Good wives : image and reality in the lives of women in northern New England, 1650-1750 / Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ulrich, Laurel Thatcher, 1938- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

New England.

Women--New England--History.

Women.

Women--New England--Social conditions.

Physical Description:

xv, 296 pages : illustrations, map ; 21 cm

Edition:

1st Vintage books ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Vintage Books, 1991.

Summary:

This enthralling work of scholarship strips away those abstractions to reveal the hidden -- and not always stoic -- face of the "goodwives" of colonial America. In these pages we encounter the awesome burdens -- and the considerable power -- of a New England housewife's domestic life and witness her occasional forays into the world of men. We see her borrowing from her neighbors, loving her husband, raising -- and, all too often, mourning -- her children, and even attaining fame as a heroine of frontier conflicts or notoriety as a murderess. Painstakingly researched, lively with scandal and homely detail, Good Wives is history at its best.

Examines the lives of women in northern New England in the century from 1650 to 1750, discussing issues of housekeeping, childbearing, churchgoing, and other triumphs and tragedies of everyday life.

"A gravestone in northern New England proclaims that a woman was "eminent for Holiness...Prudence, Sincerity...Meakness...Weanedness From ye World...Publick-Spiritedness...Faithfulness & Charity." This enthralling work of scholarship strips away those abstractions to reveal the hidden--and not always stoic--face of the "goodwives" of colonial America. In these pages we encounter the awesome burdens--and the considerable power--of a New England housewife's domestic life and witness her occasional forays into the world of men. We see her borrowing from her neighbors, loving her husband, raising--and, all too often, mourning--her children, and even attaining fame as a heroine of frontier conflicts or notoriety as a murderess. Painstakingly researched, lively with scandal and homely detail, 'Good Wives' is history at its best." -- Back cover

Contents:

I: Bathsheba

The ways of her household

Deputy husbands

A friendly neighbor

Pretty gentlewomen

II: Eve

The serpent beguiled me

Consort

Travail

Mother of all living

III: Jael

Blessed above women

Viragoes

Captives

Daughters of Zion.

Notes:

Reprint. Originally published: New York : Knopf, 1982.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-281) and index.

ISBN:

0679732578

9780679732570

OCLC:

22911417