Eighteen women voyaged with their husbands aboard the Mayflower in 1620. Only four were still alive a year later. I doubt any of them decided for themselves if they would go on that dangerous journey or remain behind, not knowing when – or if – they’d ever see their husbands again. We know very little about most of them; some not even their names.
Seventeenth-century women had few choices or rights. Most went from the homes of their fathers to the homes of their husbands. Pity the woman who had neither looking after her. I have somewhere in my family genealogy files the will of my great-great-grandfather. He left a double portion to his first-born son and split the rest among his other sons, leaving nothing to my great-grandmother and her sister. He assumed, as did most men in that era that his daughters would have husbands to provide for them. It was also assumed a first-born son would look after younger siblings should they need assistance.
Husbands of the Mayflower
My great-great-grandfather wrote that will a couple hundred years after the Mayflower voyage, but things hadn’t changed all that much in the way society was structured. Men decided. Women, for the most part, complied. The $5 theological term for this is ‘Complementarianism.’ It means, according to some interpretations of scripture, God ordains men to be overseers of women and children, with rigid roles assigned to each.
I’ve heard presentations from Biblical scholars with a working knowledge of both the culture and languages of the first-century church. The English word “submit” in scripture is translated from Latin, which was originally translated from Greek. It has a double meaning. One meaning relates to military rank. Subordinates are expected to follow orders from superiors with no questions asked. But another meaning, and I highly suspect the understanding among first-century Christians, has more to do with team work. It’s more like a couple dancing or rowing a canoe. Those activities require mutual cooperation, working together to make it around the dance floor or across the lake.
Our Mayflower people no doubt had a more hierarchical understanding of family life. Should a woman have any property or assets of her own, perhaps an inheritance from her father or income from her labors, those became her husband’s property upon marriage.
To Go or Not to Go
When it came time to decide who was going on the Mayflower voyage, it was up to the husbands to decide what was best for their families. Some brought their wives with them. Some brought their children or left some behind in the care of family or friends. Others left their wives behind, fearing the little woman would be too frail to endure the rigors of the adventure.
All the wives aboard the Mayflower had husbands who essentially said, “Pack. You’re going.” Three of those women were well into pregnancies.
The Survivors
Elizabeth Hopkins should get two medals of honor. She was one of the four alive a year after the Mayflower arrived and she was one of the three women to deliver a baby on the ship. She traveled with Stephen Hopkins, his children from a previous marriage (Constance and Giles), and her own daughter, Damaris. Stephen’s first wife, Mary, died while Stephen was on an expedition with others to go to the new Jamestown colony. He and others got shipwrecked, built a new ship from the wreckage, and eventually made it to Jamestown. While there, he learned his wife Mary had died. Elizabeth was born circa 1585 in England and married Stephen on 19 February 1617/18 (depending on which calendar system you use). As the Mayflower made its way across the broad expanse of the Atlantic she went into labor and delivered a son they named Oceanus. The child survived his birth but did not live more than a couple of years beyond that.
Susanna White has bragging rights for surviving, delivering a baby while on board, and being the first bride in the new Plimoth Plantation settlement. She married William White circa 1614 in Amsterdam, where the future Pilgrims lived in exile from 1608 to 1620. She traveled with William and their son, Resolved. Her son Peregrine was born while the ship was anchored off the shore of modern Provincetown. He lived to adulthood, married, and has numerous descendants. William died the first winter, as did Elizabeth Winslow. Edward Winslow and Susanna married on 12 May 1621. They had four children who lived and another who died young. Susanna lived to at least 1654.
Eleanor Billington, one of the four still alive a year later and the only one of the four who didn’t start the journey with the Separatists coming from Leiden in Holland. She sailed with her husband John and sons John and Francis. The Billington family has the dubious reputation of being the troublemakers in the community. Francis, probably a teenager on the voyage, nearly caused a fire when he shot off his father’s gun and sent sparks into a nearby gun barrel. Once off the ship, he wandered off, climbed a tree, and spotted a body of water. The pond is still known as Billington’s Sea four centuries later. Her husband was executed for murder. Later, she was sentenced to sit in the stock and suffer a whipping for slander against John Doane. After John died, Eleanor married Gregory Armstrong circa 1638. Her death date is not known, but she was still alive as of 1642.
Mary Brewster was the fourth woman to survive and likely the oldest or certainly among the oldest women on the ship. Genealogists have not yet confirmed her maiden name. She married William in Scrooby, England, circa 1591. She and William had five children and at least one recorded stillborn baby. She sailed with Elder William Brewster, who was designated the community’s spiritual leader once they left Holland. Their pastor, John Robinson, stayed behind with the rest of the Separatist community in Leiden. They brought their two younger sons, Love and Wrestling, with them. They left behind Jonathan, by then a young adult, and their two daughters Patience and Fear. Mary was among the few who didn’t become gravely ill during the first brutal winter. She stayed busy nursing others back to health and comforting those whose parents, children, or spouses died during those first perilous months.
Mary assumed responsibility for two of William’s orphaned young cousins when they lived in Leiden. Those children did not sail with them. On the ship, she assumed responsibility for two of the four abandoned More children foisted on the passengers at the last minute. Once Mr. More realized the children were not his biological children but rather the result of his wife’s long-standing affair with a neighbor, he paid to have them shipped off on the Mayflower.
Mary lived to be reunited with Jonathan and her daughters and see them all married. She also met a couple of her grandchildren before she died in April 1627 at an estimated age of 58 long years.
To Be Continued
I’ll have more about the other fourteen Mayflower wives next week. Meanwhile, Mary Brewster’s Love Life: Matriarch of the Mayflower delves into their stories in much more detail. It is a historical account of what Mary and the other wives may have experienced. It is a fictional diary. If she left an actual diary behind, I’ve never read anything about it. The book is a combination of her fictional diary, and her account of her amazing life told to one of her daughters once they were reunited two years after Mary left them behind with friends in Leiden.
Mary Brewster’s Love Life: Paperback, hardback and Ebook. Bookshop.org
Mayflower Chronicles: Paper, audio, Ebook. Bookshop.org
Asunder: Paper. HowWiseThen.com
A Ready Hope: Paper, Ebook. Rowman & Littlefield
40 Day Journey with Kathleen Norris: Paper. Augsburg Fortress
God in the Raging Waters. Paper. Amazon.com
Married & Mobile. Paper. HowWiseThen.com