Elizabeth Proctor's Treatment Of Women In The Crucible

The Treatment of Women in The Crucible How were most women treated in Puritan Societies? Most women during this time were expected to clean, cook, and watch over their children with the help of a maid in their own homes. The women in this society were treated just as equally in punishment as the men were in the Salem Witch Trials, but they were limited to certain things because of their gender. The consequences were the same for witchcraft, which were: jail, banning, and hanging.
One example of equal treatment, was when Elizabeth Proctor along with others were rounded up to go to jail for being accused of committing witchcraft by Abygail Williams, who was lying to keep herself along with the other girls, from getting into trouble with the court. “The girl, the Williams girl, Abigail Williams...And demandin’ of her how she come to be so stabbed, she testify it were your wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in” (1245-1246). Elizabeth was questioned and sentenced to sit in jail, because a child that her husband had “known” wished to have her dead, since she was still in love with her him, John Proctor. Even though this was made up, she still got the same sentencing as any other person would get, including a man, up until they found out that she was pregnant with her third child. “... and if she begin to show natural signs, …show more content…
They had to tend to gardens, have several children, and raise those children, take care of their spouses, etc. The mother role of the women was the most important role, because they had to produce a lot of children, and their children were raised to work in fields and help around the house. This was very stressful at this time, because if they produced more than a certain number of kids due to the infant mortality rate, their babies would die. Men stressed this a lot more, because they actually wanted their wives to keep producing children, not necessarily worrying about what could go