[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.5 Secular judgesrelied on midwives as well, although they generally preferred toquestion pregnant women directly.6 The most effective way for amidwife to obtain information was to threaten that she wouldwithhold assistance unless the mother revealed her secrets.Fear-ing death from an unaided delivery if she said nothing and God swrath if she lied, the woman usually spoke truthfully, or so peopleclaimed.7 A woman s statement to a midwife was not considered asreliable as her testimony in court, however.If she identified oneman as the father while in labor and a different man when ques-tioned under oath by the justices, the latter version prevailed, forthe law deemed sworn testimony in court the most strong assur-ance of the truth. 8Midwives interrogations were as common in Virginia as in En-gland.Since Virginia did not have a separate system of churchcourts, colonial midwives took their oaths of office from JPs, butin all other respects they followed the English pattern, demandingfathers names and dates of conception from women in the throesof labor and reporting their findings to the justices.Alice Wilson,an Eastern Shore widow, testified, for instance, that she urgingeOllive Eaton in the instant tyme of her payne in travell, to declarewho was the true father of the child she was then to be deliveredof, she answered William Fisher. 9 Merle Hewett and KatherineGray told the Accomack County Court that, at the request of a JP,they had examined the justice s servant, Eleanor Tanner, and thesaid Eleanor did declare in the extremity of her Labour and aboutthe tyme of her delivery that the Childe she went with and was thento be delivered of was begoten by James Davis late servant to MrsTabitha Browne. 10 Socially prominent women such as Mrs.GraceRobins, William Waters s mother, sometimes attended births andhelped midwives with their inquiries.Mrs.Robins was present dur-ing the delivery of Frances Smyth, a servant, and demanded toknow the father s identity and what tyme it was that she had done82 anne orthwood s bastardsuch an Accon. 11 Interrogations almost always yielded the nameof a man whom the authorities could pursue for child support, butfor mothers the process added to the trauma of an experience thatwas already terrifying enough.For centuries, the church had tried to compel parents to main-tain their illicit offspring, and if they failed to perform their duty,the child s parish had to step in and supply food, clothing, and shel-ter.Parish taxpayers were understandably reluctant to assume par-ents financial obligations and sometimes went to extreme lengthsto protect themselves.12 Parliament shared taxpayers concern overthe rising cost of supporting illegitimate children, a responsibilitythat burdened respectable folk, consumed charitable resources thatshould have gone to the Releife of the impotente and aged truePoore, and furnished an evell Example and Encouradgement oflewde Lyef. To deter out-of-wedlock births and relieve the pres-sure on parish treasuries, Parliament included a tough antibastardyprovision in the Poor Law of 1576.The act provided an effectivesecular means of enforcing the child-support obligation long man-dated by the church.The statute allowed any two justices of thepeace who lived in or next to the parish in which an illegitimatechild was born to punish the parents, require them to reimbursethe parish for any costs it had incurred, and order them to makepayments to maintain the child.If the mother or father disobeyedany of the JPs commands, the magistrates could send the recalci-trant parent to jail until he or she posted bond to guarantee per-formance.13The 1576 statute and subsequent parliamentary legislation regu-lating the poor laid the foundation for Virginia s bastardy laws.Inthe colony, as in England, parishes had to support bastards whoseparents could not or would not fulfill their responsibility.14 Par-ishes obtained their funds through the collection of compulsorytithes, a form of taxation based on the number of workers a headof household employed.During the latter part of the seventeenthcentury, the overall annual tax rate in most counties was about 100pounds of tobacco for every taxable servant and male family mem-eleanor gething 83ber over 16.Half went to the parish to finance poor relief andchurch operations and the other half to the provincial and countygovernments.15 To put parish taxation in perspective, a Chesapeakefield hand could produce about 1,500 pounds per year in the1660s;16 at 50 pounds per person, parish taxes consumed 3.3 per-cent of a worker s productive capacity.Magistrates felt the impactof parish taxation more than most planters because of their rela-tively large work forces.In the 1660 s, the average Eastern ShoreJP had roughly three times as many taxable household members asthe typical planter and therefore paid triple the taxes.Collectively,the justices accounted for between a sixth and a tenth of totalparish levies,17 a tax burden that gave them a significant stake inefforts to contain parish costs
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]