Witches Wife Beaters Chapter Summary

In Witches, Wife Beaters, and Whores: Common Law and Common Folk in Early America, Elaine Forman Crane encourages readers to think of the book as similar to a fictionalized short story collection. However, the collection is truly a compilation of six nonfiction microhistories with each telling an individual account of “the ways in which legal culture and daily life were knotted together in early America.” (4) Common law and formal law often contrasted during the early stages of settlement because what was morally acceptable was not always reflected in the formals laws of an area. Crane contends that “ordinary people ‘made’ laws by establishing and enforcing informal rules of conduct” and “law was a matter of deep concern to the original settlers.” (5-8) Through the use of legal documents, case reports, and other primary documents, Crane attempts to strengthen her arguments that the legal culture and daily life were deeply intertwined concerns of the settlers and that through the legal process created new laws from old customs. The first chapter focuses on slander cases within the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, where defamation was often grounds for court
Thomas Harris and Ann Goldsborough shared four children despite the fact that they were never married. After the passing of Thomas Harris, his brother attempted to take control of his estate instead of allowing his children to maintain ownership as Harris stated in his will. Harris’s friend insisted that he was visited by Thomas Harris’s ghost and he demanded the situation be rectified. However, James Harris, the brother of Thomas, passed away before he returned the children’s inheritance and was left to his wife. The wife had no intentions of returning the estate to the children which led to a long legal battle. The battle included the testimony of the ghost of Thomas Harris as told by his friend, William