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Women's Role In Puritan Society

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Females of the Puritan Community
In the early 1600s, in order to escape prosecution, the Puritan community relocated to the vast New World. The females of this community followed their husbands and fathers to America with blind faith that everything would be fine.. As Puritan females they were the heartbeat of the community and therefore endowed with a surplus of responsibilities. Life for these females was hard. Whether it be growing up under new conditions, dealing with the trials and tribulations of being a wife, disrespect, and so much more. While life was far from easy it, there were perks and joyous occasions that seemed to lessen the internal and external struggles of being a female Puritan. The views of women are reflected in how little …show more content…

Whether it be in their money, church, or respect, women were forced to live in their husband's shadow. As previously stated wives were responsible for the household. This reasoning behind this was in part so that the women would be to busy to meddle into affairs designated for the men (Westerkamp 39). A woman would not have the time or energy to do anything other than what was asked of her and that's the way men wanted to keep it. Women were convinced to have 8 or 9 children for this very purpose. All in the Puritan community thought of females much like children in the way that they should be seen and not heard. These absurd rules were even in their bibles. Verses insinuated that women couldn't have their own minds and that they decision making process for everything should be left up to their husbands (Glubok 30). Furthermore rights were so limited that they were almost completely dependent on men: “A wife’s dependence became not only a matter of cultural, social, and legal restrictions, but necessarily of concrete economics as women moved from the households of fathers to husbands.” (Westerkamp 14). Wives had no possessions of their own because everything they owned before marriage was given to her husband so that all of their possessions could be

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