Today, people pay more and more attention to the role of women in historical events. Various achievements were previously considered only in terms of male participation. However, women have come a long way towards the current level of freedom and equality. America of the Colonial period is characterized by discrimination not only by race but also by gender. However, colonizing new lands requires both men and women to cooperate to build settlements and provide them with populations. Depending on gender, people “experienced life differently in terms of their rights and responsibilities within families and outside the home” (Shehan, 2018, p. 87). The essay explores the status of women and gender roles in colonial America. The difference between the lives of women in the Northern and Southern Colonies is also discussed. Finally, the movement of “republican mothers” and their contribution to the revolution are analyzed.
The first colonizers of the New World were Europeans, who brought with them European concepts of the family and women’s role in society. Thus, colonial America’s social organization was patriarchal, where men represented authority, were political leaders, moral models, and controlled property (oclsvideos, 2017). For colonial America, the family was the fundamental element in maintaining social order, defining work responsibilities, and determining participation in politics (ColumbiaLearn, 2017). Nevertheless, there were differences between families and, accordingly, gender roles in the Northern and Southern colonies, which is explained by the peculiarities of developing different lands. As such, a woman’s life in colonial America will vary greatly, whether she lives in a New England village or on a Chesapeake plantation.
Even though women’s lives in different parts of America varied, some aspects were characteristic of both the North and the South. First of all, women were supposed to take care of the home, children, and food production for the family. Any woman in colonial America also had to get married and have children as early as possible (ColumbiaLearn, 2017). Women left Europe hoping to find a husband in America, as “marriage was the major route to upward social mobility… as well as a source of economic security” (Shehan, 2018, p. 84). The life of women was regulated by British common law, according to which they were under the protection of husbands or fathers. Thus, women were not legally free members of society, because “law reinforced dependencies of all sorts” (Hoffer, 2019, p. 40). The men of colonial society enjoyed much more freedom, while the wives’ life was severely limited.
Despite the legal differences in status, both spouses ran the household. Often the household responsibilities of a man and a woman were the same: they raised children together, looked after the house, and worked in the fields (Shehan, 2018). Thus, women also participated in the cultivation and harvesting on an equal basis with men; however, only they manufactured candles, soap, and fabric. Nevertheless, they did not have access to the household’s economic affairs and could not sell the goods they produced. Women also supervised and coordinated the work of servants and farmworkers. An essential part of their life was the socialization of children and their introduction into society (ColumbiaLearn, 2017). Thus, for women, the lives of women in colonial America were strictly limited to housekeeping and family prosperity, while men actively participated in society’s political and economic life.
A woman’s life also depended on whether she was married or not. A married woman transferred all her property to her husband, while an unmarried woman disposed of her property and body (ocls videos, 2017). Under British common law, women were technically the property of their husbands, so they could not legally represent themselves. Thus, she could not enter into contracts on her behalf, get into debt, or participate in business (Salmon, 2016). Not allowed to participate in government processes, they often communicated with other women, spent a lot of time with each other, forming their community.
The woman has always represented her husband and was always one with him. The only way to avoid this was to refuse marriage, but an unmarried woman received a spinster’s stigma, which forced her to work as a servant in someone else’s house (Gallay, 2016). As a result, economic and social needs and society’s perceptions of women shaped women’s gender roles in colonial America. In particular, women were not independent individuals separate from their husbands; they did not directly participate in political or economic processes. Nevertheless, they played an essential role in supporting the family, which was the foundation of society, and raising children.
There were also significant differences between women’s lives in the North and the South, resulting from diverse demographic, religious, and economic situations. In the North, there were about two women for three men in New England, which led to the formation of stable families. Whereas in the South, the ratio was already one to six, and a century later – one to three (oclsvideos, 2017). This difference in the number of women influenced their role as well. Plantation work was mainly a male occupation, and farms were remote from each other, so the South women lived in some isolation from society. In the southern colonies, mortality was much higher than in the northern ones, which affected property inheritance. Widows often inherited their deceased husbands’ property, which gave them more power (oclsvideos, 2017). Moreover, the northern colonies were more religious, as the southern colonies’ settlers sought to earn money, which more imposed religious, moral restrictions on New England women.
The society of colonial America sought to separate the individual from the political, giving women exclusively the household chores sphere. However, the end of the 18th century brought significant political and economic changes that forced a re-examination of the role of women in government affairs. The concept of “republican mothers” appeared, whose role was “to nurture the civic virtue of husband and children at home, but not to play any direct role in the public world of politics” (Blumenfeld, 2017). Thus, women became a crucial element in the preparation of the future generation of male leaders. This shift in perception made it clear the need for women’s education to raise worthy members of society (Thorsen, 2020). The concept of republican mothers claimed that although women cannot participate in political and economic processes, they are an essential part of social progress. Thus, republican motherhood retained the traditional female role, giving it a new, political significance.
Strict gender restrictions distinguished colonial America at that times. The role of women in such a society was to maintain the household and raise children. They had no direct political or economic influence, as well as property rights. Men’s dominant position was held by men, while women were considered their property and were completely dependent on marriage. However, by the end of the 18th century, society recognized their position as fundamental for development.
References
Blumenfeld, L. (2017). Republican womanhood: Then and now. Gender Forum, 61, 3-19.
ColumbiaLearn (2017). MOOC WHAW1.1x | 2.3.1 The Daily Lives of Women in Colonial America with Carol Berkin [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Gallay, A. (2016). Colonial and Revolutionary America. Routledge.
Hoffer, P. (2019). Law and people in colonial America (2nd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press.
Oclsvideos. (2017). Woman in early America [Video].YouTube. Web.
Salmon, M. (2016). Women and the law of property in early America. University of North Carolina Press.
Shehan, C. (2018). Gender roles in American life: A documentary history of political, social, and economic changes. ABC-CLIO.
Thores, E. (2020). Republican motherhood, the American Revolution, and the persistence of memory: The legacy of the Livingston daughters. The Macksey Journal, 1(62), 1-16.