ABSTRACT
It is the overriding assumption of the conduct books and guides to godliness of the seventeenth century that it is woman’s lot to become a wife, that selffulfilment lies in her performance of that role, and that upon it her salvation depends (I Tim. ii.15). Eve was created not only a woman but a wife (4, 7, 79). The characterization and celebration of a virtuous woman in Proverbs xxxi (76), which informs all comment on womanly behaviour, takes her to be a wife: she is motivated by concern for her husband’s well-being and reputation, and for her children’s welfare; her skills and duties are those belonging to efficient household management. Thomas Edgar’s summary of woman’s legal status (92) is more generally applicable: women ‘are understood either married or to be married’. Though upon marriage the woman lost her own separate legal identity and yielded up her estate to her husband (92), it appears that the property rights of a good many married women-and hence their financial security, even independence-were safeguarded through marriage settlements (Erickson (1990). The wife’s legal position is summarized by Stone (1977), pp. 195-202; for the common law notion of coverture, see Kanowitz (1969), pp. 35-8).
