A search for power : [electronic resource] the "weaker sex" in seventeenth-century New England / Lyle Koehler.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [493]-537) and index.

I. The creation of a Puritan mode -- II. Sex-role stereotyping in Puritan ideology and practice -- III. Sex and sexism -- IV. Women in work and poverty: the difficulties of earning a living -- V. Marital tension in early New England: when the ideal goes awry -- VI. From self-punishment to covert manipulation: reactions to powerlessness -- VII. Unwomanly women: a variety of non-ideal behaviors -- VIII. The weaker sex as religious rebel: from Williams through Hutchinson -- IX. The weaker sex as religious rebel: Gortonists, Anabaptists, and Quakers -- X. The heresy of witchcraft: anxiety and the supernatural in Calvinist New England -- XI. The Rhode Island alternative -- XII. Storm and stress: Calvinist colonies in changing times, 1665-89 -- XIII. The Salem Village cataclysm: origins and impact of a witch hunt, 1689-92 -- XIV. Women and society in the secular nineties -- Appendixes -- 1. Petitions for divorce in New England, 1620-99 -- 2. Female innkeepers and liquor-sellers in New England, 1620-99 -- 2A. Women on the 1687 Boston tax list -- 2B. Women on the 1687 tax lists for Boston suburbs -- 3. Suicides in New England, 1620-1709 -- 4. Suspected killings of children (mostly infants) by their mothers in New England, 1620-1700 -- 5. Witches accused in New England, 1620-99.