Women In Colonial America

Colonial women had far fewer opportunities than their male counterparts did. Many women did not receive any formal education. They learned everything from their mothers. It was thought that a woman did not need an education as they were supposed to work in the home (“Colonial America”). That would be okay if you had no aspirations outside of a family but I guess this was normal in those times. In colonial America, wealthy girls might be sent to a convent school to learn the basics of reading and writing. Middle class families would educate their sons and in lower class families, neither the boys nor the girls were educated (“History of Women”) Women were educated to be mothers and not lawyers or plantation owners. The men could do whatever they wanted while

Colonial women were also expected to marry and have children when they were relatively young. The children would complicate things because a widow would need to remarry to have help providing for the children. Married women usually could not own land in their names. Men usually willed real estate to surviving sons and only personal property to surviving daughters, ensuring that land would pass from man to man (Sarudy). If I was a colonial woman, and my husband left everything to my son, I would be thinking that even in death my husband keeps finding ways to mess up my life. If a woman had acquired land before she married all of her property was automatically awarded to her new spouse when she married (Sarudy). If I was a property owning colonial woman, I would always be worried of someone trying to cheat me out of my land, like that sneaky George Washington. In colonial times, divorces were rare; men were allowed to beat their wives, just as they beat their slaves and servants. When a wife chose to run away, her husband could advertise for her capture and return in local newspapers; just as he could advertise for the return of his runaway slaves and servants