Gender Norms of 17th Century Chesapeake

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Gender Norms of 17th Century of the Chesapeake High mortality rate, an increase in illegitimate births, and indentured servitude are terrible conditions and hardly selling points to convince any woman to embark on a journey to the British Colonies in the 17th century. However, in spite of these harsh elements, women still voyaged through these conditions to North America to possess a better life. Woman’s rights were improved primarily through their ability to inherit, acquire valuable skills and a trade, and moreover, the fact to have an opportunity to come to the New World and marry. Deceived, these women were manipulated into believing that these false privileges would come with no trials or tribulations. The gender norms prior to the journey from Europe to North America were changed due to severe servitude circumstances, gender imbalance, late and short marriages, and high mortality. Why didn’t more women come to the Americas? Few women wished to leave their families and community in Europe to venture into an unknown land when they weren’t positive they would make it out dead or alive. Another determining factor was a woman’s use as an indentured servant. Women were not as desirable as men to merchants and planters who were rising and marketing tobacco, which entailed countless hours of manual and hard labor. “The gradual improvement in the sex ratio among servants toward the end of the century may have been the result of a change in recruiting the needed labor. In the late1600’s,the supply of young men willing to emigrate stopped increasing sufficiently to meet the labor demands of a growing Chesapeake population (Carr & Walsh, The Planter’s Wife, 545).” Merchants who recruited servants for planters turned to other sources, and among these sources were women. They weren’t first in line to the ships arriving in the Chesapeake, but the female numbers did
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