Week 8 Questions/Comments-327 13

1 Overarching Questions How do the readings this week compare to other readings from the past? How do feme soles and feme coverts deal with the circumstances of wills and property in different regions (New England and Chesapeake) and different social orders? -Ryan Quint

2 Antenuptial contract, Mass, 1653 In the Ann Allen piece on 71, why is it that only the eldest son was being prepared for university learning? -Kasey Moore Were wealthy women the only ones that could get Antenuptial Contracts? For this reading only mentioned propertied widows or daughters of wealthy men being among those who signed these contracts. Although I doubt they were the only ones that applied for these contracts, they were the only group of women mentioned in the reading. -Kearsten Lehman

While reading this I found it very frustrating that women could only get moveable goods. And I questioned why it was her oldest son that was being prepared for schooling, why not her other kids? I was also wondering about the non- wealthy women, did they have as antenuptial contract as well? – Katie Way

3 New England Divorce, CT, 1655-1678; MD, 1680

I am curious to the offenses that illicit the right to file for divorce. All that is listed is adultery, fraudulent contract, or willful desertion. What about physical violence against the wife? Or perhaps sexual misconduct? Instead the reasons listed for divorce have to do with one of the parties not filling their gender's duties as expected by society. Yet, as in the case of Robert Wade, the court does not even give a concrete explanation for what his wife committed against the marriage, but he was still granted divorce. Though CT may seem progressive in its allowance of divorce, I feel the provisions under which it was governed should be taken into account when making that argument. -Katie Redmiles If a women had to wait six years until she could be divorce, how did she provide for herself? Did CT and MD have laws like SC which allowed Feme Covert to become Feme Sole traders? -Kasey Moore I found the divorce law very confusing because a woman had to wait until after three years of "total neglect." I don't understand how this could be proved. This does not seem to include being a bad husband though, just a neglect of husband duties such as earning money to pay for things. Outside of the neglect of monetary needs, how was this proved? - Amy Wallace I notice that of all the “justifiable causes” of divorce, abuse is not listed among them. Although it was rare for absolute divorce to be offered, it still did very little for women. They had to learn to survive on their own for many years if they were abandoned and could do nothing if they were being abused. - Jess Hopkins Overall we know that absolute divorce, especially at this time was nearly impossible as well as the mortality rate for both men and women in New England was much lower than that of the Chesapeake colonies. Why is it though that for women who had grounds for divorce had to still be so reliant on men instead of transitioning to feme sols following separation?--Charlotte O. Is there a reason that Massachusetts and Connecticut were the only colonies to offer absolute divorce at this time? It seems as though this would be discouraged among such religious communities. Also, most of these records didn't mention what happened to the children after divorce. One of the 1677 records indicates that the courts gave custody to the mother. How common was this? -Katherine Miller When reading the various divorce cases I found the usage of language interesting when it was a woman being deserted versus the one case where a man was deserted. The 1657 case of Robert Wade uses terms such as "unworthy, sinfull, yea, unnaturall" when talking about how she deserted him. The others don't use such heavy language. It seems as if it was much more shameful on a woman when she leaves her husband than the other way around. - Sandra Sanchez A lot of these divorce cases, like Hannah Huit and Goody Beckwith, have to do with abandonment of the husband. The partnership of man and wife was crucial to a functional household, so I can see why the courts would want a woman to be able to remarry in such an instance. --Mae D'Amico

Why did people think making a women wait six years until she could divorce would make a difference?- Melanie Houston 4 SC feme sole trader acts, 1712, 1744 If a man died she wife would inherit his debt. What happen to the debt incurred by a feme sole trader when she died? Sect. X on page 77 claims that men are not responsible for the feme sole traders debts. - Kasey Moore I understand that once a women is married she is subject to her husband's will and therefore cannot (in the context of the time) make her own unbiased decision in regards to politics and property. However, what of the young property owning woman that does not want to get married because it would not help her in any way? She also had as much legal status as an old wise widow, that also owned property. The reasoning seems arbitrary to me, looking back from a 21st century perspective. --Mae D'Amico I thought it was interesting that in SC women who were married were allowed to engage in business. . . In 1712, women could be sued as if they were single while they were married, and I wonder if it's to protect the husband or actually give a woman rights..? - Tanner Carlton 5 Mass, 1675-1680 – Women in county courts (Malefactors and Complainants) It is shocking that a woman, such as Mary Punnell, would serve such a harsh sentence as being whipped 15 times, paying fines, and going to prison over something such as fornication. It was also listed that bastardy was an equally offensive act. What was the reasoning for such severity at the time? Was it really the preservation of the community when the child would be shamed and motherless? Or was it more so the patriarchal dislike of women participating in sexuality without marriage or children in mind? When did this stop being an offensive punishable by law? -Katie Redmiles Women were obviously very active in New England and its legal system. However this seems contradictory. One of the cases in this section, Backway Sentence, was a prime example of how women were seen as less responsible or capable of making good decisions. William and Mary Backway admitted to fornication before marriage. William had to pay with fifteen stripes while she would get ten or pay a fine. I believe she received less because women were seen as not being able to control their bodies or emotions. -Courtney Collier In the midwife movie it was clear that fornication before marriage happen often. The court cases here reaffirm this. However, most of these cases involve punishing both parties, while in the movie it appeared that so long as a man took the women &amp; child to be his family it was fine. Is this a regional thing / time period ( I don't remember when the movie took place) - Kasey Moore It was fascinating that most of the charges against women in court were for fornication, with fewer men accused or charged. It was also interesting that whipping tended to be the punishment for this crime when other more serious charges, such as abuse, tended to have monetary values attached to them. -Kearsten Lehman I don't really understand the crime that Joane Hyde committed. Was it the fact that she was a vagabond or that she was a Quaker that landed her in prison? I also found it surprising that she was actually imprisoned for this, though she was eventually released, while most other crimes were punished through fees or whippings. -Katherine Miller I find it interesting that in the case of Elizabeth Langberry she was committed for being drunk and other misdemeanors. But this court record only says she was drunk and had Thomas Ockerby pull her into his lap against her will. How would something that happened against her will be her fault? Are they attributing her drunkeness as a way of asking for it essentially? It seems like victim-blaming. - Sandra Sanchez

I find it interesting that the black servant Miriam was to be "whip't with ten Stripes or to pay Forty Shillings" as opposed to the fifteen stripes and court fees of white women for fornication. Was she charged with fewer lashes because black women were believed to be more animalistic and lacking self-control than white women? Was it because she had an influential master? Was she a slave and did slaves face lower penalties because they were valuable property? -Mary Fesak Does Woloch selectively include the fines and sentences for women and a few men or do the entries reflect the fact that men were rarely punished for misbehavior and fornication? If men were rarely punished, then I think women were held more responsible than men. For example, Mary Wharton was sentenced to be severely whipped while there is no mention of a sentence for Gardiner, the man she had "unclean carriages with" even though he was just as responsible for fornicating as she was. Perhaps Gardiner was not sentenced because he confessed/complained before Wharton became pregnant, but the other women who confessed to fornication were still sentenced to a less severe whipping than Wharton. -Mary Fesak Backway was convicted of premarital sex, the man William was given a harsher punishment… Is this common, because Mary could pay her way out of it while William got the whip no matter what? -Tanner Carlton

6 Virginia, 1642, NY 1721-1759 – Widows, Wills and Dower Rights I was interested in how the women of these wills did focus a good deal on their daughters. Though they could not give them very substantial items, they did give them necessities. I wonder how much of the father's wills would have focused on the daughters? Or was bequeathing them anything solely left up to the mothers? -Katie Redmiles Why did the wills in the Chesapeake give less and less to widows over time as this section mentions in the intro? Maybe as the death rate dropped and people started to live longer, children were more likely to be of age when the husband died so he would pass the property directly to them instead of needing his wife to maintain the property for young children. Also as the longer lives caused the need for terms like “now husband” to fall by the wayside, current husband maybe treated their wife’s remarrying less as the next natural step for the widow. As life lasted longer, the extended kin relations of the early Chesapeake stopped shaping the average family and so men wouldn’t expect or want what they bequeathed to help raise another man’s children. –Sarah Palmer. What struck me most about the wills was that slaves were lumped in with property. Obviously in the south they were thought of as property, but today we have a glorified view of the North as being a kind place that slaves ran to for freedom. In reality, they treated them as property the same way that the south did, and in the modern telling of history, this seems to be forgotten more often than not. -Amy Wallace I noticed that in many of the wills, men mention that their wives get so much property as long as they “remain their widow.” Are they simply trying to provide for their wives when they have to support themselves until they remarry, or was it expected for widows not to remarry? - Jess Hopkins 7 Women’s Estates, Mass, 1664, NY 1747-1759 In Elizabeth Sands’s will, she must write with the “advice and consent” of her husband as all the property is legally his. Some of the “property” that she distributes are “2 negro women and a negro boy” and “a negro girl” that she describes in less detail than the “blue and white calico quilt” or the bed that formerly was in the Parlor”. Does Elizabeth Sands being legally covered by her husband exist on the same spectrum of possession as her ownership of these anonymous black slaves? Or is Sands’s experience wholly foreign from theirs? --Sarah Palmer It is important to remember that property owning widows did often not own much. Ann Rapalyn of Queens County may have been able to leave her children real money but Jane Jones of the Parish East Chester could only give her son five shillings and her daughters the cooking ware, a cow, and a horse. I wonder if more wills were like Rapalyn's or Jones. There were probably more Jones in the world, but her will would not be quite as contested if there were an issue, as she did not have as much to give. --Mae D'Amico

Even though these women did not own a lot of land, they still had something that they could call their own. Rebecca Sipkins will was very interesting. I like that she leaves her assets to her granddaughters as opposed to her male family memebers - Katie Way

8 Suzanne Lebsock, The Free Women of Petersburg In this piece I was not surprised that women wrote deeds of gift. Women were supposed to be loving, generous, and nurturing to everyone. This study heightened the evidence on the perception of women and how they were expected to act in all aspects of life. I also found the part about women being able to pick and choose who gets what in the will after their death. This allowed women to strategize for their family, showing their capability to handle finances. -Courtney Collier Why was it common for free women of color in Philadelphia not to marry? Like was the case with keeping women out of the field and the ideals of republican motherhood, did these women’s race exclude them from the “universal” ideas of womanhood? Were they excluded from the popular conception of marriage? Or like the increasing amount of white women in Philadelphia, did they chose to partially exclude themselves?--Sarah Palmer The differences between the sexes was highlighted in this reading. Women, primarily single white women of Petersburg, tended to approach business and wills with a disparate mindset from men because of the divergent manners in which they were brought up. Unfortunately the separate spheres of influence concept appears to be the argument for the differences between the sexes rather than one of many reasons men and feme soles approached problems differently. - Kearsten Lehman In Lebsock's piece she cites many different women who inherited the debt of their dead husbands. Many women who inherited the debt of their husbands because of their status as a feme covert had to again rely on the help of those around them to begin to take care of the debt left behind for them. Why is it though that women/wives could inherit the debt, but their children tended to inherit the estate and what came with it, instead of the owners of the estate?--Charlotte O. Overall, I found Mary Marshall Bolling's story fascinating not only because she was the exception for a single widow, but because she gave her will to her granddaughter before her son, Robert. How did she get away with that? Did it ever become a common thing back then?- Melanie Houston

Petersburg's population in 1860, the year this chapter's study group ends on, was 18,000; it was the second largest city in Virginia behind Richmond. How many women among those 18,000 were feme soles leading their own lives and executing their own decisions? -Ryan Quint

I find it very interesting, and sad, that even when giving a complement to a women, as marquis de Chastellux did, the marquis seems to have felt a need to degrade other women in the process of complementing one. This just shows how the people of the time thought Mary Bolling to be the exception to their stereotype for women rather than believe that other women were equally as capable as she when given the right circumstances. Ike C.

I have to wonder how some men, like Mary Bollings son Robert Bolling jr. handled their opinions of other women after living with their mother doing what was considered man’s work at the time. This must have shaped their opinions of women to some degree for the rest of their lives. It must have been interesting to have come from a society in which women were believed to have been inferior and yet grow up watching your own mother be very capable, more capable then most men of the time. Ike C.