European Women In Colonial America

The girls of the American colonies were educated in order to grow and become fitting wives. After a woman's homemaker education, she was ready for courtship. This took place at about 16 years of age. During this courtship, the woman did have full decision on which she was to marry. While it was ultimately up to her which man she would choose to spend her life with, her family did have some say. Before a man could date a girl, he would have to receive permission from her father. If he did not find the man fit to be married to his daughter, he would not permit the courtship to continue. If the family liked the man, they would put pressure on the girl to choose him. This idea of family involvement very much resembles the way it is now. The marriage
They were to perform traditional roles including preparing and serving the food, weaving clothing, and raising and educating the children. When settlers came to the New World they were appalled to see how the Native American women did all of the traditional and manual labor, according to European standards. They worked in and around the house, reared the children, prepared the food and created pottery. They also worked in the fields tilling the land and farming. What the early explorers noted was the men were leisurely enjoying their lives hunting deer and animals, fishing and building homes for their families. Doing things that the noble class of Europe did in their leisure. The image of native women in Europe was established by stories and reports sent back to the homeland. As colonies started establishing themselves there was a skew in the ratio between men and women. The interests of the Virginia Company, the first company to establish settlement in the New World, was mining. Mining was soon determined to be a non-profitable investment, so the colonist quickly switched to tobacco farming in the Chesapeake region to make money. The primary workers for the Virginia Company were men, but as people stayed longer, women were seen as a way to help establish permanency in the
Every hand was needed to cultivate the tobacco daily from winter to the summer months. The conditions were less than hospitable for these newly transplanted European women, even for those that came from the lesser rungs of English society many of the indentured servants died from disease, but those who survived their indentured period were able to marry and have land with their