The family was at the center of each Puritan godly community. The rigidly upheld norms ensured that the proscribed proper gender roles, as well as the place of children, were maintained and enforced. Deviations from these norms were not tolerated and frequently punished harshly. The New England family model established a long-term pattern that, eventually, would become the American social expectation.
Unlike other English colonies such as Virginia, where marriage tended to occur later in life, males and females in New England married early and began to build families. The semi-theocratic Commonwealth allowed for divorce and differentiated between divorce and annulment. Adultery, desertion, or prolonged absences, usually seven years or longer, were legal grounds for terminating the marriage. It was not uncommon for men to remarry after the death of a wife because life was fragile and childbearing dangerous. The term "now-wife" came to refer to a man's present wife as compared to those that he had previously lost. Puritans held to the idea of the “limit on love"; there was no marriage in heaven. Wives were expected to be obedient to their husbands but husbands were expected to love their wives. All property in the marriage was held by the husband whose duties including providing for the wife and children.
Most families lived on small farms; therefore each member of the household was expected to assist with the seasonal rigors of planting and harvesting. Every family member that could walk helped with the chores. Women, however, were expected to do all of the household work, which included everything from cooking to making soap, washing, and nurturing children. Many children didn't survive to adulthood. An early gravestone in Vermont displays symbolic faces of thirteen infants and one child that one woman lost before her own death at forty. Young girls were placed in households once they came of age to learn the intricacies of being wives and mothers. As they got older, they were forbidden to date males without proper chaperoning. Boys were apprenticed to masters for a period of 5-7 years depending upon the terms of the contract and the type of skill to be learned. Over all, every family member had their role and pulled their weight to make the family function as smoothly as possible.
Resources:
History of American Women Blog . http://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2007_12_01_archive.html (accessed November 11, 2010).
Streich, Michael. November 5, 2009. Colonial Families in Puritan New England: Social Norms and Gender Expectations Dictated Proper Roles. Suite101. (November 5), http://www.suite101.com/content/colonial-families-in-puritan-new-england-a166440 (accessed November 5, 2010).
The New England Colonies. New England Colonies Daily Life. The Thirteen Colonies.
http://www.east-buc.k12.ia.us/00_01/ca/13c6.htm (accessed November 5, 2010).
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