Difference between revisions of "Week 3 Questions/Comments-327 09"
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Abigail Bailey's memoir was very interesting to read. Laws intended for men and women did not always protect women. Probably not in this case either. Abigail admits her loyalties to her husband but when she realizes her husband is having an incestuous realtionship with their daughter she is unable to ignore it. She confronts him and threatens to take him to justice. She justifies her actions by saying to him that she is "acting on principle and with mature consideration." She knew that if her daughter did not testify against her father that it would be very hard to prove what he had done. She probably felt that one would believe her. Afterall, Abigail was a woman and women should not speak out against their husbands. The value of a man's word over a womans was not the same then. Instead of putting her daughter through the ridicule of the community she confronts her husband. She threatens to use the process of the law to scare him. She believes that the legal system will not uphold the law for her. Abigail uses the one power she does have over her husband - she refuses to be intimate with him. | Abigail Bailey's memoir was very interesting to read. Laws intended for men and women did not always protect women. Probably not in this case either. Abigail admits her loyalties to her husband but when she realizes her husband is having an incestuous realtionship with their daughter she is unable to ignore it. She confronts him and threatens to take him to justice. She justifies her actions by saying to him that she is "acting on principle and with mature consideration." She knew that if her daughter did not testify against her father that it would be very hard to prove what he had done. She probably felt that one would believe her. Afterall, Abigail was a woman and women should not speak out against their husbands. The value of a man's word over a womans was not the same then. Instead of putting her daughter through the ridicule of the community she confronts her husband. She threatens to use the process of the law to scare him. She believes that the legal system will not uphold the law for her. Abigail uses the one power she does have over her husband - she refuses to be intimate with him. | ||
-Marsha Himes | -Marsha Himes | ||
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| + | Abigale Bailey's piece was quite disturbing. I felt that after reading about so much virtue, this piece was juxtaposed to the previous documents. It is not shocking that a man, a father in 1815 could virtually get away with molestation and incest, especially since as Mr. B noted, that Abigale was "under his legal control". It just illustrates the hard lines drawn between the genders and how women, who seemed to have at least a modicum of control in the child rearing and household affairs actually had no say at all. I felt proud of Abigale to vocalize her fears and suspicions at the cost of her reputation and, as she felt her safety. - Caryn Levine | ||
== New Spain’s (New Mexico’s) moral code as dictated by the Spanish Crown in 1752 == | == New Spain’s (New Mexico’s) moral code as dictated by the Spanish Crown in 1752 == | ||
