Skip to Main Content

A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (2nd edn)

Online ISBN:
9780199853960
Print ISBN:
9780195128901
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

A Little Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Colony (2nd edn)

John Demos
John Demos

Samuel Knight Professor of History

Yale University
Find on
Published online:
3 October 2011
Published in print:
30 September 1999
Online ISBN:
9780199853960
Print ISBN:
9780195128901
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

The year 2000 marked the 30th anniversary of the publication of this title. The study examines the family in the context of the colony founded by the Pilgrims who came over on the Mayflower. Basing his work on physical artifacts, wills, estate inventories, and a variety of legal and official enactments, the author portrays the family as a structure of roles and relationships, emphasizing those of husband and wife, parent and child, and master and servant. The book's most startling insights come from a reconsideration of commonly held views of American Puritans and of the ways in which they dealt with one another. The author concludes that Puritan “repression” was not as strongly directed against sexuality as against the expression of hostile and aggressive impulses, and he shows how this pattern reflected prevalent modes of family life and child rearing. The result is an in-depth study of the ordinary life of a colonial community, located in the broader environment of seventeenth-century America. This second edition includes a new foreword and a list of further reading.

Contents
Close
This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

Close

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

View Article Abstract & Purchase Options

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Close