ABSTRACT
Originally published in 1974, this study offers valuable perspectives on the status and roles of women in Stuart England and in the newly settled colonies of North America, particularly Massachusetts and Virginia. Incorporating both new research on the subject, and the findings of other scholars on demographic and social history, the author examines the effects of sex ratios, economic opportunities, Puritanism and frontier conditions on the emancipation of American women in comparison with their English counterparts. He discusses the effects of these major differences on women’s roles in courtship, marriage and the family, educational, legal and civic opportunities. In the final chapter, he compares the moral climate of the two cultures in the latter part of the seventeenth century.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |17 pages
Introduction
chapter |15 pages
The Seventeenth-Century Scene
part |91 pages
A New World
chapter |39 pages
The Sex Ratio
chapter |22 pages
Economic Opportunities
chapter |20 pages
Women and the Puritan Churches
chapter |8 pages
Women and the Frontier
part |154 pages
Cultural Contrasts