The Golden Age essays

The Golden Age essays In the essay "The Myth of the Golden Age" by Mary Beth Norton, Mary did not agree with historians that is was a "Golden Age" for women during the colonial period. She feels that women's lives outside the home were severely limited. Mary felt women never achieved a status later to be lost. The colonial period, even comparatively speaking, was not a golden age for women. During the colonial period most white women were expected to devote their chief energies to housekeeping and to the care of the children. As husbands where expected to support them by raising crops or working for wages. Women also did some outside chores such as gathering fruits and vegetables. They also made clothes for their family. Only the wealthiest women who had servants escaped some of these labors. Native American women had similar work roles. They did not do the spinning of wool or weaving but they did make clothes by tanning and processing the hides of the animals their husbands killed. Like their white counterparts the Native American also drew a division between the domestic labors of women to the public realm of men. Black women were more inclined to work both in field and in house. More often black women engaged in labor out of doors then the whites. Contact with persons outside their immediate family for both white and black females was rare. So many women would take advantage of social interaction by attending church. Important information was passes on by person to person mostly at the local taverns of the county courthouse, both of which were male bastions. Urban women where not so isolated. Their housing where closer then those in the farm and plantation area. They could visit friends and family. They also had the opportunity to attend school. Plus their household tasks was less demanding they had time to take up some of the amenities of the urban setting. Faced with a paucity of alternatives, colonial women made the best of their situation...