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3 - “Wicked Tongues and Wayward Behavior”

The Language of Confession

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2020

Monica D. Fitzgerald
Affiliation:
Saint Mary’s College of California
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Summary

Chapter 3 explores the language of confessions to explain how language affected religious practices. Ministers expected all confessions to use a feminized language of submission and humility. However, laymen diverged from the language prescribed by the clergy to accept a more masculine language for male confessants. In the public space of the meetinghouse, where laymen confessed their sins, they could not risk their masculine reputations by adopting a feminized verbal order espoused by the clergy. Women were the normative Puritans who fully adopted the language and demeanor of a feminized faith. Men created a more masculine verbal order that focused on their behavior instead of their souls. Through this practice, the disciplinary process reinforced male duty and female piety, which ultimately gendered Puritanism.

Type
Chapter
Information
Puritans Behaving Badly
Gender, Punishment, and Religion in Early America
, pp. 69 - 94
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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