Dissertation Information for Anne Spencer Lombard NAME: - Anne Spencer Lombard
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- History
SCHOOL:
- University of California, Los Angeles (USA) (1998)
ADVISORS: - Ruth H. Bloch
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Joyce Oldham Appleby - Karen E. Rowe
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: Playing the man: Conceptions of masculinity in Anglo-American New England, 1675 to 1765
Abstract: This dissertation examines cultural definitions of manhood and experiences of male socialization in Anglo-American families in New England between approximately 1675 and 1765. This was a population primarily of middling yeoman families with a reformed Protestant religious orientation, holding land under freehold tenures. To this group, masculinity or "manliness" was as much a function of age as it was of sexual difference. Male gender was defined not only by comparison to female gender, but also in terms of a contrast between males who were mature, virtuous, and manly, and those who were young, passionate, and effeminate. The expression "to play the man," common in this society, suggested that manliness was not innate, but achieved by an act of will. The critical determinant of manliness was independence, which enabled a man to support a family without going into debt.
Masculine gender ideology was defined from the cultural perspective of fathers. This ideology had implications at various stages of the life cycle. Little boys were not seen to possess naturally masculine characteristics so much as to acquire manly traits gradually, as they grew to adulthood. Male sexuality was perceived as potentially dangerous to youths, and men were not believed to reach full sexual capacity until middle age. Peer relationships between boys were treated with suspicion, for only relationships with older males taught responsibility and virtue.
Full manhood, on the other hand, was a source of power and authority. A concept of sovereignty grounded in property ownership gave householders dominion over their dependents, as well as their territory. Male violence was considered legitimate when used to defend their property, or their authority over dependents, as long as it was reasonable. Young men used force less often than their elders, suggesting that they to understood the legitimacy of force to be tied to property ownership. Adult men authority was kept from becoming tyranny only by their virtue.
During the eighteenth century, relationships with women and with male peers gained a new role in young men's passage to manhood, producing a new social perspective from which masculinity was assessed. Concepts of gender began to move toward a more modern, binary configuration.
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