US History 9:35-11:00
Analytical Paper #1 From colonial times to present day America, women have evolved in many ways. From being used as a step stool for men, to now being seen as the forefront into shaping today’s society we encounter on a daily basis. There’s no arguing that times have changed, and women have been exposed to new ideas, but that was not always the case. In contrast to men, women had verily any rights and even at that they were conformed into a man way of living. Not only were they forced to perform regular household duties but they also had to tend to their men and help work beside them in the fields. One of many reasons why it was very hard for women to search their pursuit of happiness, owning property, and answering for themselves. And once married women were limited to religious practice and withdrawn to speak freely, permission was many times granted by the husband. As in today’s world, due to women rights movements, women now are a great asset to our political views, voting rights, and answering for the voice of other women. In Carol Berkin’s “First Generations; Women in Colonial America,” she clearly talks about a group of women’s lives in the colonial time. This gives great evidence of what life was for the women encounter in the colonial era. She paints vivid images and states thoroughly what circumstances they faced, and what rights they were detained from. The roles of Colonial Women were determined by their wealth, religion and status. “Laws regulated her action and limited her identity in society. This was true for Englishmen too, of course, but it was peculiar to English women that the rites of passage to adulthood diminished rather than increase their legal rights. For under the English common law, women were legal persons only if they reached their majority and did not marry (14).” In “First Generstions; Women in Colonial Times, Berkin asserts, how unfair it was for women once married; everything she brought into marriage was easy to say, owned by the husband. “A woman was a legal incompetent, as children, idiots, and criminals were under English law… stripped of all property; once married, the clothes on her back, her possessions whether valuable, mutable or merely sentimental and even her body became her husband’s, to direct, to manage, and to use (14).” As time went by, colonies from the east voyage past America