Customs and Fashions in Old New EnglandEarle, Alice Morse
History
Customs and Fashions in Old New England
Earle, Alice Morse
New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
Warm eulogies did many a staid New Englander write of his loving
consort, eulogies in rhyme, and epitaphs, elegies, threnodies,
epicediums, anagrams, acrostics, and pindarics, all speaking loudly of
loving, "painful" care, if not of a spirit of poesy. And the even,
virtuous tenor of the life in New England proved too a happiness and
contentment equal to the marital results of more emotional and romantic
love-making. There were some divorces. Madam Knight found that they were
plentiful in Connecticut in 1704, as they are in that State nowadays.
She writes:
"These uncomely Stand-aways are too much in vogue among the English
in this indulgent colony, as their records plentifully prove; and
that on very trivial matters of which some have been told me, but
are not Proper to be Related by a Female Pen."
In town records we find that divorces, though infrequent, still were
occasionally given in other New England States; but the causes assigned
therefor, to follow Madam Knight's example, need not be "Related by a
Female Pen."
III
DOMESTIC SERVICE
It is plainly evident that in a country where land was to be had for the
asking, fuel for the cutting, corn for the planting and harvesting, and
game and fish for the least expenditure of labor, no man would long
serve for another, and any system of reliable service indoors or afield
must fail. Whether the colonists came to work or not, they had to in
order to live, for domestic service was soon in the most chaotic state.
Women were forced to be notable housekeepers; men were compelled to
attend to every detail of masculine labor in their households and on
their farms, thus acquiring and developing a "handiness" at all trades,
which has become a Yankee trait.
The question of adequate and proper household service soon became a
question of importance and of painful consideration in the new land.
Rev. Ezekiel Rogers wrote most feelingly in 1656 on this subject:
"Much ado have I with my own family, hard to get a servant glad of
catechizing or family duties. I had a rare blessing of servants in
Yorkshire, and those I brought over were a blessing, but the young
brood doth much afflict me."
The Massachusetts colonists had attempted even before starting, to meet
and simplify the servant question by rigidly excluding any corrupt
element. They even sent back to England boys who had been unruly on
shipboard. But the number of penalties imposed on servants during the
early years are a lasting record of the affliction caused by the young
brood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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