Another new release from Harvard University Press:
Under Household Government: Sex and Family in Puritan Massachusetts, by
M. Michelle Jarrett Morris (University of Missouri). Here's a description from the Press:
Seventeenth-century New Englanders were not as busy
policing their neighbors’ behavior as Nathaniel Hawthorne or many
historians of early America would have us believe. Keeping their own
households in line occupied too much of their time.
Under Household Government reveals the extent to which family members took on the role of watchdog in matters of sexual indiscretion.
In a society where one’s sister’s husband’s brother’s wife was
referred to as “sister,” kinship networks could be immense. When
out-of-wedlock pregnancies, paternity suits, and infidelity resulted in
legal cases, courtrooms became battlegrounds for warring clans. Families
flooded the courts with testimony, sometimes resorting to slander and
jury-tampering to defend their kin. Even slaves merited defense as
household members—and as valuable property. Servants, on the other hand,
could expect to be cast out and left to fend for themselves.
As she elaborates the ways family policing undermined the administration of justice, M. Michelle Jarrett Morris
shows how ordinary colonists understood sexual, marital, and familial
relationships. Long-buried tales are resurrected here, such as that of
Thomas Wilkinson’s (unsuccessful) attempt to exchange cheese for sex
with Mary Toothaker, and the discovery of a headless baby along the
shore of Boston’s Mill Pond. The Puritans that we meet in Morris’s
account are not the cardboard caricatures of myth, but are rendered with
both skill and sensitivity. Their stories of love, sex, and betrayal
allow us to understand anew the depth and complexity of family life in
early New England.
A few blurbs:
“Morris succeeds brilliantly at
bringing to life the personal and social panorama of Puritan
Massachusetts. Through the stories uncovered by her extraordinary
sleuthing, we learn about the strength of Puritan families and their
inner workings, as well as Puritan sexual culture: the importance of sex
to marriage, the differences attributed to male and female sexuality,
and the nuances of courtship and seduction. Deft, lively, sometimes just
plain fun, Under Household Government is a vivid and compelling portrait of family life in early New England.”—John Demos, Yale University
“Morris demonstrates that Puritans
policed one another’s sexual behavior, not as mere busybodies, but to
defend their own families’ assets and reputation. In the process, they
sometimes resorted to less than honorable means: false alibis, perjury,
defamation, and jury tampering. Morris is a gifted storyteller, and
readers will be surprised to learn that colonial New Englanders were not
always the strait and narrow ‘Puritans’ we might have imagined.”—Elizabeth Reis, University of Oregon
And the TOC:
Introduction
1. Daniel Gookin’s Household
2. Contrary to the Laws of God and This Jurisdiction
3. Lawful Remedies, Diabolical Erections, and an Unwanted Suitor
4. The Rape of Elizabeth Pierce
5. A Family of Allies
6. Two Missing Infants
7. Traitors, Rebels, and Slaves
Conclusion
A Peek behind the Scenes
