"Suffer Not a Woman to Speak" (R)

In the article "Suffer Not a Woman to Speak", I found evidence to the toughness of a woman's life in the colonial period. Women during this period were given freedoms and rights accroding to certain laws, however, just as the fine print of a contract, these privledges were yanked from beneath them with another set of contradicting laws. While two identical crimes could have been commited by a man and a woman, the woman would get a more severe punishment due merely to her sex. This article reaches to show the underhanded works of the colonial people to make a woman's life unpleasant.

This article begins by showing a woman's place in the church. It shows how many people believed that women were to be subservient to men due to the story of Adam and Eve, from the beginning of time. For many women, religion was the one place where they felt they were equal; and for most women who stayed within strict religious boundaries this was true. For women such as Anne Hutchinson however, this was just another place of conviction. If women were to express their own thoughts, beliefs, or doubts dealing with religion, they were accused of heresy. Although men who took part in the same actions were accused as well, women's sentences were much harsher than the men's.

This bias towards women is shown again in respects to the Salem witch trials. The majority of the 200 people accused of witchcraft were women. Of twenty people to be executed during these trials, there was an uneven ratio of fourteen to six, with women being greater.

The Quakers were one of the only religions as a whole to respect women's thoughts and contributions. Even this religion however, was split along sexual lines. Women and men had separate meetings and women were required to have their husbands permission to go on missionary work. During the 1600s, treatment towards women in the Quaker society became worse when any women who attempted to preach was fined, whipped, jailed, pilloried, or hanged. Later on in the 1700s, women were more respected in the sects, and strong women such as Barbara Heck, who opened the first Methodist church in America, were rewarded. When these religions became more developed, however women were shoved out of the pulpit. Their allowance into the religious aspect of life fluctuated back and forth through the Colonial Era.

In regards to the law, on the surface women were given many rights, but deeply embeded in these laws were unfair acts that took a woman's strength away. For instance, a woman was always encouraged to get married and live a happy life with a husband to support her. However, single women during this time period were given more rights then married women due to the fact they had no husband to "protect" them. Also, Common Law gave the husband authority over everything both his and his wifes. Even after he died she was not allowed to claim his belongings. While common law gave women the right to be supported and protected from violence by her husband, if a husband refused to feed or shelter his wife, as well as beat her, by these same laws a women could not sue in court. Therefore although these laws were supposed to protect women, at the same time they did nothing for them and in some cases even hurt them. While Courts of Equity were put into effect to help support women, this act was just as unfair as the others. Some states had no equity courts making the secturity offered by one unavailable to the women of that area. Once a man got ahold of a woman's property the woman could no longer resort to equity. Equity was also only designed to protect the upper class women rather than those of lesser means.

While from the outside it may have seemed as though women were recieving rights and positions in both religion and the law, as the article shows, their treatment was unfair and biased. The laws that seemed to give women more rights and protections resemble that of an encrypted code to make life more rigid for these women.

"Suffer Not a Woman to Speak"