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Women's Rights In Colonial America

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More than 140 women came to Virginia from 1620 to 1622. Women in colonial America had extremely hard working conditions. They were called upon to enable household order. Women were to wake up early in the morning before the sun rose to the late afternoons after the sun went down to maintain the house while preparing meals (which could take hours) before the husband woke up, doing laundry, mending clothes, livestock, working in the fields and gardens, tending to the children (most mid wives had 5-8 children), and many other tasks. Most of all the women abilities were learned from their mothers. Men believed women did not need an education because women were to work at home and tend to the children. Wives of the wealthy had very different lives …show more content…

”Women of the upper classes in England and American Colonies employed wet nurses for their children until the late 1700’s, when the custom of maternal nursing was adopted” (Paula Treckel, “Breastfeeding in Colonial America”). By the age of twelve, girls were expected to take on all the tasks an adult had. Women had very few rights, they could not vote, nor have the right to serve office. The few rights women had were to the unmarried or widowed ones who could buy and sell property, had the right to sue, and make a will. Married Colonial women had little to no rights; they could not sue, make a will nor buy or sell property. “Women are coaxed, flattered, courted, but they are not respected by many men as they out to be; neither do they respect themselves as they should” (Horace Greeley ”Women’s Rights”). After the Revolutionary War women’s rights did not see a dramatic change. Some states allowed women to vote while others did not. With the adoption of the Bill of Rights, these amendments only attain to white males only. It wasn’t until the mid-1800 that Elizabeth Stanton began to lead for women right movements. In 1848 “three hundred men and women attend the convention in the Wesleyan Methodist chapel; of those one hundred signed the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments” (Alison Parker, The Seneca Falls Convention). This act inspired other women to stand up and push for more equal rights throughout the

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Women were the nurturers of their family. Beginning in 1605 when women began arriving in the colonies, they cooked, cleaned and raised their children to the best of their abilities. Women had little to no education and most could not

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