ABSTRACT
Women in early modern Britain and colonial America were not the weak husband- and father-dominated characters of popular myth. Quite the reverse, strong women were the norm. They exercised considerable influence as important agents in the social, economic, religious and cultural life of their societies.
This book shows how women on both sides of the Atlantic, while accepting a patriarchal system with all its advantages and disadvantages, contrived to carve out for themselves meaningful lives.
Unusually it concentrates not only on the making and meaning of marriage, but also upon the partnership between men and women. It also looks at the varied roles – cultural, religious and educational – that women played both inside and outside marriage during the key period 1500-1760. Women emerge as partners, patrons, matchmakers, investors and network builders.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |23 pages
General introduction
part |114 pages
Marrying: an active proposition
chapter |1 pages
Introduction
chapter |13 pages
How and where were marriages solemnised?
chapter |26 pages
What was marriage? What was its purpose?
chapter |44 pages
Finding a partner among the landed aristocracy 1
part |177 pages
Experience of marriage
chapter |5 pages
Introduction
chapter |6 pages
Attitudes to marriage
chapter |33 pages
Patriarchy
chapter |20 pages
Partnership and separation
chapter |35 pages
Mistress of the household: what wives did all day
chapter |18 pages
Mothers
chapter |22 pages
Wives and property
chapter |36 pages
Widows and widowhood
part |112 pages
Culture and religion: women's preparation for and participation in contemporary culture