The problems that the societies of Montaillou and Salem faced seemed to be related to marriage and family and the power that the men wanted to contain. In Montaillou, it was important for the men to keep control of their ostal and to be able to pass it onto an heir one day. Most of the women seemed to keep with the Catholic faith, which placed more importance on the roles of wives and mothers. Hartman tells us that the population was increasing and that because of poor weather conditions they didn’t have the food supplies to support everyone. For the men to be able to be able to contain control of their ostal, it makes sense that they would break away from the Catholic teachings so that they weren’t forced to follow rules that could lead them to lose all that they were working for. They could then incorporate new ways to live their life that allowed them to maintain their ostals and allowed them to maintain the power that they had.
In Salem, most of the accusers were women, so at first you might not think that men were struggling to keep control in society. Hartman makes the argument that even though the women were making most of the accusations, they were doing it on behalf of the men in Salem to protect them. Hartman uses evidence from Karlsen to support this idea. Karlsen notes that the majority of people who were accused of being witches were women. Most of the women that were accused were older, had no male heir, and were either single or widowed. The circumstances that these women were in gave them more power in society compared to the other women, which could lead to the men feeling that they were losing some of the power that they once had. After reading about how the societies were set up, I think that Hartman was able to successfully prove her point and showed how men wanted to be able to maintain their power.
I also thought that Hartman argued her point well, but how would she explain the men that were accused of witchcraft- in light of the arguement that the witch hunts happened in Salem because of the freedom that women had and the consequent threat that they posed to men's work?
ReplyDeleteTierca raises a good point - how do we account for men accused of witchcraft? In some places men were accused of a variety of supernatural crimes - including being a werewolf, but by the middle of the 17th century they were accused of being male witches. What does that say to Hartman's argument?
ReplyDeleteCould the issue of men being accused of witch craft have any connection to these men's failure to marry themselves? With a society that was putting more and more pressure on the preservation of the family it just seems like if a man, like a woman, failed to marry they would pose a threat to to holiness of the family. By not participating in the perpetuation of such a respected institution it seems as though that could be viewed as outright rebellion against society. Are there any records of whether or not the men accused of witchcraft were married?
ReplyDeleteI found it extremely interesting (and mind blowing) to think of the SINGLE women being the main threat in Salem. I have not studied Salem extensively, but when we discussed in class the women-focused witch trails in Massachusetts, it all fell into place. Of course men of that time period would be intimidated by women who could (and needed) to do everything--all the "men work" as well as "women work". It was no fault of the woman, she just simply had to fill that role in order to survive. And sadly, some died because of this desire to survive. Oh, the irony!
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