Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; Table of Contents; Preface; Dedication; Abbreviations; 1 General introduction; PART 1 Marrying: an active proposition; Introduction; 2 How and where were marriages solemnised?; 3 What was marriage? What was its purpose?; 4 Finding a partner among the landed aristocracy; 5 Making marriages among women of the professional and the middling sorts; PART 2 Experience of marriage; Introduction; 6 Attitudes to marriage; 7 Patriarchy; 8 Partnership and separation; 9 Mistress of the household: what wives did all day; 10 Mothers; 11 Wives and property
12 Widows and widowhoodPART 3 Culture and religion: women's preparation for and participation in contemporary culture; Introduction; 13 Women's formal and informal education; 14 Women and religion; 15 Contemporary culture: print and non-print, public and private; 16 Women's cultural lives: participation; Bibliography; Glossary; Subject index; Index of proper names
Summary
Women in early modern Britain and colonial America were not the weak husband- and father-dominated characters of popular myth. Quite the reverse, strong women were the norm. They exercised considerable influence as important agents in the social, economic, religious and cultural life of their societies. This book shows how women on both sides of the Atlantic, while accepting a patriarchal system with all its advantages and disadvantages, contrived to carve out for themselves meaningful lives. Unusually it concentrates not only on the making and meaning of marriage, but als
