How were women treated in puritan society?
Its women, especially married women, were subject to the property rights and civil rights of women in England. When a woman married, her legal status became that of feme covert, meaning that the wife was covered by the civil identity of her husband – any property she might have became her husband’s. She couldn’t sign or make contracts on her own, couldn’t write a will without her husband’s consent, couldn’t sue or be sued in court, and her husband was the legal guardian of her children. A woman in an unhappy or abusive marriage had few options. Divorce was extremely rare if not impossible to achieve. Only in certain circumstances could divorce be attained by a special bill of the colonial legislature. If she had sympathetic family nearby she might go to live with them, or she might run away. Running away was an extremely desperate act, but not uncommon.
