Commonwealth: Family Life in Plymouth Term Paper

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Another inference Demos draws is that the distribution of land by newer townships to almost anyone who proposed to move in, as against the earlier plan to restrict land grants only to upright, religious-minded settlers, laid the foundation for cultural evolution through social mobility. In a similar vein, the prospect of new land served to disperse families with the younger generation either rejecting their modest inheritance to seek their fortunes elsewhere or being given land in a new township or frontier area. From these and other facts, Demos makes it evident that the Pilgrim families were keen to distinguish themselves along the lines of wealth and status, thereby laying the foundation for America to develop along the lines of heterogeneous immigrant groups, enterprise and individualism.

Demos's focus on cultural changes wrought by a new environment succeeds in highlighting the evolved status of women as well. Noting a trend towards an expansion of the rights of married women to hold property, in family decision making, and even in certain types of business activity such as the management of inns and taverns, Demos points out a growing equality of the sexes in Plymouth, as compared to many parts of Europe where a wife was still quite literally at the mercy of her husband.

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Although Demos sets out to showcase how everyday family life in Plymouth reflected cultural change from the Old World habitat, his analysis is objective enough to acknowledge areas where there was little or no change. To name just one example, his descriptions of children illustrate the fact that early Pilgrim society treated children as "young adults," who were expected to emulate their parents as role models. Child rearing, it appears, was one of the areas where lines of authority were maintained to the extent of suppressing individualism and desire for autonomy.

On the whole, however, Demos's book clearly establishes that the response and adaptation of the early Pilgrim families to a New World resulted in significant changes in the family system, way of life, and societal ideals......

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"Commonwealth Family Life In Plymouth" (2005, March 13) Retrieved June 6, 2026, from
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