Eric--

It seems to me that there are really two questions in play here.

First, did people in 17th or 18th century Virginia believe that women did not possess souls?  And second, did people in 17th or 18th century Virginia believe that women were property?

The vast majority of the evidence we possess speaks to the beliefs of property owning people.  We have very little access to the beliefs of non-property owning men and women, on either question.  I am unaware of anything like the autobiography of Elizabeth Ashbridge surviving for early Virginia, sadly.  So we lack direct, first-hand evidence of belief for most people who lived in early Virginia.

That said, we do have some kinds of evidence that allow us to make some rough inferences.  For example, 17th and 18th century fathers provided for basic religious instruction for their children in their wills, and they did not distinguish between sons and daughters in doing so.  One example, albeit from Maryland and not Virginia, is the Robert Cole will, which Cole recorded in 1663, and which has been published and analyzed with some sophistication in Lois Green Carr, Russell M. Menard, and Lorena Walsh, ROBERT COLE'S WORLD:  AGRICULTURE AND SOCIETY IN EARLY MARYLAND.   (See pp. 169-174 for the transcription of the will.)  Cole was a prosperous yeoman farmer--as property owners went, a man of middling rank, but a man of some means in comparison to the total population.  He was also Roman Catholic.  For all of that, however, he was pretty typical in providing for proper religious instruction for both his sons and his daughters.  This pretty strongly suggests a belief that his daughters possessed souls.  (You can find similar evidence suggesting belief in female souls in Mary Beth Norton, FOUNDING MOTHERS AND FATHERS; another useful book to consult is Joan Gundersen, TO BE USEFUL TO THE WORLD:  WOMEN IN REVOLUTIONARY AMERICA, 1740-1790; both Norton and Gundersen are well conversant with the Virginia sources and discuss them in their respective books.)

For the claim that substantial numbers of men living in 17th or 18th century Virginia viewed women as property, we again lack much in the way of direct evidence for the proposition, and indeed for any proposition concerning their beliefs more broadly.  We have very little first hand access, in the form of letters, journals, or other writings, for the vast majority of Virginians who lived in these centuries.  But again, we do have some evidence that permits us to make rough inferences.  Court records suggest that male heads of households acknowledged property rights of women.  Since chattel cannot own property, this is pretty strong evidence that even poorer, free men did not view women as property.

All best,
Kevin
___________________________
Kevin R. Hardwick
Associate Professor
Department of History, MSC 8001
James Madison University
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
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