what had been a promising movement away from the rod. If the Puritan wife "obeyed her husband, calling him Lord" she required at the same time strict obedience and honor at the hands of her children.

Nevertheless in some homes of much religious strictness the children were most tenderly dealt with. The fact that so many mothers died young may have been a factor in causing women to train their infants prematurely.

A man's family included his entire household from chaplain to kitchen boy, and for their welfare- soul and body- the master considered himself accountable. He ruled at least the lower of them with the rod.

Girls of the seventeenth century, like their predecessors, married early. While daughters were yet at school or even in the nursery, careful parents were already pondering the selection of husbands. Children were often married at thirteen. Daughters were usually allowed at least the right of refusal but they do not seem to have been prone to make objection. Both Puritans and cavaliers were ready to advise their children, "Let not your fancy overrule your necessity," "Where passion and affection sway, that man is deprived of sense and understanding." Mercenary marriages were in keeping with the nature of the hard-headed middleclass that took to Puritanism. It is surprising that the majority of the seventeenth century marriages of which we hear seem to have turned out so well.

Under the early Stuarts the education of women continued to be seriously regarded but it is doubtful whether the high standards of the Tudor ladies were preserved save in select circles. A volume published in London in 1632 declares that "the reason why women have no control in Parliament, why they make no laws,

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consent to none, abrogate none, is their original sin." The Cromwellian period brought no improvement in the condition of woman. Ministers still preached her responsibility for the fall, and warnings were thundered against her extreme sinfulness. Milton's views were derogatory of woman. He says: "Either polygamy is a true marriage, or all children born in that state are spurious, which would include the whole race of Jacob, the twelve tribes chosen by God. Not a trace appears of the interdiction of polygamy throughout the whole law, not even in any of the prophets." Paradise Lost inculcated many views inimical to woman. Milton was a tyrant over his own house, unloved by any of his series of wives or by his daughters. He did much to strengthen the idea of woman's subordination to man: "He for God; she for God in him;" or as Eve puts it-"God thy law, thou mine."

The idea that learning was a waste of time for a woman was beginning to assert itself but did not meet with universal acceptance. The education of women was generally neglected: some women of high rank could not write. The mother was generally found at home superintending the education of her daughters. As housewife she was supposed to order thoroly her household.

We must not suppose that the Puritan husband was always a despot. There were many happy marriages.33 Cromwell's wife wrote to him: "My life is but half a life in your absence, did not the Lord make it up in Himself." He wrote to her: "Thou art dearer to me than any creature, let that suffice." Colonel Hutchin

33 Traill and Mann. Social England, vol. iv, 220; Byington. The Puritan in England and New England, 222-231; Coxe. Claims of the Country on American Females, vol. ii, 15; Young. Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, from 1623 to 1636, 432.

son, one of the Ironsides, was a model husband, full of tenderness and devotion. The age shows many illustrations of beautiful family relations. John Winthrop writes to his wife thus: "My only beloved spouse, my most sweet friend, and faithful companion of my pilgrimage, the happye and hopeful supplye (next Christ Jesus) of my greatest losses." He addresses her at various times as-"My truly beloved and deare wife. My sweet wife.

spouse.

My most deare and sweete

My deare wife, my chief love in this world." Mrs. Winthrop declared that her husband loved her; and "she delighted to steal time from household duties to talk with her absent lord." John Cotton addresses his wife as "Dear wife and comfortable yokefellow sweetheart."

The seventeenth-century lady who, owing to her shortage of money or to other disability, had failed of marriage enjoyed none of the present recourses. She could not properly set up bachelor quarters. It was customary for the mistress of a house to have a gentlewoman as assistant and such a position afforded a natural occupation for an unmarried relative or friend tho the "position was often not much better than that of a superior lady's maid." "Even before their marriage, if they had no homes, and in the hard and troublous times of the Civil War, girls not infrequently accepted an offer of this description.'

While the spirit of Puritanism drew sharp lines around the family and strengthened its stakes, there were Reformation influences, as we have seen, that tended to unsettle the family (along with other social institutions). The Renaissance and the Reformation

34 Bradley. The English Housewife in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 24.

worked out in the elevation of the individual and tended to cause the decline of the family as a social unit. Every man was to stand on his own feet. Laxity of opinion and teaching on the sacredness of the marriage bond and in regard to divorce goes back to continental Protestants of the sixteenth century. It was reflected in the laws of Protestant states in Europe and in the codes of New England. The Reformation was not immediately a great ethical force. The effect of Protestant liberty was at first bad because it set men free to violate social standards. Rights were magnified; duties approached zero. Reformers' later writings lament horrible moral deterioration of the people.

Strange sects arose. In 1532 John Becold of Leyden arrived at Münster with a great number of believers. He pretended to receive revelations, one of which was that God willed that a man should have as many wives as he pleased. John had fifteen and encouraged polygamy among his followers. It was counted praiseworthy to have many wives and all the good-looking women in Münster were besieged with solicitations. (It is noteworthy that there was a surplus of woman in Münster at the time. Such a situation favors polygamy.) A later leader, Jan Wilhelms, had twenty-one wives.

Save at Münster polygamy was never even proposed by Anabaptists. Nevertheless dangerous influences. were spreading. It was at Norwich among an offshoot of Anabaptists that Brown (Separatist) established his - first congregation. In the eyes of the Brownists marriage was only an ordinary contract requiring neither minister nor magistrate. Francis Johnson, third chief of the Brownists, justified bundling with other men's wives. The Pilgrims were Brownists. Robertson at

tributes the Plymouth communism to Brownist influence. It may be that some of the sexual looseness and trouble with people marrying themselves (in New England) was a reflection of the extravagances of the European sectaries.

To some the doctrines and practices of the Friends seemed dangerously loose. This sect believed marriage to be an ordinance of God, not requiring the intervention of a clergyman. The bride and the groom took each other in presence of the meeting and signed a certificate which was then signed by the audience. For a time such marriages were illegal but in 1661 a decision was rendered in their favor. This was an important victory as enemies were raising questions as to legitimacy and property under such marriages. Fox claimed scripture in support of the Friends' practice. "Where do you read," he says, "from Genesis to Revelation that ever any priest did marry any?"

But the Friends found it necessary to censor marriage. Fox says, "Many had gone together in marriage contrary to their relations minds; and some young, raw people, that came among us had mixt with the world. Widows had married without making provision for their children by their former husbands," etc. So it was ordered that all bring their marriages before the meetings. Fox opposed marriage of too near kindred, hasty remarriages, and child marriages. He advocated a register of marriages. None were to marry without parents' or relatives' certificate. The Quakers in England were demanding (1655) equal rights for women, abolition of lewd sports, and establishment of civil marriage. The Quakers were a species of SuperPuritans.

Had the unsettling, secularizing, individualistic ten