by Victoria Rose Perkins

Created on: October 27, 2009   Last Updated: November 02, 2009

The best guide to Pilgrim culture, is to take a good look at what history has to say. Historians tend to agree, religion and the Bible were at the center of the Pilgrim's culture, and everything else, including their day-to-day affairs, was centered around it.

Church attendance was mandatory. English Law and the Bible were their sources for handling any judicial matters. Looking deeper into their everyday lives, it is easy to see that religion did influence them greatly.

The Husband's Role:

Primarily, it was customary for the husband to protect his home and hearth. This included hunting, fishing, overseeing of his household, sharing in the common good of the whole colony by protecting its interest and serving in any capacity deemed necessary to benefit the colony.

If he committed a social sin, like public drunkedness, this was handled through church discipline and not by civil punishment. The husband was responsible for the well-being of his family's religious state.

The Pilgrim's culture dictated marriage ceremonies to be civil affairs, rather than religious ones. This was based on their belief that there is no record in the Bible of a couple being joined together in marriage by the clergy.

The Wife's Role:

Although women were not considered to be equal to men, from a legal or social standpoint, the Pilgrims were surprisingly progressive in their treatment of women when it came to being land owners. Whatever land a wife may have owned, by her first marriage, continued to remain her's exclusively, even when she remarried. This went against England's laws, where women could never became legal landowners.

Women worked planting gardens, overseeing the children and performed general household chores. The wife was to remain subordinate to her husband's wishes.

However, the women could be parties to legal contracts and this included prenuptial agreements. This tells us the Pilgrim women had a say in who they would marry and be afforded some legal rights, before the marriage took place. Women also sometimes sat in as jurors, on civil and legal matters.

The Children's Role:

The Pilgrim's culture also included strict rules for children. At age eight, each child was considered to be a near grown-up. They had no adolescent consideration. Corporal punishment was used for discipline. After the age of ten, a child would be placed in another family's home and was expected to earn their keep and in exchange be taught a trade.

All Pilgrim children were not formally educated, however every head of household was expected to teach their children some reading to enable them to read and understand some of the Scriptures. Orphaned children could decide whom they wanted to live with, after the age of fourteen. When a boy reached the age of sixteen, he was considered eligible for military duty.

Thus, the Pilgrims' culture of nearly 400 years ago, still bears some resemblance to our American culture, as we know it today. A good portion of our legal laws still stem from basic Bible principles. However, as mentioned, the Pilgrims were way ahead and forward-thinking, when it came to women's rights. In this regard, we can be proud of them. Incidentally, today, approximately 12% of the American population are direct descendants of the Pilgrims.

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