Puritans Behaving Badly - Fitzgerald, Monica D.

. .

Résumé :
The gossip surrounding Content Mason and Peter Wood had circulated for years. Many thought the young widow Mason would quickly remarry. Instead, she found company with the already-married Mr. Wood. Juicy gossip surrounding their relationship turned into serious accusations once Peter's wife conspicuously left town after the birth of Content's second illegitimate child. Content realized that they had to get away. So she packed what she could from her father's house, pocketed some money, and fled with Peter. Along with all of her hurried thoughts on abandoning her home, she must have conceded that life could take unexpected turns. Thirteen years prior, in 1679, the twenty-year-old Content was just beginning her married life and settling in as a goodwife in the Massachusetts Bay town of Dorchester. Unfortunately, her husband died after only three years of marriage, leaving Content a young widow with two little children. She must have had suitors over the years, but no single man could win her hand in marriage. Rumors started to spread about exactly where her heart wandered. Things got worse when Content and Peter's wife, Abigail, both delivered sons only ten days apart, in the spring of 1688. Not until a few years later, though, with the birth of Content's second illegitimate baby, did things come to a head--...

Biographie:
Monica D. Fitzgerald is a professor in the Justice, Community and Leadership Program at Saint Mary's College of California.

Sommaire:
Introduction: disciplining the sinful: a gendered lived religion; 1. The great hen squabble and regulating the godly path; 2. Drunkards and fornicators on Meeting House Hill: gendered sin and discipline; 3. 'Wicked tongues and wayward behavior': the language of confession; 4. A 'blubbering' war hero and the middle ground of masculinity: the case of Captain John Underhill; 5. 'Unquiet frame of spirit': Ann Hibbens, a troublesome and insubordinate woman; Conclusion. Three generations in the wilderness: gendered Puritanism and separate spheres; Bibliography; Index.