Women's Roles In The Chesapeake

The role of women and families in the Chesapeake and the New England settlements was very important. However, there were many similarities like how in both settlements women married at a very young age, and many differences like how in the Chesapeake settlements, male- centered family structure was not as strong as in the New England settlements. Many factors contributed to such divergent gender roles and expectations in each society like the high death rates in the Chesapeake settlements and the very low death rates in the New England settlements. The role of women and families in the Chesapeake was similar to that of the New England settlements. In both the Chesapeake and the New England settlements, women tended to marry …show more content…
Contrasting to the Chesapeake, in the New England settlements, the ratio of men to women was balanced and even, this was because in the New England settlements, there were many more immigrants who arrived with their family members to the colony. In the Chesapeake, men tended to go alone on the travel to Colonial America. In the Chesapeake, because women tended to marry early, they would often outlive their husbands. Because of this, widows were often left with several children and had the responsibility to manage a farm/ plantation. This gave women significant economic power. Also in the Chesapeake, women mainly did not have fathers or any male family member nearby to control their choices. This also gave them the ability in choosing husbands. In contrast, in the New England settlements, women had less control over who to marry mostly because there were fewer unmarried men and because their fathers were more often alive which meant that they could exercise control over their daughter’s choice of husbands. This meant that women had less economic power, since they still had their fathers nearby and women tended to become widows later in their life. Also in the Chesapeake, it was difficult to maintain the traditional male- centered family structure. In contrast, in the New England settlements, family structure was more traditional and …show more content…
In the Chesapeake, women had more economic power because most outlived their husbands. In New England, women had less economic power because they became widows later in life and there were male family members to control them. In the Chesapeake, there was a higher mortality rate than in New England because in the Chesapeake, working conditions were harsh and the weather was very humid. This often led to the development of diseases like