a way to financially support yourself, so it resulted in both men and women being devalued. It is universally known that women were often treated as inept and helpless rather than sophisticated people with autonomy and capabilities. In fact, during this time, “married women were consistently compared with minor children and the insane-- both categories of people considered incapable of caring for themselves. To marry a woman was, in one sense, to ‘adopt’ her-- or at least to adopt responsibility for all the circumstances of life with which she entered the marriage” (Teachman 39). Furthermore, when women got married, they would legally cease to exist.

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906 Words | 4 Pages

In colonial North America, the lives of women were distinct and described in the roles exhibited in their inscriptions. In this book, Good Wives the roles of woman were neither simple nor insignificant. Ulrich proves in her writing that these women did it all. They were considered housewives, deputy husbands, mistresses, consorts, mothers, friendly neighbors, and last but not least, heroines. These characteristics played an important role in defining what the reality of women’s lives consisted of.

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387 Words | 2 Pages

Women in the 1600s to the 1800s were very harshly treated. They were seen as objects rather than people. They were stay-at-home women because people didn’t trust them to hold jobs. They were seen as little or weak. Women living in this time period had to have their fathers choose their husbands.

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Feminist Adrienne Rich argues in her essay, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision,” that there are drastic differences between the established gender roles in society. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hester, an adulteress and martyr, suffers from the strict grasp of Puritanism and patriarchy. Throughout the novel, Hester is a luxury to men, especially the revered minister and secret sinner, Dimmesdale, as well as her husband, Chillingworth. However, the rest of this male-dominated, Puritan society, or the world as she perceives it, is not a luxury for Hester, but a necessity. Thus, the relationship between Hester and the men in her society demonstrates and proves Rich’s argument regarding the distinctions between gender roles.

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995 Words | 4 Pages

“To the Ladies”, written by Lady Mary Chudleigh, is a poem that expresses feminism, and gives women a taste of how they would be treated in a marriage. Chudleigh displays this poem as a warning to women who are not married yet, as she regrets getting married. She uses such words that compares to slavery, and negative attitudes toward future wives to warn them. Back in this time period when the poem was published in 1703, women were known as property of men and you won’t have an opinion or a say so. The poem expresses a life of a naïve woman, who is bound to marriage by God, and she cannot break the nuptial contract.

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1121 Words | 5 Pages

Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672) has been a long-lasting leading figure in the American literature who embodied a myriad of identities; she was a Puritan, poet, feminist, woman, wife, and mother. Bradstreet’s poetry was a presence of an erudite voice that animadverted the patriarchal constraints on women in the seventeenth century. In a society where women were deprived of their voices, Bradstreet tried to search for their identities. When the new settlers came to America, they struggled considerably in defining their identities. However, the women’s struggles were twice than of these new settlers; because they wanted to ascertain their identities in a new environment, and in a masculine society.

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