Female Church Membership example essay topic

Two noted women's historians Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Elaine Forman Crane analyze the role of women in colonial society and explore the gender issues present in colonial society in their books Good Wives: Images and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England 1650-1750 and Ebb Tide in New England: Women, Seaports, and Social Change, 1630-1800 respectively. Crane, as suggested by the title of her book, views the colonial time period as one of regression, whereas Ulrich's perspective on the woman's role is positive. Ulrich argues that women held a significant purpose in colonial towns through the numerous roles they maintained. Through close analysis of religion, the family, and the relation they have in the patriarchal hierarchy, both authors identify and explain the function women held in New England colonial culture. Colonial society is undeniably patriarchal. "Males exercised the ultimate authority" in the public sphere that prohibited women from experiencing equality in every aspect of life.

Women's dependency on men and submissiveness to them fit into the hierarchical social structure. The idea of a "private sphere" defined the duties of women and the roles they played in society. Women occupied an important role in the "development of urban America". However, only within "fixed perimeters" according to Crane. Ulrich's view of the role of women's participation in the development of colonial towns is that of a growing significance, as change became increasingly evident in northern New England. The Puritan religion is egalitarian in that gender is not a stipulation for spiritualty or church membership, but the patriarchal social structure of the community and the family carried over into the religious realm decreasing women's participation in Puritan churches according to Crane.

The idea of a "virtuous, devout wife" was respected and encouraged by the Puritan church, reiterating the gender hierarchy. Puritanism, a rejection of Catholicism in Europe, offered no alternatives for women to marriage. Catholic women had other opportunities such as convents, but "marriage [was] the only option for Puritan women". This accentuated the preferred idea of women as mothers and wives and the father as the "religious head" of the family. However, the female church membership outnumbered that of the male membership. Despite the female majority in the church it was a small group of men that dominated the authority of the religious community.

The "systematic suppression of female speech" in the church enabled the male minority to exercise power over the predominately female congregation. Society discouraged women from voicing opinions or speaking their mind, especially if it was in rebuke of the church. The silence of women in the church described by Crane is not the norm according to Ulrich; women were instrumental in the community, especially in the church, which was central to society. Women's social influence as the moral authority in the community enabled them to influence their husbands in matters of business, religion, and other neighborhood issues. Although they had no direct impact financially, they had the power to "control reputations", which could make or break someone, such as a minister. Knowing this, ministers catered to the needs of the predominately female congregation even though it was the men who had the ministerial positions and the assumed power.

One reason for the un proportionally large female population was that church membership was open to all women of every class and race. The lack of discrimination allowed all women to have at least a small degree of influence in society through the church. One advantage of the large female church membership is that it offered wives an opportunity to lead their husbands to the Lord and spread religion into the outlying areas of the town that the minister would not be able to visit as often. Ulrich summarizes the benefits of female church membership. "Just as church membership gave women independent status, religious teaching often ratified traditional female values, supporting old wives in their guardian ship of sexual mores, elevating charity over commerce and neighborliness over trade, but above all, transforming weakness into gentleness, obscurity into humiliation, changing worldly handicaps into spiritual strengths". Without women, the church may have faltered for it was the women that promoted and energized church involvement in colonial society.

In American colonial communities, the hierarchy, which men headed, existed in every aspect of life and dominated the culture. But as Ulrich points out, women did have substantial influence in their lives and in the community, and were in fact not as oppressed as Crane makes them out to be. The strong female presence in the church enabled them to exercise social power in the church, family, and the community. There are three assumptions in the family hierarchy according to Ulrich.

First, "the husband was the supreme in the external affairs of the family". However, his opinions would include the views of his wife. And should the husband be prevented from performing his duties and fulfilling his role, the wife "could appropriately stand in his place" as a "deputy husband". On the surface it appeared that only the men had say in the public sphere, but that is merely a front. Women did have influence outside of the private sphere.

In many instances wives were expected to step in as deputy husband, and "as long as it furthered the good of the her family and was acceptable to her husband" married women performed tasks not assigned to her gender. The Puritan church celebrated the idea of motherhood, which was seen as a "labor ordained by God". One of the blessings of motherhood in colonial society was children. Ulrich says "an honored mother was a fruitful, tender and giving. Her chief monument was her progeny" and she and her husband used the religious authority of God to discipline and reinforce "their own authority".

The church was the central component to colonial New England culture and reinforced the importance of women in the family. Ebb Tide in New England does not provide evidence of colonial women rendering the same authority or autonomy as Good Wives suggest. Crane's research into the colonial seaports of Boston, Salem, Portsmouth, and Newport shows an unbalanced sex ratio that is overwhelmingly female. "The lack of alternatives to marriage placed tremendous emphasis on the family as an institution", however the disproportionate population prohibited many women from ever marrying.

The church enforced the idea that only "a virtuous wife, one who proved herself submissive, obedient, selfless, and pious deserved a husband's love" so this encouraged women to submit to the social hierarchy. "Female submissiveness and male domination" were key components of a successful marriage, and given that marriage was the only option for New England women, they abandon any thoughts or hope of independence. The patriarchal hierarchy combined with the large female population resulted in "a financially unstable group of women" compose of "never married, widowed, or semi-married women". This group of women had few opportunities to earn a living, especially as the economy became "inseparably intertwined with long distance trade, as a consumer-conscious middle class emerged, as a cash economy replaced the traditional barter system". With few men to marry, women could not fulfill the expected role of mother, and even if they did marry, many husbands were away at sea so the mother was left with trying to provide for the family, but had no means of doing so. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Elaine Forman Crane's study of colonial women in New England led them on different paths of understanding the role women had.

Ulrich uses mainly primary sources in her research in which she pieces together information from court records and diaries to establish the stories of colonial northern New England. This method allows for Ulrich's interpretation of the details and give way for bias when reconstructing the stories. Crane uses some primary sources in her research, but she also extensively utilizes secondary sources along with the help of historical societies, history departments, and various other people. These factors may have swayed her research. Also, Crane only studied four seaport urban towns whereas Ulrich looks at all of northern New England.

The differences may stem from these differences in the women's research. The differences between Good Wives by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and Ebb Tide in New England by Elaine Forman Crane can be due to various factors in their research. Crane writes about the oppression and regression of women in four New England seaport towns in 1630-1800 finding that "at the end of the colonial era, urban women were more dependent and less autonomous than they had been in the founding years". Ulrich argues that "female life was defined in a series of discrete duties" that worked together to outline the role of women in northern New England society from 1650-1750.

Both acknowledge the effect the patriarchal hierarchy played in the roles of women and the complexity of them in relation to the Puritan church and the family, which are both pivotal to colonial society.