This paper is an examination of the roles of women in Colonial America during the 17th century, comparing the social position of women in the middle and southern colonies with that of the women of the New England colonies. Women outside of New England during this period were a much more diverse group, and their experiences were influenced by the religious and cultural forces that brought them to the New World, by the local economy and social structures that were being created in their new environment, and by their ability to influence their new surroundings and establish new patterns within them. Most of the social gains that women in these circumstances were able to achieve were driven by economic forces, and many of the obstacles they faced were, ultimately, also rooted in the control of money and property.
The women who settled in New England during the early colonial period were a relatively homogenous group. The majority were Puritans who, seeking to escape the persecutions and unpleasantness of a life in their native England, set about recreating their old society in the New World. One of the most important components of this recreation was the maintenance of the relationship between men and women. Carol Berkin observes, "Seventeenth-century New England society carefully replicated the patriarchal family structure of old England" (26). Because so many of those who settled in the northern colonies had come from the same society, the typical New England household followed the familiar pattern: a household composed headed by a man and including his wife and their children, all of whom were economically dependent on him for their daily survival and communal identity. Women were expected to marry and to bear many children; the average New England family consisted of seven children (Berkin 25).
Puritan homogeneity may have prevented New England society from being especially creative in defining itself, but it also allo...