Sometimes Cruel, but Never Unusual: Children’s Lives in the 17th Century

1670 Mason Children

The old rhyme goes, “Men may work from sun to sun; a woman’s work is never done.”   There is no doubt that our colonial forefathers worked hard in planting crops, cutting firewood, and hunting for food.   Their wives were equally busy, but what were children’s lives like in our country’s early days?  Their parents worked hard, but did children have an easy life?

Pilgrim Cradle

They had to survive coming into the world, and what medical assistance was supplied to mother and child often did more harm than good.  Miscarriages and premature births often went unnoted, and in some communities, 30% of the children whose births and deaths were recorded died before their fifth birthday.

Young Mother's Tombstone

Hopefully the newborn’s mother would survive too.  It is estimated that 1 - 1.5% of pregnancies ended in the mother’s death, and throughout their lifetimes, 1 in 8 women died during pregnancy or childbirth.  A nursing mother passes crucial antibodies to her infant with the first milk produced after birth.  If she died, that child began life with a compromised immune system.  If the infant survived, it might be raised by another nursing woman – if one was available.

Three children in one tomb

A child who survived birth was taken to the meetinghouse a few days later for baptism.  In January, ice on the baptismal font would have to be removed first, then the baby was dunked in that frigid water.

Young children were assailed by disease, impure food and water, and accidents.  Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister in Boston, sired 15 children, 8 of which died before being weaned.  He wrote, "We have our children taken from us, the Desire of our Eyes taken away with a stroke."  40% of 17^th century children did not become adults.

“In the midst of life we are in death” comes from the Book of Common Prayer.  Children learned that early, for they were often taken to public hangings for an object lesson in crime and punishment.  Funerals and wakes were held at home.  Hell awaited most children, or so they were told, for "their Hearts naturally, are a meer nest, root, fountain of Sin, and wickedness." (Benjamin Wadsworth)

Some cures were worse than the disease.  A child being treated for rickets (vitamin D deficiency) might be dosed with snakeroot and saffron steeped in rum, then dipped head first in cold water.  If that didn’t make the child sweat, “Let a little blood be taken out of ye feet…and that will cause them to sweat afterwards.”  Wearing wolf’s fangs might make the child’s teeth come in more easily, but that was less painful than scratching the child’s gums with an osprey bone.

The Capel family

Infanta Margarita

Both boys and girls wore linen gowns in their earliest years, similar to the one worn by Lady Capel’s baby.  When children were old enough to be ‘breeched,’ boys wore shirts & breeches like their father’s.  Girls were clad in miniature versions of their mother’s clothing.  Few children were so fortunate as to wear the stuff of the Infanta’s painting:

Boy Eating Porridge by Hals

Children ate and drank what their parents ate, including beer.  Milk was only available when cows had calves.  Water was considered to be an unhealthy drink.  Rightly so, when it was drawn downstream from a cow pasture or privy.

Girl With Broom - Fabritius

Childhood labor laws – what were they?  As soon as they were big enough to hold a broom, children worked alongside their parents.  They were not considered to be mouths to feed, but helping hands.  The more children a family had, the more likely that family was to prosper. 

Miss Campion with hornbook

In our country’s early days, formal education was a luxury for most boys, but it was sometimes available.  In 1640 Robert Lenthall was granted 100 acres of land in Newport, Rhode Island “for Encouraginge of ye poorer sort to trayne up their youthe in Learninge.”  The school was not successful, though, and Lenthall returned to England a few years later.  However, affluent children, both boys and girls, might be educated.  In this picture, Miss Campion holds a hornbook printed with the alphabet.

As early as age 10, many children were sent to work for another family, or were bonded to tradesmen as an apprentice.  An indenture could last a specific span, say, 5-7 years, until the age of 21, or perhaps until a girl married.  A boy could learn to be a tailor or cobbler, but there was great potential for abuse unless that child’s family was keeping an eye on him.

Children at Plimoth Plantation

Children did have some time for fun.  Marbles, tops, and pieces of ceramic dolls are turned up by colonial archeologists. King Charles I and his father both issued a Book of Sports, listing “lawfull Recreations and honest exercises” to be played “upon Sundayes and other Holy days, after the afternoone Sermon.”

Puritans were far stricter, but games for children were allowed – within reason.  In 1657, because several people had been hurt, boys who played “football in the streets” would be fined 20 shillings.  But they could play football, wicket, and other games on the Common.

17th century doll

Sampler by Loara Standish

Girls were taught household crafts, and perhaps that wasn’t as much fun as playing football.  But they also had dolls, including this early model.  It doesn’t look much like today’s Barbies, but with a dress, a painted face, and perhaps a wig, it would have provided a young girl with an hour’s entertainment.

It is clear from this blog that I have a liking for our country’s earliest days.  However, when I consider whether I’d rather have been a child in the 20^th century, or the 17^th, I am glad to have been born in modern days.

 

Sources:

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/childbirth.cfm

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/usdeath.cfm

Child Life in Colonial Days – Alice Morse Earle  1899

Customs and Fashions in Old New England – Alice Morse Earle  1893

Woman’s Life in Colonial Days – Carl Holliday  1922

Images:

Mason Children: http://www.worcesterart.org/Collection/Early_American/Artists/unidentified_17th/elizabeth_f/painting-discussion.html

Cradle: http://www.pilgrimhall.org/collects.htm

Tombstones: personal collection

Baptismal font: http://www.squidoo.com/colonial-williamsburg#module150843586

Lady Capel gown: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1600%E2%80%931650_in_fashion

Velasquez’ Infanta Dona Magarita de Austria: http://www.wga.hu/html_m/v/velazque/10/index.html

Fransz Hals’ “Boy Eating Porridge”: http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/painting_206792/Reynier-Fransz-Hals/Boy-eating-Porridge

Carel Fabritius’ “A Girl With a Broom”: http://www.traceyourdutchroots.com/art/bezem.html

Miss Campion with Hornbook: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornbook

Blowing bubbles: http://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/playing-learning

Sampler by Loara Standish: http://www.pilgrimhall.org/samplers2.htm

A Woman’s Work is Never Done

The Milkmaid - Johannes Vermeer

For the last few weeks I have been up to my ears editing The Reputed Wife (sequel to Rebel Puritan) and making a print for my proofreaders.  To get those historical details right, I’ve made an extra-special effort to place myself in the busy lives of our colonial fore-mothers.  When a bit of research turned up this song, I had to share.  The 1629 ballad, A Woman’s Work is Never Done, describes Herodias Long’s life perfectly.

One thing you will notice is the length of this ballad.  It comes from a time when few people could read.  This witty - and - cautionary tale would be good entertainment for a long winter night.  Would it be sung by men at a tavern, or women at a quilting bee?  Even when her busy day is done and the family has tumbled off to the communal bed, our poor woman is still not done with her chores.  Read on to find out what’s afoot:

Outdoor Tavern

A Woman's Work is Never Done

Here is a song for maids to sing,

Both in the winter and in the spring;

It is such a pretty, conceited thing,

Which will much pleasure to them bring:

Maids may sit still, go, or run,

But a woman's work is never done.

As I was wandering on the way,

I heard a married woman say

That she had lived a solid life

A Quiet Read - William Dobson.

Ever since the time that she was made a wife.

"For why," quoth she, "my labor is hard,

And all my pleasures are debarred:

Both morning, evening, night and noon,

I'm sure a woman's work is never done.

"And now," quoth she, "I will relate

The manner of my woeful fate;

And how my self I do bestow,

As all my neighbors well do know:

And therein all, that will hear,

Unto my song I pray awhile give ear;

Breakfast Piece - Floris van Schooten

I'll make it plainly to appear, right soon,

How that a woman's work is never done.

"For when that I will rise early in the morn,

Before that I my head with dressings adorn,

I sweep and cleanse the house, as need doth require,

Or, if that it be cold, I make a fire:

Then my husband's breakfast I must dress,

To fill his belly with some wholesome mess;

Perhaps thereof I eat a little, or none,

But I'm sure a woman's work is never done.

"Next thing that I in order do,

My children must be looked unto;

Elizabeth and Mary Freake

Then I take them from their naked beds,

To put on their clothes and comb their heads:

And then, what hap soever betide,

Their breakfast straight I must provide.

'Bread!' cries my daughter; and 'Drink!' my son,

And thus a woman's work is never done.

"And when that I have filled their bellies full,

Some of them I pack away to school,

All save one sucking child, that at my breast

Doth gnaw and bite, and sorely me molest:

But when I have laid him down to sleep,

I am constrained the house to keep,

For then the pottage-pot I must hang on,

And thus a woman's work is never done.

And when my pottage-pot is ready to hoil,

I must be careful all the while;

And for to cum the pot is my desire,

Woman Peeling Apples - Pieter de Hooch

Or else all the fat will run i' th' fire.

But when th'leven o'clock bell it doth chime,

Then I know 'tis near upon dinner time:

To lay the tablecloth I then do run,

And thus a woman's work is never done.

"When dinner time is gone and over-past,

My husband he runs out o' th' doors in haste;

He scarce gives me a kiss for all that I

Have dealt and done to him so lovingly;

Which sometimes grieves me to the heart,

To see him so clownishly depart:

But to my first discourse let me go on,

To show a woman's work is never done.

"There's never a day, from morn to night,

But I with work am tired quite;

For when the game with me is at the best,

I hardly in a day take one hour's rest;

Girl Chopping Onions - Gerrit Dou

Sometimes I knit, and sometimes I spin,

Sometimes I wash, and sometimes I do wring.

Sometimes I sit, and sew by myself alone,

And thus a woman's work is never done.

"In making of the beds such pains I take,

Until my back, and sides, and arms, do ache;

And yet my husband deals so cruelly,

That he but seldom comes to comfort me.

And then at night, when the clock strike nine,

My husband he will say, 'tis supper time;

Then presently he must be waited upon,

And thus a woman's work is never done.

"When supper's ended to bed we must go--

You all do know 'tis fitting it should be so--

Then do I think to settle all things right,

In hope that I shall take some rest by night.

The biggest of my children together I lay,

My husband then wakes me...

And place them by degrees so well as I may:

But yet there is a thing to be thought upon,

For why, a woman's work is never done.

"Then if my husband turns me to the wall,

Then my sucking child will cry and brawl;

Six of seven times for the breast 'twill cry,

And then, I pray you judge, what rest take I.

And if at any time asleep I be,

Perchance my husband wakes, and then wakes me;

Then he does that to me which I cannot shun,

Yet I could wish that work were oftener done.

A Girl and her Duenna - Murillo

"All you merry girls that hear this ditty,

Both in country, and in the city;

Take good notice of my lines I pray,

And make the use of the time you may:

You see that maids live more merrier lives,

Then do the best of married wives:

And thus to end my song as I begun,

You know a woman's work is never done.

English broadside, 1629

Images:

The Milkmaid:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermeer

Outdoor tavern:  http://www.godecookery.com/afeast/brew/brew014.html

Breakfast Piece:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floris_van_Schooten

A Woman Peeling Apples, Girl Chopping Onions:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman_Peeling_Apples

A Quiet Read:  http://www.allposters.com/-st/William-Dobson-Posters_c76229_.htm

Elizabeth and Mary Freake:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_and_Mary_Freake.jpg

Kissing scene:  http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/do_history/courtship/images/bundling.jpg

A Girl and her Duenna: http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/bartolome-esteban-murillo/a-girl-and-her-duenna-1670

Lyrics Source:

http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=8292