ABSTRACT
BEFORE THE REVOLUTION Some women in colonial North America-especially propertied white women-enjoyed more opportunity than women in Europe, but all were under a patriarchal regime of social control. Patriarchy privileged the absolute authority of the husband and father in the family, which custom and Biblical injunctions supported. If American radicals modified or republicanized PATRIARCHY after 1776, it continued to keep women subordinate to men by various means. Key laws excluded women from civil and political rights reserved to men, but less formal social attitudes, conventional wisdom, and ideology, which were shared by men and women, supported the law. Many women upheld the values that seemed to make a hierarchical relation between men and women necessary to maintain the social order-primarily the domestic values of reproduction and “goodwifery.” Some women violated limits and tried to expand their liberty, however, thereby triggering the sanctions of social control.
