Witchcraft and Piritan Salem

In New England Puritan ideas of gender dictated acts of gender for women in terms of behavior, demeanor, and speech at home and church, in public and private. Gender roles were clearly defined and categorized women as the weaker, vulnerable sex; physically, emotionally, spiritually and morally, subordinate to men in every instance and venue. Men were the heads of the household and of the church. They ruled what were deemed the important aspects of life. Women's role in society was that of domestic; they owned no property, made no significant wage and were entirely dependent on men for their subsistence. While the primary tenants underlying the American Puritan doctrine of the 17th century stated that women were no more susceptible to sin then men, the contrary proved to be the belief actually held. There was a preoccupation with the sinful nature of a woman's soul and in different ways, Karlsen, Kamensky and Reis show how that preoccupation permeates the cultural, religious, social, political, economic and psychological aspect of witch naming in Puritan America during the Salem outbreak.

The theory that economics and a threat to the smooth transition of inheritance could be the basis for a good number of witch naming incidents is presented and supported by Karlsen. It is her contention that women who stood to inherit and lacked a male figure, husband, brother, son or father, in their life, were charged with the crime of witchcraft. A conviction would mean that authorities could seize their property. The property would revert to the court setting things right in the patriarchal social structure, preventing the women from becoming economically independent. Women with husbands or fathers of means while often accused wou...

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...to discern their ordinary sin from covenanting with the devil so they confessed to the sacrilege of witchcraft. Reis cites one example where a woman confessed to having entered into a covenant with the devil because she had an abortion. Through confession, acknowledgement that they willingly allowed the devil to use their bodies, and ultimately the expression of remorse, Reis points out that these women offered their society confirmation of the existence of both God and Satan; good and evil.

The cultural fabric of Puritan American was woven with women having a subservient role clearly where inheritance, speech and dealings with the magistrate came into play. The three authors show how the biases of the culture perpetuated the hysteria of the accusations of witch during the Salem outbreak that worked to the advantage of the deeply gendered society's biases.