While the imbalance between male and female migrants made it difficult for patriarchal family patterns fully to take root in the Chesapeake until the end of the seventeenth century, they emerged very quickly in New England. Whatever their differences with other Englishmen on religious matters, Puritans shared with the larger society a belief in male authority within the household as well as an adherence to the common-law tradition that severely limited married women’s legal and economic rights. Puritans in America carefully emulated the family structure of England, insisting that the obedience of women, children, and servants to men’s will was the foundation of social stability. The father’s authority was all the more vital because in a farming society without large numbers of slaves or servants, control over the labor of one’s family was essential to a man’s economic success.
To be sure, Puritans deemed women to be the spiritual equals of men, and women were allowed to become full church members. Although all ministers were men, the Puritan belief in the ability of believers to interpret the Bible opened the door for some women to claim positions of religious leadership. The ideal Puritan marriage was based on reciprocal affection and companionship, and divorce was legal. Yet within the household, the husband’s authority was virtually absolute. Indeed, a man’s position as head of his family was thought to replicate God’s authority in spiritual matters and the authority of the government in the secular realm. Magistrates sometimes intervened to protect wives from physical abuse, but they also enforced the power of fathers over their children and husbands over their wives. Moderate “correction” was considered appropriate for women who violated their husbands’ sense of proper behavior.
Their responsibilities as wives and mothers defined women’s lives. In his 1645 speech on liberty quoted above, John Winthrop noted that woman achieved genuine freedom by fulfilling her prescribed social role and embracing “subjection to her husband’s authority.” The family was the foundation of strong communities, and unmarried adults seemed a danger to the social fabric. An early law of Plymouth declared that “no single person be suffered to live of himself.” The typical New England woman married at twenty-two, a younger age than her English counterpart, and gave birth seven times. Because New England was a far healthier environment than the Chesapeake, more children survived infancy. Thus, much of a woman’s adult life was devoted to bearing and rearing children.