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Sexuality in Colonial Massachusetts

In: Historical Events

Submitted By kmavlyanov91
Words 3470
Pages 14
THE DUALITY OF WOMEN’S SEXUALITY IN SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PURITAN MASSACHUSETTS

Liesl Schnuck

November 1, 2011

Due to the strength of their belief in and fear of God, colonial Massachusetts’s society regulated women’s sexuality through a paradoxical relationship: women as saints and women as sinners.

Introduction

In the religion-obsessed society of colonial Massachusetts, Puritan beliefs dominated contemporary views on sexuality, especially with regard to women. Although Puritan ministers understood human nature’s inability to avoid sexual relations, they adamantly professed that sex must not interfere with religion. In order to create stability within their society, ministers and lawmakers turned towards the women to implement and describe sexual regulation. Women’s social function was not only complex, but also difficult to define. As historian N.E.H. Hull notes, “theirs was a special place, not altogether enviable—for in this land of saints and sinners, they were viewed as both saintlier and more sinful than men.” Not only did society expect and desire women to act morally, but society also feared women for their supposed tendencies to act corruptly. Carol F. Karlsen accurately differentiates between these two identities by naming these women either “handmaidens of the devil” or “handmaidens of the Lord.” This distinction demonstrates the binary opposition of women’s place in society that existed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. By identifying these two opposing personalities, women became the means of controlling sexuality in colonial Massachusetts. This paper illuminates the notion of sexuality in colonial Massachusetts by pointing out the derivation of this paradoxical relationship as well as demonstrating how citizens differentiated between “saints and sinners.” Section I relates the origins of this duality by

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