History of Feminism

compile the court proceedings. But you can get most of Cotton Mather's works online. He was a minister who completely believed that the accused were witches and who wrote a lot of contemporary books. The one dealing with witches is called "Wonders of the Invisible World."

An interesting work by him not related to witch trials is called "Ornaments for the Daughters of Zion." It's about how he (and mind you, he is in his early twenties when he writes it) thinks women should comport themselves. It's a total scream, not least because you hear some of the same statements today. On DU.

But what the court documents and the statistical data show is that the accused tended to be women who were single, past childbearing years, and who had inherited or would inherit property, or they were involved in property disputes, and they were outspoken. The inference being that they completely stepped out of their places, and needed to be put down.

I think it's not a coincidence that, in New England, the witch trials intensified after Ann Hutchinson began preaching in her home and was banished, and after the entrance of Quakers into the New World. Both of those are incidents in which women usurped the role of the men who controlled society, namely the religious leaders.

Fascinating is right!