ANTIQUES.(death as influence in 17th-century family life in America)(Brief Article)

O Woman, if thy Husband be not so young, beautiful, healthy, so well temper'd and qualified as thee couldst wish; if he has not such abilities, riches, honours, as some others have; if he does not carry it so well as he should; yet he's thy Husband, and the Great God Commands thee to love, honour and obey him....It may be thy discontent, fretting, scolding, quarrelling, makes thy Husband weary of the house, he can't abide to be at home, he has no quiet nor peace there; this makes him idle away his time, get into bad company, stay out late at nights, take to Tippling, Gaming and other ill practices; which tend to bring shame, poverty, misery on him, on thy self and Family.

Benjamin Wadsworth, The Well-Ordered Family, or, Relative Duties, 1712

Paternal authority was at the center of the notion of the "well-ordered family" that European settlers brought with them to the new world. These migrants set up remarkably different societies, ranging from the compact theocratic communities of New England through the quasi-feudal hierarchy of Maryland and the scattered farms and plantations of Virginia to the largely unorganized backcountry of the Carolinas. Nonetheless, they all had to give a semblance of order to colonial society.

Surviving evidence suggests that death held considerable dominion over life in the seventeenth century. Life expectancy at birth was just over thirty-five years, while those who survived to the age of twenty-five could expect to live only into their early fifties. In colonial America mothers who lived through their childbearing years bore an average of eight children, although it was probably rare for as many as six to survive into adulthood. Since childbearing usually began within the first year and a half of marriage and continued until menopause, couples rarely had many years free from child rearing.

With one of every two men and women dying ...