First Generation Women In Colonial America Summary

It is no surprise that women's ideologies and conditions are much more different from what they were 316 years ago. By thoroughly analyzing the book First Generations Women in Colonial America written by historian Carol Berkin, the reader is able to take a closer look at America's past and further understand the norms and differences during this time. The reader also gets an understanding on how the treatment of women and their rights have changed over the years . There is a possibility because of how females were treated during the 1700 and 1800s that this could have played a key factor in why many colonial women pleaded to stay with the indians who captured them and chose to leave their old lives in the colonies to start new ones in the …show more content…
Many colonial women would go through a constant birth cycle which caused them to become pregnant every two years until death or menopause put a halt to this terrible cycle (Berkin 5). These women on top of being used to repeatedly breed until death would have to take on very demanding tasks. Some of these tasks would include cooking, housework, tending the sick, caring for livestock and raising the children. Berkin tells the reader that “The tasks of childbearing and fieldwork were the primary physical and economic constraints in the life of a white colonial woman” (Berkin 13).Because of this it is easy to understand that this was an unjust time for many women even the lifespan for females was much shorter compared to that of males. With all this information in mind it is much easier to understand why these women would choose to leave their male oppressors and seek a safe haven with a tribe of indians who practice gender equality and were fare to these …show more content…
Females had very few to almost no rights at all. They were not allowed to vote, serve on juries and purchase or sell property. Berkin informs the reader on how the laws of this time mostly protected the rights of men and poorly protects the rights of these women. She states “In its most pristine and extreme interpretation, the law denied married women the rights to make judgments regarding their own economic circumstances. It muted their voice in courts, restricted their accumulation and disbursement of material wealth, and made them less than responsible for their accumulation and disbursement of material wealth, and made them less than responsible for their misdeeds or achievements in the public sphere. A woman was a legal incompetent as children, idiots and criminals were under english law… stripped of all property: once married, the clothes on her back her possessions whether valuable, mutable or merely sentimental and even her body became her husband's, to direct, to manage, and to use (Berkin 14). This unfairness makes it easy to understand why many colonial women decided to stay with their capturers and leave their lives in the colonies, many couldn't even find solace in