Under Household Government : Sex and Family in Puritan Massachusetts / M. Michelle Jarrett Morris.
Morris, M. Michelle Jarrett, author.
2012
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Title Under Household Government : Sex and Family in Puritan Massachusetts / M. Michelle Jarrett Morris.
Author Morris, M. Michelle Jarrett, author.
ISBN 9780674067899
DOI https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674067899
Published Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2012]
Copyright ©2012
Language English
Language Note In English.
Description 1 online resource : 15 charts, 2 tables
Other Standard Identifiers 10.4159/harvard.9780674067899 doi
Summary Seventeenth-century New Englanders were not as busy policing their neighbors' behavior as Nathaniel Hawthorne or many historians of early America would have us believe. Keeping their own households in line occupied too much of their time. Under Household Government reveals the extent to which family members took on the role of watchdog in matters of sexual indiscretion. In a society where one's sister's husband's brother's wife was referred to as "sister," kinship networks could be immense. When out-of-wedlock pregnancies, paternity suits, and infidelity resulted in legal cases, courtrooms became battlegrounds for warring clans. Families flooded the courts with testimony, sometimes resorting to slander and jury-tampering to defend their kin. Even slaves merited defense as household members-and as valuable property. Servants, on the other hand, could expect to be cast out and left to fend for themselves. As she elaborates the ways family policing undermined the administration of justice, M. Michelle Jarrett Morris shows how ordinary colonists understood sexual, marital, and familial relationships. Long-buried tales are resurrected here, such as that of Thomas Wilkinson's (unsuccessful) attempt to exchange cheese for sex with Mary Toothaker, and the discovery of a headless baby along the shore of Boston's Mill Pond. The Puritans that we meet in Morris's account are not the cardboard caricatures of myth, but are rendered with both skill and sensitivity. Their stories of love, sex, and betrayal allow us to understand anew the depth and complexity of family life in early New England.
Access Note Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics text file PDF
Source of Description Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Jul 2019)
Series Harvard Historical Studies ; 180
In E-BOOK GESAMTPAKET / COMPLETE PACKAGE 2013
E-BOOK PACKAGE HISTORY, POLITICAL SCIENCE, SOCIOLOGY 2013
E-BOOK PAKET GESCHICHTE, POLITIKWISS., SOZIOLOGIE 2013
HUP Complete eBook Package 2011-2014
HUP eBook Package 2013
HUP eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
HUP eBook Package Backlist 2000-2014
HUP eBook Package Backlist 2000-2015
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Frontmatter
Contents
Figures
Words, Words, Words
Introduction
1. Daniel Gookin's House hold
2. Contrary to the Laws of God and This Jurisdiction
3. Lawful Remedies, Diabolical Erections, and an Unwanted Suitor
4. The Rape of Elizabeth Pierce
5. A Family of Allies
6. Two Missing Infants
7. Traitors, Rebels, and Slaves
Conclusion
A Peek behind the Scenes
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

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