American Cultural History, Topic 1: The Puritan Family and Three Poems by Anne Bradstreet of Massachusetts Bay

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1 Background: The Puritan family of the mid-seventeenth century was a little commonwealth : a largely self-sufficient and self-governing entity that was the primary social, economic, and religious unit of New England. As minister John Cotton said, God intended civilized people to live in societies, first of family, secondly church, and thirdly commonwealth. The great majority of Puritans in New England migrated to the New World with their families and created a family-centered society (unlike in Virginia, where most of the first English settlers were unmarried) that grew rapidly. By 1700, reproduction alone had quadrupled the population of New England, and New Englanders lived remarkably long lives: men and women who survived infancy lived to an average age of 70.5 (10 years higher than in England and 20 years higher than in the American South). Ninety percent of the families worked their own land and produced most of their own food, housing, tools, furnishings, and clothing. Religious and secular education occurred primarily in the home (though the local congregation provided formal opportunities to gain religious knowledge at least twice a week, too), as did health care and opportunities for socialization. Large families (with seven or eight children, on average) worked together, though tasks were divided along gender lines. Fathers taught their sons how to farm, hunt, fish, clear land, cut hay, sheer sheep, and construct buildings, while mothers taught their daughters how to gather eggs, milk cows, keep a garden, and tend to household chores (cooking, food preservation, cleaning, and needlework) as well as to younger children, who started doing age-appropriate chores at five. The husband-father was the head of the home, and the wife-mother was the heart of the home. Fifty to 100 of such homes constituted a town, which revolved around a church that doubled as Christian meetinghouse and town hall. The structure of the town surrounding the church told much about the spirit of the covenant that each family in the community had made to be part of it. A central pasture, called a common or green, usually abutted the meetinghouse, and the town s fields and forests that extended outward from its center were divided into properties according to family size, wealth, and social status. When the time came for a father to pass down an inheritance to his sons, he did so by dividing his land as he saw fit among all of them (instead of giving it all to his firstborn son, which was done in the English system of primogeniture). Young women received dowries and inheritances of moveable objects, such as furniture or household goods. For these reasons, sons tended to settle close to fathers, while daughters usually moved away upon marriage to establish households near their fathers-inlaw. This patriarchal subdividing and inheriting of land could work only for two to four generations, however, after which there was too little land to distribute, and the younger generations had to move elsewhere to find unclaimed land, sometimes by establishing a new town that was patterned after the old one. The town center also provided opportunities for families and extended families in the close-knit community to barter. Surplus milk and cheese could have been exchanged for a surplus barrel of salted meat, and a midwife could have agreed to deliver a future baby for the promise of help in building a new house. Puritan farming families did interact with the Atlantic market to purchase luxuries, such as

2 manufactured goods from Britain or molasses from the West Indies, but they usually had to travel to a port city, such as Boston, to do so. Despite interacting with the larger, non-puritan world, Puritan parents worked diligently in the home to teach their children not to be of it. They helped their sons and daughters to recognize the signs of possible election by God the thrift, chastity, honesty, service, industry, prayer, and Bible study of the devoted Christian life by practicing them each day, which they hoped would signify that they had been predestined for salvation. The busier they were doing Christian good, the more likely it was that God had chosen them. Fathers taught their sons to work hard to be successful in their callings their temporal occupations because they had come from God and because doing so honored Him and might prove their own salvation. To Puritans, all work was spiritual and had eternal consequences. A lazy or poor farmer was probably not one of the elect, while the opposite was also true, though achieving an independent competency a sufficiency of worldly goods from one s own land seemed to be enough. Fathers also taught their sons to preside, provide, and protect as patriarchs of marriages founded on love and mutual respect between male and female partners (see Matthew 19:4-6). He explained that, despite the different roles of males and females, women were at least the spiritual equals of men. Mothers taught their daughters to submit to their husbands, as unto the Lord (Ephesians 5:22), to be the primary nurturers in the home, and to see children as an heritage of the Lord (Psalms 127:3). Upon turning 10, girls began learning more sophisticated elements of homemaking, such as spinning yarn, weaving cloth, and preserving fruits, vegetables, and meat. Both parents taught their children to make a zealous study of the Bible the primary means of education in colonial New England a lifelong pursuit. As John Cotton wrote, The scriptures of God do contain a short upoluposis, or platform, not only of theology, but also of other sacred sciences ethics, economics, politics, church government, prophecy, academy. Thus, literacy was paramount. Direct access to the word of God through Bible study instead of indirect access through the interpretation of a priest was so important to Puritans that most women and almost all men could read: a reality not shared by any other colonial region nor by England. Puritan New England owned more books than any place on earth at the time, and most of them were Bibles and religious commentaries. To satiate their thirst for spiritual knowledge, Puritans also established the first printing press in English America at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Ingrained as it was in the culture of the Bible Commonwealth that Puritan families sought to create, education became more important to New Englanders than to colonists of any other region of the New World. Questions to Consider as You Read: What do the poems teach about Bradstreet s relationship with her children and husband? What do the poems teach about Bradstreet s Puritan faith?

3 What do the poems teach about the world of women in Puritan New England? Research: Three ( ) As you read, don t forget to mark and annotate main ideas, key terms, confusing concepts, unknown vocabulary, cause/effect relationships, examples, etc. Before the Birth of One of Her Children All things within this fading world hath end, Adversity doth still our joys attend; No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet, But with death s parting blow is sure to meet. The sentence past is most irrevocable, A common thing, yet oh, inevitable. How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend, How soon t may be thy lot to lose thy friend, We both are ignorant, yet love bids me These farewell lines to recommend to thee, That when that knot s untied that made us one, I may seem thine, who in effect am none. And if I see not half my days that s due, What nature would, God grant to yours and you; The many faults that well you know I have Let be interred in my oblivious grave; If any worth or virtue were in me, Let that live freshly in thy memory And when thou feel st no grief, as I no harms, Yet love thy dead who long lay in thine arms, And when thy loss shall be repaid with gains Look to my little babes, my dear remains. And if thou love thyself, or loved st me, These O protect from stepdame s injury. And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse, With some sad sighs honor my absent hearse; And kiss this paper from thy love s dear sake, Who with salt tears this last farewell did take. To My Dear and Loving 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 doth hold. Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense. My love is such that rivers cannot quench, Thy love is such I can no way repay, The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. Then while we live, in love let s so persevere That when we live no more we may live ever.

4 Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10 th, 1666 In silent night when rest I took For sorrow near I did not look I wakened was with thund ring noise And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice. That fearful sound of Fire! and Fire! Let no man know is my desire. I, starting up, the light did spy, And to my God my heart did cry To strengthen me in my distress And not to leave me succorless. Then, coming out, beheld a space The flame consume my dwelling place. And when I could no longer look, I blest His name that gave and took, That laid my goods now in the dust. Yea, so it was, and so twas just. It was His own, it was not mine, Far be it that I should repine; He might of all justly bereft But yet sufficient for us left. When by the ruins oft I past My sorrowing eyes aside did cast, And here and there the places spy Where oft I sat and long did lie: Here stood that trunk, and there that chest, There lay that store I counted best. My pleasant things in ashes lie, And them behold no more shall I. Under thy roof no guest shall sit, Nor at thy table eat a bit. No pleasant tale shall e er be told, Nor things recounted done of old. No candle e er shall shine in thee, Nor bridegroom s voice e er heard shall be. In silence ever shall thou lie, Adieu, Adieu, all s vanity. Then straight I gin my heart to chide, And did thy wealth on earth abide? Didst fix thy hope on mold ring dust? The arm of flesh didst make thy trust? Raise up thy thoughts above the sky That dunghill mists away may fly. Thou hast an house on high erect, Framed by that mighty Architect, With glory richly furnished, Stands permanent though this be fled. It s purchased and paid for too By Him who hath enough to do. A price so vast as is unknown Yet by His gift is made thine own; There s wealth enough, I need no more, Farewell, my pelf, farewell my store. The world no longer let me love, My hope and treasure lies above. 1 Notebook Questions: Reason and Record What do the poems teach about Bradstreet s relationship with her children and husband? What do the poems teach about Bradstreet s Puritan faith? 1 SOURCE: Ellis, John Harvard. The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse. Charlestown: Abram E. Cutter, 1867.

5 What do the poems teach about the world of women in Puritan New England? Notebook Questions: Relate and Record How do the documents relate to FACE Principle #3: America's Heritage of Christian Character: The image of Christ engraved upon the individual within, bringing dominion and change to his external environment. The model of American Christian character is the Pilgrim character with these qualities: faith and steadfastness, brotherly love, Christian care, diligence and industry, and liberty of conscience? How do the documents relate to Jacob 3:7? Record Activity: Multiple Choice Comprehension Check 1. Background: All of the following are true of the Puritan family of the mid-seventeenth century except which one? a. It was a little commonwealth : a largely self-sufficient and self-governing entity that was the primary social, economic, and religious unit of New England. b. Ninety percent of the families worked their own land and produced most of their own food, housing, tools, furnishings, and clothing. c. Religious and secular education occurred primarily in the home (though the local congregation provided formal opportunities to gain religious knowledge at least twice a week, too), as did health care and opportunities for socialization. d. Large families (with seven or eight children, on average) worked together, though tasks were divided along gender lines. e. Fathers taught their sons how to gather eggs, milk cows, keep a garden, and tend to household chores (cooking, food preservation, cleaning, and needlework) as

6 well as to younger children, while mothers taught their daughters how to farm, hunt, fish, clear land, cut hay, sheer sheep, and construct buildings. f. The husband-father was the head of the home, and the wife-mother was the heart of the home. 2. Background: Puritan parents did which of the following to help their children? a. They taught their children that excellence was not important in service, temporal work, and education because God had already predestined salvation for the elect. b. They helped their sons and daughters to recognize the signs of possible election by God the thrift, chastity, honesty, service, industry, prayer, and Bible study of the devoted Christian life by practicing them each day, which they hoped would signify that they had been predestined for salvation. c. Fathers taught their sons to work hard to be successful in their callings their temporal occupations because they had come from God and because doing so honored Him and might prove their own salvation. d. Fathers also taught their sons to preside, provide, and protect as patriarchs of marriages founded on love and mutual respect between male and female partners. e. Mothers taught their daughters to submit to their husbands, as unto the Lord, to be the primary nurturers in the home, and to see children as an heritage of the Lord. f. Both parents taught their children to make a zealous study of the Bible the primary means of education in colonial New England a lifelong pursuit. g. all of the above but one h. all of the above but two i. all of the above 3. Sources: Which of the following are true about Bradstreet s poems? a. They demonstrate that Puritan women were oppressed by the patriarchal Puritan society and complained bitterly of not having the same roles as men. b. They demonstrate that Bradstreet and her husband had married for convenience only and did not have a loving relationship. Puritans were opposed to intimate male-female relationships, which they considered to be carnal. c. They demonstrate that Puritans believed that celibacy was the highest form of devotion to God. d. They demonstrate that Puritans were theologians only and not true Christians because they did not apply the gospel to their everyday lives. They knew doctrine but didn t live it. e. They demonstrate that Puritans lived secular, profit-driven lives and that they did not see the hand of God in daily activities.

7 f. They demonstrate that Puritans were Puritanical in their religious devotion: mechanical, harsh, solemn, uncaring, unemotional, anxious, narrow-minded, and devoid of all joy in home and family: sin-obsessed killjoys in austere clothing and tall black hats. g. all of the above h. a-d i. e-f j. none of the above