Albion's Seed: Old Age and Death

Old age

All four culture honored their elders, but in different ways. The Puritans viewed a long life as a sign of God’s favor and therefore venerated their elders as saints. In very hierarchical Virginia, the main way a person of low rank could achieve status was as an elder. People were taught to respect their elders – meaning not just old people, but anyone older than they were – and betters. Respect due to age equalled and sometimes exceeded respect due to rank. A young gentlemen was expected to respect the authority of an older man of lower rank. Quakers saw their elders as teachers and nurturers, guides to the community. But, an elder’s authority was not as strong as in New England or Virginia; it yielded to the Inner Light. Competition for authority was fierce among elders in the back country. Winners became people of great authority and esteem. Losers were abandoned to lives of lonely destitution.

One ingenious measure of people’s attituded about age is the practice of “age heaping.” This is based on the understanding that, then as now, people tended to fib about their ages. So looking for statistically improbable age groupings (just an incredible number of people who are 29 or 39, compared to 30 or 40) tells us something about a society’s attitudes toward age. No age heaping statistics were availabe for Quakers. My own interpretation of Fischer’s statistics (not necessarily shared by Fischer) is that Puritan and back country attitudes toward age were not so different from our own. Very young people (around 20) wanted to be older than they were. People of intermediate age wanted to be younger. But when people reached the status of honored elders, when, as some wag put it, you stop complaining about your age and start boasting about it, people started to want to be older again. In other words, you do not achieve the status of honored elder until you are recognizably old. The difference was that in the 17th and 18th Centuries, that happened around 60. These days, it happens around 80 or even 90. Virginians had quite a different pattern. Although people around 30 were apparently too young to benefit from elder status, once they approached 40 people had a strong desire to exagerate their ages, which grew stronger with each passing decade. Seniority conveyed authority much earlier in this culture.

Another distinction Fischer did not note is that people fib about their ages much less now than they used to. I can only assume that this is part of a general tendancy to view time with much greater precision now than in the past.

Death

Untimely death was much, much more common in the 17th and 18th Centuries than it is today. People learned to be fatalistic, never knowing when death might strike. But these four cultures were not all fatalistic in the same way.

Puritans lived in constant fear of damnation. Not to fear hellfire was a sure sign of being hellbound. They encouraged people to think often about their death (they called it "daily dying.") Children were encouraged to fear hell, to live in fear that they might die any time, and to stare at the bodies of the deceased to see what their inevitable fate would be. Funerals were austere matters, with sermons that took care not to exagerate the virtues of the dead. And yet, after funeral Puritans held receptions, feasted, and got drunk (one of the few times they allowed such indulgence).

Cavaliers adopted an attitude Fischer calls “stoic fatalism,” in other words, an attitude of oh well, everyone has to die some day. Living lives surrounded by disease and uncertainty, in which anyone could sicken and die at any time, Virginians learned to be dismissive and say that there was no point in crying and carrying on. At the same time, they mourned as much for the loss of loved ones as anyone else. One way of showing grief was by elaborate funerals with pallbearers,
mourning gloves, love scarves, and much feasting, drinking and firing of salutes. Funeral customs were as hierarchical as everything else in their society. People marked funerals with as much ceremony as they could afford. People were buried according to rank, in family cemetaries on the family estate for people who could afford such a plot, with a minimum of ceremony and often no marker for servants and slaves.

If Puritans lived in fear of Hell, Quakers lived in hope of Heaven. Their favored narative of death was the sick person who feared it at first, but moved past fear to welcome death. Families gathered at deathbeds to say farewell and recorded last words for their spiritual significance. Once the event was past, though, the funeral was as quick and austere as possible. They did allow a dinner after, with the bottle circulated – but only twice.

Death by disease was less common in the backcountry than in Virginia, but death by violence was more common. Although the back countrymen, like the Puritans, were Calvinists, they focused less on salvation and more on dying bravely. Funerals had many folk traditions borrowed from Scotland – laying the body on the floor to be in contact with the earth, placing a platter of salt mixed with dirt on the stomach of the deceased, wakes, and gifts to the guests. Everyone was required to touch the body because foul play was often suspected and it was believed that if a murder touched his victim, the body would bleed.

Next: The closely related subjects of religion and magic.

Albion's Seed: Family, Marriage, Sex and Children

It is clear from Fischer’s account that choosing one’s own spouse is a venerable American custom, going back to England. (Henry VIII is said to have lamented that he, as king, was denied the freedom of his least subject, of choosing his own wife). If this seems unremarkable to us, keep in mind that historically it is actually the exception. Most societies have practiced arranged marriages. Family in all four cultures meant primarily, but not exclusively, nuclear family.

The Puritans had the strongest nuclear families. Everyone was expected to marry and live in families. The rare eccentric who did not marry was not allowed to live alone, but must belong to someone else’s family. The Puritans’ famous asceticism translated into a strong hostility to sex outside of marriage, but not to sex within marriage (so long as nothing “unnatural,” i.e., nothing that could interfere with conception took place), or to marriage itself. Not to marry was not exactly a sin deserving of hell, but it was a sign of not having God’s favor and therefore being hell-bound. Marriage took place relatively late (mid 20’s for both men and women). The young couple chose their own spouses, though with their parents’ guidance. It was considered important both to chaperone the young couple to prevent premarital sex, but also to give them enough privacy to get to know each other. Since the telephone had not yet been invented, young people whispered to each other through a “courting stick,” short enough to hear each other, but long enough to keep them from touching. More surprisingly, they also “bundled,” that is, they slept in the same bed, but with a board between them and the girl’s legs tied together in a “bundling apron.” (Groping above the waist was apparently allowed).

Marriage required the parents’ consent, but if parents denied consent unreasonably, the young couple could seek authority from a judge instead. Puritans also rejected the Catholic view that marriage was a sacred union that could never be dissolved. Instead, the treated it as a civil contract that could be dissolved (though only as a last resort) if the terms were not met. Husband and wife were not equals. A wife was expected to obey her husband. But she was considered his second-in-command and expected to receive the respect that a second in command is due. In particular, a husband was not allowed to resort to physical force to enforce is prerogatives. If a wife was disobedient, he could complain to the authorities and have her punished, but hitting he was not allowed. Domestic discord in general was not tolerated and could end up in court.

Children, in accordance with strict Calvinist orthodoxy,were considered evil, and parents were expected to be strict and “break their wicked will.” This does not mean they were supposed to be abusive. Beating a child was considered a last resort (although they did not hesitate to use it if all else failed). But their favorite means of discipline was guilt, guilt and more guilt. Children were “sent out” of their parents’ house at adolescence. Sons of the elite and very bright sons of ordinary families went to college (at a much younger age than is customary now). Town dwelling sons were apprenticed. Girls worked as domestic servants. Fischer did not clarify what sons of farmers (who were, after all, the majority of the population) did. Nor did he clarify if they returned to their parents’ houses afterward and live with their parents while courting, or if finding one’s marriage partner was part of sending out.

Virginia families were less nuclear and more extended. This was at least in part because in disease-ridden Virginia, many people died young, leaving the family incomplete. Extended family was a necessary fall-back. Among the gentry,this was also because a gentleman saw himself as a patriarch and everyone within his authority and protection – wife, children, step-children, relatives, friends, servants, slaves, and even total strangers accepting his hospitality. Southern patriarchs took pride in their hospitality and generosity to strangers, a custom inherited from the gentry of England. They also exercised a patriarch’s authority over their households, including sexual access to female slaves, servants and tenants. This, too dated back to the English aristocracy (“feudal privilege” was the accepted euphemism). Men of rank were widely expected to take a predatory attitude toward women, but the attitude toward any transgression by women was quite different. Adulterous wives and women who had babies out of wedlock were stripped, flogged, and dragged, half-drowing, behind boats, with no thought the their partner-in-crime. Indentured servants had their term of servitude extended to compensate their master for the time lost by their pregnancy and birth – even if he was the father. Needless to say, this only encouraged patriarchs in their predatory attitude.

Marriages were more likely to be arranged in this culture than any of the others. Upper class families chose spouses as alliances between houses. Love was expected to follow, rather than precede, marriage. Anglican Virginians followed the Catholic rule that marriage was a sacred knot that could never be undone, and conducted them as a Christian ceremony (though usually in the bride’s house, rather than in church), accompanied by much feasting and dancing, sometimes for several days. Husbands expected their patriarchal authority to extend to their wives as well as the rest of their household. Wives often did not submit tamely, making marriages often turbulent power struggles. Physical force was not outlawed, but frowned upon. A gentleman who hit his wife committed no crime, but he was being vulgar and lower class, and besides, both spouses could take out their frustration with each other on their slaves. If a lower class husband beat his wife, the neighbors were apt to gather around, beating pans, blowing horns, clanging bells, and otherwise shaming him into stopping with “rough music.” Child raising did not focus on breaking their evil wills, but on training children in an elaborate code of
hierarchy and conduct, and in knowing their place in the social order.

Quaker families were more nearly equal than Puritans or Cavaliers, and more child-centered. At
the same time, Quakers saw nuclear families as sub-units within the greater family of all Quakers. Women had extraordinary liberty and autonomy for the 17th Century, being allowed to preach and to hold “women’s meetings” that handled a great deal of church business. Marriage, Quakers taught, should be for love – but for spiritual love, not carnal. Unlike the Puritans, Quaker asceticism extended to sex, even within marriage. All attempt was made to banish sex from polite society, including modest dress and prudish speech (Quaker women would not admit to having anything below the waist except for “ankles.”)

Once again, Fischer does not discuss courtship customs much, but he does go into their austere-but-elaborate and highly communitarian marriage customs. Permission had to be obtained by the parents of both spouses, the coupale themselves, the women’s meeting, the men’s meeting, ny other meeting either spouse might have belonged to, and a general certificate of approval with
numerous signatures, all in the proper order. Weddings themselves took place in the meetinghouse (Quakers did not say “church”) and consisted of the couple saying vows of their own choosing to each other and everyone meditating together. Marriage took place typically in the couple’s mid-20’s, and many people never married at all.

Children were considered innocent. At an early age, they were sheltered, but with the “dawn of reason,” they were guided and molded. Teaching children was the business, not just of parents, but of the whole community. And a Quaker upbringing could shape children in strange-seeming ways – Quaker children played at “going to meeting,” i.e., sitting around and meditating in silence together, and lectured their elders about their conduct. Quaker children were not sent
out, but stayed with their parents during adolescence. This could be a difficult time, as it was
when children become tempted by the world and parents sought to keep them from
being corrupted.

Back countrymen focused on the nuclear family, but backed by the derbfine (all kin within the span of four generations) and clan. Clans had no formal structure or badges of membership, but they looked after their own, both assisting members and banding together to fight outsider. Marriage within one’s clan was permitted; marriage to a hostile clan discouraged. Nuclear families were strong, but many households included other relatives as well.

Marriage took place young for both men and women, with less difference in age than any of the other cultures. Fischer does not go into detail about their courtship customs, but the section on sex leaves some broad hints. Unmarried women wore low-cut, tightly fitting bodices and skirts above the ankles. In any event, modesty was impossible in crowded, one-room cabins. Speech was ribald and uninhibited. Young people played highly suggestive games and walked unchaperoned from cabin to cabin, or rode together on the same horse. The bride who was pregnant on her wedding day was normal – so common, in some cases, that one suspects a woman had to prove she was fertile to be marriageable. But is sex was a normal part of courtship,
marriage was the necessary outcome. Think any story you have heard about shotgun marriages. Marriage extinguished any possible dishonor (Andrew Jackson ran off with another man’s wife and no one in the back country thought the less of him since they married in the end), but the man who seduced and abandoned a girl risked being killed by her outraged kinsmen. (Presumably this strongly discouraged predatory men).

Weddings were marked by abduction rituals with the groom going through the act of carrying off the bride, a carryover from days when real abductions were common. They were also characterized by much feasting, drinking, dancing, horse racing, games, and celebratory gunfire, which sometimes led weddings to be followed by funerals. Contrary to popular belief,
Fischer reports, frontier conditions did not promote equality between husbands and wives. Rather, a border emphasis on war led to strong male domination and female subordination. Husbands alternated between passionate expressions of love for their wives, and violence and beating, particularly when drunk.

Men in this culture rarely learned to control their tempers, a tendancy that began in childhood. Boys were encouraged to be manly, manly, autonomous, independent, aggressive, and fierce in defense of honor against any perceived insult. They were not taught much in the way of self-control. Girls were taught to be submissive and obedient. Beating children was condemned, but conflict was inevitable between fathers (and often mothers) who never learned to control their tempers and sons who were assertive, aggressive, and impatient of any control. Violence was frequent; alcohol contributed.