Love, honor, and OBEY?!

As you might have guessed by my title, I read A Well Ordered Family by Benjamen Wadsworth. This instructional essay gave me a glimpse into what Puritan family life was like back in 1712. From what I read it seemed like family life was very structured and almost like a miniature form of government. With all the rules husbands and wives were meant to follow back then I can imagine there were quite a few silently discontent marriages... That's not to say that everyone was married to some person they didn't like, but with this sort of system in place it's easy to see how many people could end up unhappily married or ill matched. I think I was most surprised by the fact that the parents were arranging their children's marriages. I guess I just thought that arranged marriages weren't around during the colonial times. A lot of the rules and guidelines weren't too outlandish, but I can be kind of obstinate, so the thought of having to obey my husband (whoever he turns out to be) just makes me want to rebel. Most of what I read wasn't very shocking though, just because I've studied this time period before and have learned about how the attitudes toward women were less than favorable. Thankfully things are very different nowadays! There was a whole women's rights movement and now women are pretty much considered equals with men. Probably even more lucky is that our parents aren't setting up our marriages anymore. I'm sure most parents would attempt to find their children suitable matches, but there's no substitute for love.