ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how the American environment affected the institution of marriage and the status of husband, wife, and children. Contrary to earlier belief, the colonial family was closer to the modern nuclear family than to extended family consisting of several generations which was more traditional in Europe at the time. In the eighteenth century, one finds two contradictory trends in regard to premarital sex. The legal status of spinsters and widows was somewhat better than that of married women. Colonial figure indicates almost seven births per fertile marriage for whites and between seven and eight for slaves who, as might be expected, suffered from a higher rate of child mortality. In the early colonial period, a married woman had no legal status. According to English common law, her legal existence was incorporated and consolidated into that of her husband. In the seventeenth century childhood ended at age of six or seven. Children were thereafter thought of as miniature adults.
