Kathleen Brown's concept: Meeting of different cultural systems of gender and nature.
Different cultures have different roles and understandings of women.
Marriage
European Marriage Practices:
Elite marriages for family and economic advantage (dowries, patrilineality).
Monogamy enforced by law; divorce uncommon.
Women could not generally hold property (coverture system).
Widows received a portion of estate due to dowry.
Colonial Marriage Variances:
Virginia Colony: Women could own land, had slightly more freedom than in England.
Spanish Colonies: Women retained property rights and had more legal rights.
Indigenous and African Practices:
Individual negotiation of marriage, sometimes polygamous.
Matrilineal societies, more flexibility in relationships.
Enslaved Africans:
No legal marriage rights, own ceremonies, no legal protection for families.
Labor
European Women:
Focus on domestic roles, but participated in market economy (e.g., brewing).
Distinction between societal ideals and reality of farm work necessity.
Indigenous and African Women:
Engaged in agricultural labor and domestic roles.
European perceptions of indigenous labor roles led to racial and status judgments.
Bodies and Cultural Perceptions
Europeans viewed indigenous and African women's childbirth practices and bodies through a lens of difference (e.g., lack of childbirth pain, breast-feeding practices).
Different masculine ideals (e.g., beardlessness in indigenous men).
Religion
European Colonizers:
Predominantly Christian, patriarchal structures.
Religious narratives affecting views on gender (e.g., Eve's curse, Mary's idealization in Catholicism).
Indigenous and African Religions:
Polytheistic, with roles for women as deities and priestesses.
Contrasting views with European patriarchal religious structures.