Female Piety in Puritan New England: The Emergence of Religious HumanismOxford University Press, 1991 M11 21 - 224 pages A synthesis of literary critical and historical methods, Porterfield's book combines insightful analysis of Puritan theological writings with detailed examinations of historical records showing the changing patterns of church membership and domestic life. She finds that by conflating marriage as a trope of grace with marriage as a social construct, Puritan ministers invested relationships between husbands and wives with religious meaning. Images of female piety represented the humility that Puritans believed led all Christians to self-control and, ultimately, to love. But while images of female piety were important for men primarily as aids to controlling aggression and ambition, they were primarily attractive to women as aids to exercising indirect influence over men and obtaining public recognition and status. |
Contents
| 3 | |
1 Eros Conscience and the Making of Puritan Society | 14 |
2 Female Piety in the Lives of Thomas Hooker Thomas Shepard and John Cotton | 40 |
3 Anne Hutchinson Anne Bradstreet and the Importance of Women in Puritan Culture | 80 |
4The Rise and Fall of Female Piety as a Symbol of New England | 116 |
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Common terms and phrases
afflicted aggression American Anne Bradstreet Anne Hutchinson Antinomian Antinomian Controversy argued associated authority belief biblical Boston Cambridge Canticles century Christ Christian church members Colonial congregation context conversion Cotton Mather divine domestic Edwards emotional emphasis England Puritans English erotic espousal father feelings female imagery female piety female suffering God's grace half-way covenant History Holy Hooker and Shepard humility husband Ibid images of female important interpreted Joanna Drake John Cotton King Philip's war Lollard London Lord Lord's Supper Margery Kempe marriage Mary Mary Rowlandson maternal means moral mother Narrative orig political preached preparationist Puritan culture Puritan ideal Puritan New England Puritan society Puritan theology Puritan women Quarterly radical redemptive relationship Religion religious experience religious humanism represented Richard Sibbes role Rowlandson saints Salem self-control sermons seventeenth-century New England sexual Sibbes social order soul Spirit submission symbols Third Church Thomas Hooker Thomas Shepard tion wife witchcraft wives woman Yale University Press York