Sinful or Feared?: An Exploration of the Reasons Women Were Accused of Witchcraft

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Did people really believe women were more sinful and evil than men, or were they afraid of women taking over? In the 1600’s, Witch Trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts. Many of the accused witches were in fact female. Witch accusations were mainly aimed at women due to the Puritan ideas that women were more vulnerable and evil than men, their sexuality was more obvious and sinful, and the fear of women gaining power and authority.

Women have always been seen as being the weaker gender, especially during Puritan times. “Women were more likely to submit to satan. A woman’s feminine soul, jeopardized in a woman’s feminine body was frail, submissive, and passive” (Reis 16). Due to this idea, women were more than a majority of those accused of witchcraft. Puritan’s believed that since women were weaker, they would not be able to fight back if satan assaulted them. “Puritans believed that Satan attacked the soul by assaulting the body, and that because women’s bodies were weaker, the devil could reach women’s souls more easily” (Reis 15).

Likewise, a woman's soul was also thought to have been weaker and more vulnerable. “Although souls were considered to be sexless in Puritan theology, women’s souls were considered to be more susceptible to the workings of Satan” (Kocic 5).

Also, Puritans devalued women because they felt they were naturally evil. In Greek mythology, all the evil in the world was blamed on a woman named Pandora (Day). This myth influenced Puritan ideology about women. Puritans linked the idea of women having more freedom to them being possessed by the devil. “Women in New England were generally considered to be more sinful than men by nature” (Kocic 5). In a world where there is a male God, women start to ...

... middle of paper ...

...e to the Puritan ideas that women were more vulnerable and evil than men, their sexuality was more obvious and sinful, and the fear of women gaining power and authority.

Works Cited

Day, Christian. "The Vulnerability of Women to Witchcraft Accusations." Salem Tarot.

N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Mar. 2014.

Karlsen, Carol F. The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New

England. New York: Norton, 1987. Google Scholar. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.

Kocic, Ana. "Salem Witchcraft Trials: The Perception of Women in History, Literature

and Culture." Linguistics and Literature (2010): n. pag. Web. 20 Mar. 2014.

Reis, Elizabeth. Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England.

Ithaca: Cornell UP,1997. Google Scholar. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.

Reis, Elizabeth. "The Devil, the Body, and the Puritan Soul in Puritan New England."

N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.

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