First Generation Women In Colonial America Analysis

According to my reading on “First Generations; Women in Colonial America by Carol Berkin’s, life in early colonial America was extremely hard. The lives of colonial women are to take over the house or the farm and raising the children. The husbands control their married women’s lives, which is terrible for the women. Women will give their husbands respects and to obey them without questions to ask. The life of women focused on their home, farming, and taking care of children and husband.
In the colonial years, unmarried women and widows have more rights than married women. According to Carol Berkin’s “First Generations; Women in Colonial America, “As feme sole, or woman alone, a free English-woman could sue and be sued, make contracts, earn …show more content…
For a married woman, the most important rights were dower. “The standard dower settlement gave a widow a life interest in one-third of her husband’s real property” (Berkin 15). A married woman had few rights, yet she had the right to be controlled in a manner commensurate with husband’s social status. In the colonial days, dower was a legal tradition. Dower is meant to support the family’s as a unit. According to Berkin, “Marriage was webbed by obligations and duties owed by both husband and wife. Husbands were enjoined by law and precept to protect and provide for wives; wives were required to submit to male authority and to assist their husbands by productive labor and frugality” (15). Husbands also had to charge with their responsibility to “protect and provide for wives; wives were required to submit to male authority and assist their husbands by productive labor and frugality” (15). When getting married to a spouse, most women want to start a family in the colonial time period and today’s time period. When a woman gets married, she does not have control of her lives in colonial years. She also had no control on her own children. Women chose to stay with or return to their Native American captors because women wanted to start a family with her husband except being of control from her husband. When two spouses get married, they needed to show each other loyal, respect, and …show more content…
In Puritans lives, they worked towards religious, moral, and societal reforms. “The woman of New England towns, farms, and frontiers would be keenly aware of the diverse circumstances of their lives yet they could recognize the commonalities as well” (30). Women have to farm, garden, and responsibility of taking care of husband and children. Puritans believed in God’s true law, and God provided a plan for living. During church, women had to enter separate doors from their husband, sons, and brothers. “They had no formal voice in the selection of the minister and no voice at all during the service he conducted” (41). Women can enter into churches; however, they cannot speak or ask question. When more women attend to church, their informal influence. The Puritan attack on the church gained popular strength, also in East Anglia. “Women were considerably more likely than men to remain with their captors… (43). Women adapt and survive more than husbands, sons, and brothers because “one-fifth of the women seized from their sleep or their household chores were pregnant or were carrying a nursing baby” (44). Most of married women take their responsibility for her and her family. Most women chose to stay because they were victims for the Puritan and find respect and