When Manhood Came to
America
Both society and household were frankly patriarchal in the seventeenth century.
— Mary Ryan1
The men who first arrived on America's shores bore very little resemblance to the predominant male image of today. If they had been like today's men, they would never have dared to cross the Atlantic in the first place. Our addresses would still be the cities of London, Edinburgh, and Paris.
Colonists and Politicians
The first foot to step on American soil for the purpose of establishing a permanent English settlement belonged to a man. In fact, all of the 105 settlers who established the initial settlement at Jamestown in 1607 were male. From the beginning, men were the leaders of colonial society. Even when women came to the New World, men maintained control of politics,
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economics, theology, and family life. Did the women resent their role? We will look at that question shortly.
A prominent historian of colonial society, Mary Ryan, states that early American men assumed oversight of the household and "only the patriarch of the family . . . could rise to leadership in political, cultural, and religious affairs."2 The colonial political world was a man's world. When the first representative political body in the colonies, Virginia's House of Burgesses, was established in 1619, it provided that all men over the age of seventeen could vote to elect their officials. In the following year, men alone comprised the forty-one signers of the Mayflower Compact governing the pilgrims. Such political domination by men was typical in the colonial era.
Theology: A Manly Topic
Like politics, theology in colonial America was the domain of men. According to Peter Stearns, "Men ruled the church as they did the state. Men dominated theology."3 Unlike some men today who "delegate" their religious responsibilities and moral duties to women, the colonial man considered spiritual leadership in the family to be of primary importance. Dad was the one who decided matters concerning the religious upbringing of the family's children.
Even the colonial courts did not tamper with the father's prerogative to be the religious instructor of his children. Edmund S. Morgan, in Virginians at Home, writes:
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In 1708, Ann Walker, an Anglican married to a Quaker, objected in court to having her children educated as Quakers, but the Court, while acknowledging her own freedom to worship as she chose, instructed her not to interfere in any way with the instruction of her children, even forbidding her to expound any part of the scriptures to the children without her husband's consent. Such complete support for the husband's authority is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that the Anglican Church was the established church of Virginia, to which all the members of the court doubtless belonged.4
Men governed the church as well as religious affairs in the home. Within mainstream churches, both Puritan and Anglican, only men assumed the principal leadership roles. Peter Stearns states, "Patriarchal Christianity was of course a man's religion. Men were its principal priests. Men were not only the leading but the most numerous church members in societies such as seventeenth-century New England."5
Theology was the most popularly discussed topic in the marketplace as well; it was even more popular than politics. Professor Ann Douglas of Columbia University writes, "Until roughly 1820, this theological tradition was a chief, perhaps the chief, vehicle of intellectual and cultural activity in American life."6 Colonial men made theology an important part of their lives. It was not just for the clergy.
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There was no tolerance for heresy. Sin was openly exposed and evil boldly confronted. Discussions in pastoral get-togethers resembled the New Testament account of the heated debates at the Jerusalem Council concerning circumcision; the don't-intimidate-or-challenge-anyone conversations held in ministerial associations today are nothing like that. Colonial men were not shy about the prospect of entering into intense doctrinal discussions. They sharpened their faith by courageous public debate. It was part of being a man!
By contrast, I heard of a modern pastor who visited a neighboring pastor, and in the course of their conversation, he bemoaned the shameful divisions that exist within Christendom. The neighboring pastor replied that such had not always been the case. He noted that for over half its two-thousand-year history the Church had been united in the essentials of the Faith — common doctrine, common worship, and common government. He proceeded to suggest that the pastors of the area get together and address the critical issues that divided them.
"Oh!" said his visitor. "It would not be good to discuss doctrine among ourselves. Doctrine divides! We need to stay away from controversy and just get to know one another through prayer."
Needless to say, the churches in that community have continued to be divided. Why? Because "getting to know one another" is never a substitute for solid New Testament debate and instruction. It is not
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doctrine per se that divides, but false doctrine. True doctrine is the first prerequisite for Christian unity.
Sometimes I think pastors head the pack of those who have fallen victims to the feminizing processes of our American culture. Their view of the Christian Faith, rather than being biblical and historical, is often shaped by a twentieth-century sociotherapeutic mentality. Granted, men of the cloth need to be caring and sensitive. But not to the ridiculous point of saying, "We affirm everyone in their choices, no matter what those choices may be." They dare not compromise the desperate need to struggle over real issues of belief by hiding under a cowardly misuse of words like "love" and "prayer." True masculinity allows for testing and debate, even within the church.
Family Matters
Like the church, colonial families were also unquestionably overseen by men. It was a paternal society. Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob of old, colonial men held to the patriarchal model of family structure. "Both society and household were frankly patriarchal in the seventeenth century based on the supreme authority of men as fathers," writes professor of history Mary Ryan. "Women were subject to fathers and husbands within the household, and barred from positions of independence and authority outside it."7
Whether a wife lived in a luxurious mansion or a one-room cabin, she was legally subject to her husband's authority. As Edmund Morgan informs us:
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A married woman, so far as the law was concerned, existed only in her husband. If he died before she did, she was entitled to a life interest in a third of his property, but during his lifetime, he had the use of all of her real property and absolute possession of all her personal property he even owned the clothes on her back and might bequeath them in his will.8
And unlike the situation today, when over ninety percent of the children in single-parent homes live under the mother's direction, the colonial father had charge of the children. Morgan continues, "He had the right to order the lives of her children, even to the point of giving directions in his will for their management after his death."9
Any authority that a woman exercised — and sometimes her power was considerable — was always carried out under the blessing of her husband. She was a capable, industrious, and integral part of family and economic life, but she did not function independently of her husband. Her role was always to cooperate with his leadership. At home, in the marketplace, in the statehouse, and at church, men occupied the positions of ultimate headship.
Chaos or Contentment?
This poor colonial woman! How could she take it? She must have been depressed, frustrated, controlled, and terribly lonely. Under the unquestioned rule of a frontier patriarch, lacking the advantages and conveniences
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of modern technology, she was also excluded from positions of ultimate power in political, economic, religious, and family life. The colonial wife must have been utterly miserable and downtrodden!
But she wasn't! Not by a long shot. Even feminist historians agree that the colonial woman rarely suffered from the most common problems plaguing the anxiety-ridden woman of today. And the reason, I believe, this colonial woman fared better than her contemporary sister was that the colonial man knew who he was.
Colonial men in general had a high view of women and did not regard their own position of headship as license to abuse or neglect their wives. Consider this description of married life in the Colonies. Marriage was
to be managed so by the Husband, as that his Wife may take delight in it, and not account it as Slavery, but a Liberty and Privilege . . . He ought not, under pretense of Authority, to forget that she is the nearest Companion that he hath in the World, and is his second Self . . . . It was his duty to love his wife, to be patient with her, and to prove himself worthy of his position by being a good provider and a wise counselor. The wife, on the other hand, owed her husband deference, but not slavish obedience. Both respect and common Interest oblige her carefully to Consult him in every matter of weight, but she could always debate the Prudence of the thing.10
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Today, both men and women are deceived into thinking that a husband's authoritative manliness is a detriment to the well-being of a wife. Colonial history suggests otherwise. True manhood produces not only productive women but contented women, as a comparison of the colonial family with the modern American family shows.
One of the strongly implied conclusions of scholars who study colonial women is that these women fared far better in their relationships with men than women have fared since that period of time. To underscore the importance of this finding, consider the results of a survey by noted psychologist and best-selling author Dr. James Dobson. He asked ten thousand American women to list their sources of depression. Are you ready? The four primary sources of depression these women named were almost completely unknown to their colonial sisters! What were they? Low self-esteem, fatigue and time pressure, loneliness, and absence of romance in marriage.
1. The Problem of Low Self-Esteem
"Believe it or not, low self-esteem was indicated as the most troubling problem by the majority of the women completing the questionnaire," Dobson writes. "More than 50 percent of the group marked this item above every other alternative on the list, and 80 percent placed it in the top five. This finding is perfectly consistent with my own observations and expectations."11
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Was low self-esteem a problem for colonial women? Mary Ryan, after explaining how women were excluded from "institutions of ultimate economic authority," makes the following ironic observation: "Yet colonial daughters, mothers, and wives were unlikely to feel useless or alienated from their labors. The subsistence economy did not eviscerate the female personality by inhibiting women from dealing directly with the material world and battling with nature to serve human needs."12
Ryan notes further: "A [colonial] woman's sense of self worth found solid confirmation day in and day out as her labors contributed to the prosperity of her family and the good order of society."13 Lacking the consumer mentality that plagues many modern American women, the colonial woman was productive, and she viewed herself as absolutely essential to the care and maintenance of her family. Since economic order was kept by the colonial male, it was up to him to manage the family in such a way that each woman knew she was indispensable. The typical patriarchal husband not only provided the context within which his wife could share in the economic stability of the family, but he also offered her the blessings and praise she deserved.
2. The Problem of Fatigue and Time Pressures
The second most common source of female depression identified in Dr. Dobson's survey was fatigue and time pressure.
How did the colonial woman, who had an average
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of eight children, made most of the family's clothes, cared for the cattle and processed the milk products into butter and cheese, bred and fed the poultry, cared for the family garden, butchered the livestock, bartered her spare products in the marketplace, taught her children — and did it all without automobiles, electricity, or running water — survive with fewer complaints about fatigue and time pressure than the woman of today?
She knew how to spell relief! The structure of colonial society carried built-in assistance from the extended family. Grandparents, young single women, aunts, and other members of the extended family relieved the young colonial mother, especially with the care of the children. No drop-your-kid-off-with-total-strangers day care centers for these women! Grandparents usually lived either in the same house or next door. They weren't isolated from assisting in the hands-on care and nurture of their grandchildren. The colonial woman suffered from a higher rate of maternal death because of the lack of medical assistance, but there is no evidence that she died from being overworked.
3. The Problem of Loneliness
The third and fourth most common sources of depression in Dobson's study finished in a dead heat. They were (3) a sense of loneliness, isolation, and boredom, and (4) the absence of romantic love in marriage. Says Dobson: "I doubt if there is a marriage counselor alive who has gone through a single day of
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his practice without hearing about these twin complaints."14
By contrast, writes Professor Ryan, "Although [colonial] women's position at the center of the little commonwealth rendered privacy and the luxury of solitude almost impossible, it also banished loneliness, claustrophobia, and insulation from the essential operations of society. In the social sphere, as well as in matters of economics, the women of the seventeenth century enjoyed integral participation in community life."15
4. The Problem of Absence of Romance in Marriage
Dobson's survey suggests that countless American women desire more expression of love from their spouses. But colonial women, by and large, don't seem to have had this problem. At least a certain Mr. Bradstreet did a few things right. Enjoy this excerpt from a poem by Anne Bradstreet who, in the mid-seventeenth century wrote to her husband:
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East can hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor aught but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.16
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If Professor Ryan is accurate in her assessment of life in the colonies, the love of which Anne Bradstreet writes is no exception to the rule. "When early Americans spoke of love they were not withdrawing into a female byway of human experience. Domestic affection, like sex and economics, was not segregated into male and female spheres. Woman's love was expressed in active interchange with her marital partner. It did not precede marriage but grew out of the day-to-day cooperation, sharing, and closeness of the diversified home economy. The reciprocal ideal of conjugal love thrived in the social and economic sphere where men and women were integrally associated."17
Most colonial men were evidently not the tyrants some would expect to find in a patriarchal society. Nor were men unfeeling or repressed. They were real men, unafraid to express their love for their spouses. Mary Ryan writes, "We have many . . . correspondences between husbands and wives in colonial New England which reveal a degree of intimacy, a respect for each other's minds and spirits, and a delight in each other's company that are seldom to be found earlier, and that by the mid-nineteenth century have become rare indeed."18
Among the eighteenth-century letters that have been preserved are many that passed between husbands and wives. They reveal much warmth and tenderness. Theodorick Bland, absent with the American armies in New Jersey in the winter of 1777, wrote to his wife:
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For God's sake, my dear, when you are writing, write of nothing but yourself, or at least exhaust that dear, ever dear subject before you make a transition to another; tell me of your going to bed, of your rising, of the hour you breakfast, dine, sup, visit, tell me of anything, but leave me not in doubt about your health . . . Fear not, my Patsy — yes, you will again feel your husband's lips flowing with love and affectionate warmth. Heaven never means to separate two who love so well, so soon; and if it does, with what transport shall we meet in heaven?19
Such humble expressions of affection could only come from a man at peace with his masculinity.
Fathers and Sons
According to Jay Kesler, president of Taylor University, "The identity crisis of today's young people, individually and corporately, is the largest single factor affecting this generation."20 So how about the boys of colonial America? How did they fare under patriarchal fathers?
Instead of perceiving their newborns as boys or girls, colonial parents and society viewed them simply as "babies." That is why in the early years, while the children were primarily under the mother's care and nurture, it was fairly common for boys and girls to wear identical clothing. Many of us may recall visiting Aunt Susie and seeing baby pictures of Great-grandpa wearing dresses. Boys and girls were cared for in
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much the same way until the age of five or six.
Then, at about age seven or eight, a big change took place for a boy. He was taken from the primary care of his mother and brought under the direct supervision and instruction of his father. The boy would be almost constantly at his father's side. He would learn to work, act, and dress like his father.
By contrast, young boys of today change their dress to fit the latest fads. Their models are their peers or slightly older boys. At an early age our sons start wondering whom they are to be like. The option of an endless line of 'pop' heroes or styles of dress and behavior was not open to colonial boys. Their models were set, their identity secured.
Identity came more from being linked to a family than from being just an individual. A young man was "the Jones boy," and he knew where he belonged and what he was to be. Further, a young colonial boy knew his contributions to the family's success secured his future interests as well. This made for a direct, meaningful connection between him and his father. This relationship helped to ensure proper behavior on the part of the son; it was clearly understood that he would receive his father's property only after he had proved himself obedient.
The colonial father also taught his son how to be courageous. The long, hard work on the farm and the adventures of hunting for food for the table gave plenty of opportunities for the boy to increase his stamina and to take needed risks as he learned to do his tasks. By
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necessity, the American father held in his mind the vision of preparing his son to face the wilderness. Life was filled with perils and foes, both human and animal. Even the weather provided hardships that had to be endured with courage and tireless strength. An early ballad called "Forefather's Song," written about 1630, has two lines that reflect this call to courage:
But you whom the Lord intends hither to bring,
Forsake not the honey for fear of the sting.
Dating and Mating
There are, however, some pressures of today the colonial youth did not have to bear. One of the most prominent of these is the current pressure of premature "pairing off." Few facets of modern life weigh as heavily on our young people as the modern dating system. Tremendous pressure is placed on teens, by their peers and the culture as a whole, to "pair off" before they are emotionally ready to marry.
Statistics show us that our enlightened modern approach to dating has produced an epidemic of child parents, kids who are depressed (many to the point of suicide) because of repeated romantic rejection, and youths who will one day change marriage partners with nearly the same frequency with which they now change adolescent sweethearts.
The bad fruit of modern dating practices was seldom experienced by colonial youths. Why? Because colonial fathers protected their sons and daughters
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from unilateral decisions surrounding courtship. Colonial youths did not pair off unless they were seriously pursuing matrimony. And even then, they did so only with the blessing and guidance of their parents. These adolescent relational patterns, by the way, were not unique to the colonial era. They were the natural extension of the way of life in the "old" countries from which the colonists came.
Typical of the attitudes and practices of colonial times are those seen in this letter that Eliza Southgate wrote to her parents about one Walter Bowne:
He knew I was not at liberty to encourage his addresses without the approbation of my Parents, and appeared as solicitious that I should act with strict propriety as one of my most disinterested friends . . . . He only required that I would not discourage his addresses till he had an opportunity of making known to my Parents his character and wishes . . . That I feel deeply interested in Mr. Bowne I candidly acknowledge, and from the knowledge I have of his heart and character I think him better calculated to promote my happiness than any person I have yet seen . . . . I have referred him wholly to you, and you, my dearest Parents, must decide.21
Such a dating-and-mating system based on parental approval might appear extremely rigid, but this ancient tradition was a major reason the colonists produced healthier marriages than those which come out of our current
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fool-around-and-choose-your-own-and-probably-not-make-it routine. The colonial courtship system with its parental oversight worked, as Eliza, who received her parents' permission to marry Mr. Bowne, later testified: "I realize all the happiness that you can wish me."22
Extended Families
As in earlier times, patriarchy also guaranteed the historical continuity of the extended family for the colonist. One particular man was responsible to see that all the family members lived in geographic proximity to one another and cooperated with one another to the benefit of all. His job was to rule in such a way that peace and unity were maintained. This extended family was made up of grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, children, singles, and in-laws. Everyone belonged. Everyone was important to the welfare of the family.
Grandparents were involved in extended families. They weren't viewed as useless to the family or as old people to be entertained only on holidays. Nor could they retreat from family life by constantly indulging in the "pleasure" of cruising America's trailer camps in their motor homes. With old age came dignity. Instead of practicing the cultish worship of youth we see today, society most respected men and women who had lived long on this earth. And the wisdom gained by living many years was considered a great asset to the entire family structure.
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Contrary to the separationist identity of today's independent single adult, being unmarried in the seventeenth century usually meant serving within a house-hold structure. The economic and emotional support system of the single adult was secured, and the individual's self-esteem was bolstered by the vital role he or she played in helping the entire extended family prosper.
But today, historical family relationships have disintegrated. People have become islands to themselves. Loneliness is rampant. Unity is becoming a myth as we see the extended family, and now even the nuclear family, collapsing under the weight of selfish individualism. America's preoccupation with independence and individual fulfillment has left men, women, and children estranged from one another.
I am not suggesting that we plow up the pavement and tear down the apartment buildings of modern urban America. Or that we should trade in our cars for oxen, our washing machines for scrub boards, and our condos for isolated country cabins. But I am suggesting the colonial man has some very important things to teach the man of today. It was because of, and not in spite of, the patriarchal constitution of the colonial family that its members did so well. But soon would come far-reaching events that would lead to a dramatic reshaping of American manhood. The Industrial Revolution and the Second Great Awakening would lead to a new spirit of independence, a spirit that would begin to distance men from their families.
Chapter 5 || Table of Contents
1. Mary P. Ryan, Womanhood in America (New York: Franklin Watts, 1983), p. 67.
2. Ibid., p. 21.
3. Peter N. Stearns, Be a Man (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979), p. 28.
4. Edmund S. Morgan, Virginians at Home (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1952), p. 45.
5. Stearns, Be a Man, p. 26.
6. Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Knopf, 1977), p. 6.
7. Ryan, Womanhood, p. 67.
8. Morgan, Virginians, p. 44.
9. Ibid.
10. Frank Freidel, Changing Ideas About Women in the United States, 1776-1825 (New York: Garland, 1981), p. 8.
11. James Dobson, What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1975), p. 22.
12. Ryan, Womanhood, p. 31.
13. Ibid., p. 38.
14. Dobson, What Wives Wish, p. 59.
15. Ryan, Womanhood, p. 35.
16. Page Smith, Daughters of the Promised Land (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1970), pp. 43-44.
17. Ryan, Womanhood, p. 47.
18. Ibid., p. 45.
19. Morgan, Virginians, p. 50.
20. Gregg Lewis, "The Return of Apathy," Christianity Today, October 18, 1985, p. 21.
21. Freidel, Changing Ideas About Women, p. 141.
22. Ibid.
