Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-dtkg6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-17T11:54:52.159Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Drunkards and Fornicators on Meeting House Hill

Gendered Sin and Discipline

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2020

Monica D. Fitzgerald
Affiliation:
Saint Mary’s College of California
Get access

Summary

Chapter 2 analyzes how congregations charged men and women with different sins, defined sins in gendered terms, and created distinctive expectations for male and female confessions. By gendering sins, laymen created a different Puritanism for men than for women. First-generation ministers preached communal obligation and individual piety. As discipline increased through the second and third generations, the focus of sermons changed, emphasizing individual piety for women and communal responsibility for men, which contributed to the formation of different religious identities. By the third generation, women outnumbered men 3 to 2 in the feminized setting of the church, which more frequently focused on an individual’s relationship with God. The Puritan focus on female piety put more of an emphasis on individual spirituality for women, while contributing to the development of a male religiosity that focused on public and civic affairs. While women stayed in the pews and developed a “religious self,” men went out into the secular arena and expressed their religiosity through their sense of duty to their communities, their families, their businesses, and their country.

Type
Chapter
Information
Puritans Behaving Badly
Gender, Punishment, and Religion in Early America
, pp. 46 - 68
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×