About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the twenty-first century.
The government’s interest in a woman’s body began with the first instances of government. In 1761 Berkshire was considered sufficiently settled and civilized to become a county and have a criminal court. It was called the Court of General Sessions. The first case heard in the Court of General Sessions on September 1, 1761 was that of Susannah York of Sheffield. York “confesses herself guilty of the crime of fornication on the ninth day of April Anno Domini 1760 and the court having considered of her offense ordered that she pay as a fine to the King the sum of 13/4 and she paid the costs accordingly.”
The Justices sitting that day were Joseph Dwight, William Williams, John Ashley, and Timothy Woodbridge — four of the most prominent men in Berkshire. There was no separation of church and state, and little separation between the branches of government. The judges in the court that day were also deacons in the church, representatives to Boston, and town selectmen concomitantly or consecutively. There was little difference between what was morally reprehensible and what was against the law.
They fined York because her crime was “against the peace, authority, and dignity of the commonwealth.” The value of the fine exacted, 13 shillings 4 pence was equal to the value of two deer skins — not an insignificant sum. Yet it was the least of the penalties available.
According to the Colonial Laws of Massachusetts published in Boston 1672, “the court had the authority and could order therefore that if any man commit fornication with any single woman they [both of them] shall be punished either by enjoining marriage or a fine or corporal punishment or all or any of these as the judges of the court that hath cognizance of the cause shall appoint.” An amendment in 1686 added disenfranchisement as a possible punishment “for this shameful and vicious crime.”
Corporal punishment was no joke: a woman who ran a bawdy house in Boston – also called a house of evil fame — was administered 30 lashes and then tied to the back of a hand cart and dragged through the town to the sea and the gallows. Hung for being a madam? Yes, because “a house of evil fame renders its tenants infamous and utterly contemptible.”
In every court session there was at least one fornication case. Interestingly, only women came forward and admitted to the act – no men. If accused, far fewer men than women were convicted. One can imagine all sorts of reasons for the uneven application of justice, but the truth is that a woman’s body testified against her. She was convicted when she was unmarried and pregnant or “a single woman who was begotten of a Bastard Child born of her body.” The pregnancy and child were proofs positive of the act. Still, one wonders, did anyone think these women committed this particular crime alone?
Premarital sex was sanctioned and encouraged when two people were engaged to be married so the couple could determine beforehand if the marriage would be fruitful. What the women in the fornication trials were actually being punished for was not the act but failing to marry the man afterward.
Unlike women, men if accused of fornication could simply deny it. For example, Thankful Purcey appeared and “confessed to have been guilty of the crime of fornication within the body of the county on or about the latter end of the month of July or the beginning of the month of August A. D. 1760.” Purcey returned to court to name her partner and bring suit against him in the amount of 10 pounds – a prodigious sum – for child support.
Nathaniel Reynolds and Ezra Hiccock stood surety for Charles Miller, the man named. That is, if Miller should lose the case to Purcey, “then the aforesaid Nathaniel and Ezra shall pay the cost that has or may arise from said complaint.”
For the balance of the year and the year following, the matter did not come before the court. Finally it did and a simple denial by Miller, and “he is now discharged from his said recognizance in due form of law.” Why? Was there no way for a woman to prove the man’s complicity in a world before DNA?
Actually, the eighteenth century world had a plan. On January 28, 1762 Amy Coleman of Pittsfield brought a complaint against David Roberts of Pittsfield. Although he denied it, she won because “the spinster performed prerequisites of the law to entitle her to support for the child – 3 shillings per week paid quarterly…”
Part II: Proving paternity in a world before DNA
