Religion in America Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Religion in America - Essay Example A well-documented example is women who would not marry again following the death of their husband. Choosing to be a single woman was considered by the Puritans to be disregarding ‘God’s will.’ These women were looked upon suspiciously and this choice heightened the chance that they would be accused of being a witch. Many of the rights and freedoms enjoyed by women today were brought about by women recognized for their courage and their ability to stand up for their gender such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Queen Victoria. However, there were many women involved in these early migrations to the new continent who held many of the traditional concepts regarding women’s true proper place in society without sacrificing their concepts of strength within the home. One of these women was Anne Hutchinson who brought the ideals of her modified belief system into the new world and helped establish a community that continues to survive today. Hutchinson began her life in England and traveled through Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Netherlands, now the Bronx in New York before being killed there by Indians in one of the many disputes between natives and settlers that occurred during that time. She was baptized as Anne Marbury in Alford, Lincolnshire, England on July 20, 1591 as a minister’s daughter, but her father always had questions about the church.1 Uncharacteristically, Anne was given a decent education and was permitted to reach a more mature age for marriage, not marrying William (Will) Hutchinson until she was 21. Throughout this period in England, Anne and her family had been following the teachings of John Cotton, whose views were strongly similar to those of Anne’s father, both of them taking exception with the structure of the church’s hierarchical configuration.2 Cotton was forced to leave England by the persecution of the Church of England authorities in 1633 and departed for