Review: Dayton, Cornelia H.Вђњwas There a Calvinist Type of Patriarchy?

Review

Dayton, Cornelia H. “Was There a Calvinist Type of Patriarchy?

New Haven Colony Reconsidered in the Early Modern Context”

in Tomlins, Christopher L. and Mann, Bruce H. (eds)

The Many Legalities Of Early America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina P, 2000.

pp. 337-356

Cornelia Hughes Dayton, the author of Was There a Calvinist Type of Patriarchy?

New Haven Colony Reconsidered in the Early Modern Context, is a member of the history department at the University of Connecticut. In the essay, Dayton investigates how certain elements of the Calvinist reforms was adopted in the courtrooms of New Haven Colony – which later merged into Connecticut –, under the leadership of Theophilus Eaton and John Davenport, concerning its effects on gender relationships.

Dayton draws a parallel between Calvinist Geneva in the sixteenth century and the one century later existing New Haven Colony: “New Haven Colony can legitimately be seen as one of many Calvinist legal regimes that took their inspiration from the moral governance John Calvin brought to mid-sixteen-century Geneva.” (pp. 238.).

In 1541, Calvin persuaded the government of Geneva to establish a consistory committee to make decisions about sinners in order to regulate moral. The process which led to the judgement was an oral process, which consisted of two steps. At first the committee – in which Calvin was the spokesman – went to the accused, and if the person did not show remorse for what he had done and did not promise change, the person was called before the committee for “ritualized scolding”. When the defendant denied to show penitence, the disciplining body punished the person with temporary excommunication. In New Haven, the justice process also consisted of two stages, but in this case the accused first was called to Eaton's house for interrogation, and the next step was the formal court session at the meetinghouse, where the accused had to face Eaton again.

The aim of Calvin's judgement process was intimidating people, and reminding them that God was watching them, accordingly the punishments were of religious kind. In contrary to that – as Eaton was a secular authority –, in New Haven the out meted punishments were fines, whippings and execution by public hanging.

Eaton, just like Calvin in Geneva, was accepted as the leader by the residents of New Haven, so they shared the same ideological values, that is how Dayton explains, that most of these peoples surmount their temptations to an unusual extent. In the 1640s and 1650s there was an extremely “low rate of violence, acrimony, and sexual misconduct” and there was a “strikingly high confession rate”(pp. 343.).

In Calvinist Geneva, men and women for fornication and adultery were equally punished, in these cases they rejected the double standard. Men were also punished for constant quarrelling with their wives, and for wife-beating. But the double standard was not completely reversed. For example, when a widow wanted to remarry, and the man was much younger, the petition was usually denied, but in the same situation with a widower it was granted.