Difference between revisions of "Week 8 Questions/Comments-327 11"
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In many of the readings, I was surprised to read that women tended to leave possessions in unequal amounts to their heirs whereas men tended to split up what was theirs equally. I would have assumed that men would favor their sons over their daughters, but they tended to leave their offspring relatively equal shares (although in the form of land for sons and movable things for daughters). It is interesting that women favored their daughters in wills. Perhaps this is because women did not have many rights of ownership so the women wanted to aid their female relatives in any way possible. --Clare O. | In many of the readings, I was surprised to read that women tended to leave possessions in unequal amounts to their heirs whereas men tended to split up what was theirs equally. I would have assumed that men would favor their sons over their daughters, but they tended to leave their offspring relatively equal shares (although in the form of land for sons and movable things for daughters). It is interesting that women favored their daughters in wills. Perhaps this is because women did not have many rights of ownership so the women wanted to aid their female relatives in any way possible. --Clare O. | ||
| + | Why were these men deserting these women? I see some men just couldn’t live with their wives and some were out at sea (vessel or company?). I guess some men could have also gone hunting and went missing during their trips, but how come there were so many women without husbands who disappeared without a trace? “In the eighteenth century, deserted wives continued to predominate among the colony’s divorce petitioners, but the number of husbands complaining of desertion increased as did the numbers of wives who cited adultery in their petitions.”(Woloch, 72) Most women who went for these divorces did not know where their husbands could have gone or their said husbands admitted to committing adultery.-- Pam Petzold | ||
== Antenuptial contract, Mass, 1653 == | == Antenuptial contract, Mass, 1653 == | ||
