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Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Good Wives

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Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's Good Wives
In Good Wives, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich contends that unlike some historians would come to believe, Puritan women lived neither in a state of submissiveness or autonomy. Rather these women served as a complementary secondary function to the husband responsible for performing a variety of duties. In her “role analysis”, Ulrich structures her argument based three different characters from the Bible, a fitting organization due to the supremacy of the Church in early New English society. Her three prototypes are Bethesda for economic affairs, Eve for sexual reproduction, and Jael for female aggression that fell within the confines of religion. Her first distinct role, Bethesda, signifies the competent wife able to economically benefit the household
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