Colonial dames and good wives

by Alice Morse Earle

The other makes, in turn, still more bitter accusations. It can plainly be seen that such social and domestic relations might readily produce similar scenes, and afford opportunity for “crimination and recrimination.”

Still we must not give the Sot-Weed Factor as sole or indeed as entirely unbiased authority. The testimony to the housewifely virtues of the Maryland women by other writers is almost universal. In the London Magazine of 1745 a traveler writes, and his word is similar to that of many others:—

The women are very handsome in general and most notable housewives; everything wears the Marks of Cleanliness and Industry in their Houses, and their behavior to their Husbands and Families is very edifying. You cant help observing, however, an Air of Reserve and somewhat that looks at first to a Stranger like Unsociableness, which is barely the effect of living at a great Distance from frequent Society and their Thorough Attention to the Duties of their Stations. Their Amusements are quite Innocent and within the Circle of a Plantation or two. They exercise all the Virtues that can raise Ones Opinion of too light a Sex.

The girls under such good Mothers generally have twice the Sense and Discretion of the Boys. Their Dress is neat and Clean and not much bordering upon the Ridiculous Humour of the Mother Country where the Daughters seem Dress’d up for a Market.

Wives were just as eagerly desired in New England as in Virginia, and a married estate was just as essential to a man of dignity. As a rule, emigration thereto was in families, but when New England men came to the New World, leaving their families behind them until they had prepared a suitable home for their reception, the husbands were most impatient to send speedily for their consorts. Letters such as this, of Mr. Eyre from England to Mr. Gibb in Piscataquay, in 1631, show the sentiment of the settlers in the matter:—

I hope by this both your wives are with you according to your desire. I wish all your wives were with you, and that so many of you as desire wives had such as they desire. Your wife, Roger Knight’s wife, and one wife more we have already sent you and more you shall have as you wish for them.

This sentence, though apparently polygamous in sentiment, does not indicate an intent to establish a Mormon settlement in New Hampshire, but is simply somewhat shaky in grammatical construction, and erratic in rhetorical expression.

Occasionally, though rarely, there was found a wife who did not long for a New England home. Governor Winthrop wrote to England on July 4, 1632:—

I have much difficultye to keepe John Gallope heere by reason his wife will not come. I marvayle at her womans weaknesse, that she will live myserably with her children there when she might live comfortably with her husband here. I pray perswade and further her coming by all means. If she will come let her have the remainder of his wages, if not let it be bestowed to bring over his children for soe he desires.

Even the ministers’ wives did not all sigh for the New World. The removal of Rev. Mr. Wilson to New England “was rendered difficult by the indisposition of his dearest consort thereto.” He very shrewdly interpreted a dream to her in favor of emigration, with but scant and fleeting influence upon her, and he sent over to her from America encouraging accounts of the new home, and he finally returned to England for her, and after much fasting and prayer she consented to “accompany him over an ocean to a wilderness.”