Women in Colonial America

Women in Colonial America

Introduction

Women's lives in colonial America were very different from our own in so many ways. To a great degree, what your life was like depended upon your status and wealth, your religion, your race, and which colony and which century you lived in. The variety of experiences is almost dizzying, particularly when race is factored in. However there are some things they shared which we generally do not.

Discussion

The discussion begins with what they had in common: most importantly, they had many more children than modern women, across the board. Women's adult lives, at least between the ages of 20 and 45, and sometimes earlier, was characterized by motherhood: Most women, most of the time, were either pregnant or nursing, and sometimes both. On average, women had about nine children, and about 90-95% of women bore children. Their children were typically born about 2 ½ years apart, because intensive nursing (which they did for about that long) worked as the most reliable form of birth control. (Note that this works in societies where calories are limited, but not as well in modern America). Although some scholars have found that apothecaries and some women had knowledge about birth control, in the form, generally, of powders that could cause first term abortions, these do not appear to have been widely used, or indeed, terribly reliable. On average, women had 9 children, of whom between 5-7 (depending on region) survived to adulthood. The number of children who died was greater in the South(Richard, 1959, 125-269).

For the colonial society, marriage was a partnership heavily influenced by social class. Men and women in higher classes had greater restrictions in choosing their life-long partners because fortune was at stake. The parents of these men and women bargained with each other in order to arrange a marriage in which their wealth would be increased and standing in society improved. The women in lower classes led lives that involved more physical labor but had greater equality with their husband, even working alongside them due to the need to sustain their families(Bjornlund, 2003, 25-39).

Women had various jobs in their household, jobs which depended on the husband's occupation and to some extent on the climate. The women of Virginia farmers led arduous lives, having to make goods which could otherwise be purchased, and had many responsibilities, even taking on some of the husbands' tasks. Life on the plantation was drastically different. Women led hard lives and had the responsibility to make sure that the slaves and servants were doing their work. These women often found it easier to do their slaves' work because the slaves had no incentive to complete their tasks and were not trustworthy. The mistress of the plantation worked alongside her servants during preparations for balls, work that was time-consuming. Women of the plantation had to be good at the art of deception; they had to appear leisurely. The women on the farm had advantages over these on the ...