Relies upon private and public documents of the time to investigate the circumstances and consciousness of middle-class women and to examine concepts of 'woman's place.'

Assesses the roles and status of women of early New England in terms of family and community organization, the structure of daily life and work, responsibilities and authority, and more

In her analysis of the cultural construction of gender in early America, Elizabeth Reis explores the intersection of Puritan theology, Puritan evaluations of womanhood, and the Salem witchcraft episodes. She finds in those intersections the basis for understanding why women were accused of witchcraft more often than men, why they confessed more often, and why they frequently accused other women of being witches. In negotiating their beliefs about the devil's powers, both women and men embedded womanhood in the discourse of depravity.Puritan ministers insisted that women and men were equal in the sight of God, with both sexes equally capable of cleaving to Christ or to the devil. Nevertheless, Reis explains, womanhood and evil were inextricably linked in the minds and hearts of seventeenth-century New England Puritans. Women and men feared hell equally but Puritan culture encouraged women to believe it was their vile natures that would take them there rather than the particular sins they might have committed.Following the Salem witchcraft trials, Reis argues, Puritans' understanding of sin and the devil changed. Ministers and laity conceived of a Satan who tempted sinners and presided physically over hell, rather than one who possessed souls in the living world. Women and men became increasingly confident of their redemption, although women more than men continued to imagine themselves as essentially corrupt, even after the Great Awakening.

Product Description: Examining the status of women in four New England seaports in the 17th and 18th centuries, Elaine Forman Crane argues that women suffered a deterioration in economic and social standing as the market economy and government expanded...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Relies upon private and public documents of the time to investigate the circumstances and consciousness of middle-class women and to examine concepts of 'woman's place.'