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Because of their scarcity in early America, women were more highly valued than in the Old World, where they were relatively abundant. But scarcity alone did not produce romantic idealization of women. The fact was women were valued, among other
things, as helpmates; without them, no farm or plantation could be wholly successful. From a purely utilitarian point of view, therefore, a woman around the house was indispensable, and it was this aspect of marriage, rather than romantic love, which was emphasized in colonial America.
Childbearing and childrearing, domestic drudgery, farm duties-these were the lot of most women during the colonial period. For them life was not enlivened by women's clubs and community activities. While servants were comparatively cheap, those who could not afford them had no recourse to labor-saving appliances. Of colonial women it has been eloquently said: generations of them cooked, carried water, washed and made clothes, bore children in lonely peril, and tried to bring them up safely through all sorts of physical exposure without medical or surgical help. The kind and amount of labor performed by a married woman depended upon her station in life. Far more toil was exacted from a pioneer woman than from the wife of a wealthy planter or a middle-class townsman. Besides making the family clothing, soap and candles, and other duties that, in more affluent households, were left to indentured servants and slaves, the pioneer woman was expected to labor in the fields and to do work commonly assigned to draft animals.
At the same time, law and custom relegated women to an inferior status. In the eyes of the common law, a married woman had no existence apart from her husband; she was his chattel to do with very much as he pleased. She could not make a valid contract, bring suit or be sued in court, execute a deed, administer an estate or make a will. She could exercise no legal rights over her children. The most she could ask of them was reverence and respect. Women were expected to look upon their husbands with reverence, love and fear — the same emotions with which they approached their Maker. Insofar as the law and custom could make them so, husbands were as gods upon earth. Except in New England, where a husband was not permitted to beat his wife, and, with fine impartiality, a wife was not permitted to beat her husband, the law specified how much corporal punishment a husband could inflict upon his wife. When he beat her — as, indeed, on occasion, the law recognized, he must — the stick must be no larger than a finger in diameter. When applying the rod, a husband was enjoined to bear in mind that, alter all, she was his wife and that her services would again be required. It was therefore forbidden to kill or permanently incapacitate a woman, no matter how much provocation she gave her liege lord. During the colonial period, it was a fair question to ask a man if he had stopped beating his wife.
From the number of cases in colonial courts of wives seeking protection against their spouses, it is apparent that some husbands abused their privilege of administering wholesome and character-building chastisement. In such instances, the courts compelled the husband to give bond for his future good behavior and occasionally imposed a fine to teach him better conjugal manners. Even when buying her clothes, a woman was expected to defer to the judgment of her husband. William Byrd recorded in his diary how violently he and his wife quarreled when he learned that she had made unauthorized purchases of finery from England. George Washington avoided this kind of trouble by personally ordering his wife's and his stepdaughter's clothing. He also chose the furniture, carpets, wallpaper, and even the color of the curtains for Mount Vernon. He even directed where the furniture was to be placed. Although Martha brought him a great deal of money, she was left in no doubt as to who was running the establishment.
Even though the Puritans permitted women to become church members, they did not allow them to speak in church; if they had questions they were advised to put them to their husbands and be guided by their superior wisdom.
Occasionally, unhappy wives ran away from insupportable husbands. In that event, the husband usually advertised in the newspapers — the notice appeared alongside advertisements for the return of fugitive servants and slaves — announcing his intention of prosecuting anyone who knowingly gave the fugitive shelter. After all, the wife however much she might dislike her husband's bed and board, was his legal property and he had a right to her services, of which he could be deprived only by the law. Divorce was easier in New England than in those colonies where the Church of England was established. From 1664 until the American Revolution, not a single divorce was legalized in the colony of New York. In that province and in the Southern colonies, a marriage could be dissolved only by act of the royal governor and council. As a result, many couples dragged out a loveless existence. But the courts occasionally mitigated this intolerable state of affairs by ordering legal separations and, in cases of excessive cruelty, desertion and nonsupport, required the errant husband to provide separate maintenance. In one respect, at least, women enjoyed equality with men in colonial America: they were usually punished with equal severity for crimes and misdemeanors. Women were pilloried, ducked, whipped publicly and, for a particularly heinous offense such as the murder of a husband, burned to death. Around 1720, a woman was put to death in Philadelphia for burglary. And, as always, women who sinned against the moral code received the brunt of the punishment.
For one capital crime, witchcraft, the penalty was meted out almost exclusively to women. Only one male suffered death for selling his soul to the Devil; the rest of the victims of the witchcraft mania were women. Indeed, by definition, a "witch" was a woman; a man guilty of dealings with Satan was called a "wizard". Among the many disagreeable results of growing old, women faced the very real hazard of being taken for a witch — for old women were considered particularly susceptible to the wiles of the Evil One. The romantic aura with which Southerners surrounded their womenfolk and the chivalry that they traditionally exhibited toward all members of the weaker sex were not always in evidence during the colonial period. In 1676, when Nathaniel Bacon and his men were under attack by Governor Berkeley's partisans in Jamestown, they made a protective shield of the wives of their enemies behind which they made good their escape. Nevertheless, the conditions of life in the Southern colonies — the threat of violence always present in the wilderness, the hostility of the Indians and the presence of large numbers of unpredictable black slaves — caused men to take an extraordinarily protective attitude toward women. In the nineteenth century, the novels of Sir Walter Scott helped prepare the way for the cult of womanhood and the elaborate courtesy and refinement of sentiment displayed by Southern males that led some travelers to conclude that, in the Southland, knighthood was again in flower.
As was to be expected in a country as desperately short of labor as was colonial America, women played an important part in activities outside the home. Women ran taverns and retail stores, operated ferries, managed plantations, and the practice of obstetrics was almost monopolized by midwives. Until Aaron Burr undertook to make his daughter, Theodosia, the most erudite and accomplished woman of her generation, few Americans were prepared to agree with Mrs. John Adams when she said that "if we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women". Nevertheless, during the eighteenth century, the educational revolution began to catch up with women. More and more, girls were taught to write as well as to read. Increasing wealth and leisure redounded to the benefit of upper-class colonial girls many of whom were sent to dancing schools and even to "female seminaries" where they were taught music, drawing, French and manners. The ideal of the well-brought up young lady had undergone a drastic change since John Winthrop laid down the law as to how the "females" of Boston should conduct themselves. Indeed, before the colonial period came to a close, some travelers were ready to pronounce American women superior to American men.
