A Family “Much Afflicted with Conscience”

Discord and Violence in Providence

Shortly after fleeing Massachusetts Bay Colony and founding Providence, RI as a “shelter for persons distressed for Conscience,” Roger Williams wrote to John Winthrop in 1638 asking for advice concerning “one unruly person” whose speech, threatened “…no other than the Raping of the Fundamental Liberties of the Country,” which should be “dearer to us than our Right Eyes.” ²⁵ This person was Joshua Verin, Williams’ next-door neighbor who had refused to join him in prayer for at least a year and had further forbidden his wife, Jane, from joining in as well. When she disobeyed her husband by continuing to attend prayer meetings with Williams, Verin had, according to Williams, “…trodden her under foot tyrannically” to the point that Jane Verin’s neighbors feared that “with his furious blows she went in danger of her life.” ²⁶ As a consequence of this “brutish carriage,” on May 21, the Providence court disenfranchised Joshua Verin for “restraining [Jane Verin’s] liberty of conscience.” ²⁷ Joshua Verin left Providence sometime before June 10, 1638, ²⁸ “hale[ing] his wife with ropes to Salem”, where, in Williams’s estimation, “she must needs be troubled and troublesome as differences yet stand.” ²⁹ This incident appears to be the first time that a wife’s liberty of conscience, independent of her husband’s, was upheld in the English colonies.

At first glance, this brief vignette appears to be a seventeenth-century example of a domineering husband controlling an unruly wife, not atypical of a patriarchal English marriage in the premodern era. Yet, this historic event raises some important issues. This case sheds light both on the agency of Puritan women in early New England and the tensions they experienced as they struggled with ranking obedience to their conscience, obedience to their spouses, obedience to the established church, and, as in the case of Jane Verin, obedience to a dissenting minister. At times, devout women discovered that following the dictates of their conscience placed them in opposition to men of authority. Like many other puritan women, Jane Verin was a woman “much afflicted with conscience.” ³⁰ These women found themselves challenging patriarchy, without questioning their place within that system. So a woman like Jane Verin, who defied her husband by obeying her minister, would still accept her husband’s authority over her as exemplified by the rope around her. At the same time, the case of the Verins is important because it also provides a lens through which to examine the divisions with the puritan world regarding the propriety of using violence to “govern” family relations. The rich print culture as exemplified by puritan ministerial and prescriptive literature illuminates the differences among leading puritan theologians regarding the appropriate level of violence a husband may use in disciplining a rebellious wife, differences that were echoed by the residents of Providence. Two recently published scholarly works consider the connection between Puritanism and its influence on shaping political ideology and institutions in New England. Neither addresses the role that debates regarding the proper role of women had in shaping these emerging ideas. ³¹

Few people have ever heard of the Verins; Jane Verin left no letters, diary, or other personal documents and disappears from the historical record after 1640. Joshua Verin appears in church and court records in both New England and in the Barbados, where he eventually settled prior to his death. The methodology used to reconstruct their story, then, includes searching for genealogical and legal records at county and national archives in England, passenger lists, court and town records, early histories of the New England plantations, plot and house maps, rosters of church memberships, among other sources, to trace the web of connections that connected the Verins to their neighbors in Wiltshire, England, Salem, Massachusetts, and Providence, RI. Investigating the Verin family reveals that, like other non-Conformists who challenged the established Church of England before emigrating, they continued to face important personal dilemmas brought on by the dictates of their conscience even after their arrival in New England. Families split over issues of conscience, governance of the commonwealth, and maintaining order in the family household. Many puritan women, like Jane Verin and her mother, continued to challenge authority on both sides of the Atlantic. This represented a special challenge to her husband, Joshua, particularly after their arrival in Providence. Jane Verin, her mother and other like-minded women formed a kind of spirit group whose influence was considerable in the decisions of their ministers and their male kin. In following the dictates of her conscience and asserting obedience to her minister, Roger Williams, Jane Verin was willing to challenge repeatedly the authority of both the ministers of Massachusetts Bay and of her husband, despite their continuous efforts to control her behavior. The Verin family represents in microcosm some of the divisive issues affecting both Old and New England in the first half of the seventeenth century.

It is entirely possible that the Verins left Salem because they were about to face the consequences of Jane Verin’s challenges to the ministry. In fact, once in Providence, it was Joshua Verin who refused to attend religious services. In his letter to John Winthrop, Roger Williams notes that Joshua Verin had “refused to hear the word with us ([for which] we molested him not for) this twelve month.” ³² Jane continued her defiance of authority by disobeying her husband and attending prayer services with Roger Williams and the other faithful, suffering a life-threatening beating as a consequence.

Exercising Governorship within the Puritan Patriarchy

In defying church authorities in Salem, and later defying her husband’s authority in Providence, Jane Verin challenged not only Puritan notions about appropriate behavior for women but also her actions threatened to undermine the very basis of family and community structure. Jane Kamensky argues that gender was central to understanding a person’s rightful place in Puritan society, noting that in their theology as well as in their social and spatial arrangements, New Englanders were “people of the word;” and by making sermons the centerpiece of ritual life, “Puritan thinkers demanded heightened respect for the voices of godly ministers, that is, for the voices of eminent men.” ³³ Thus, when a woman like Jane Verin challenged the legitimacy of the First Church in Salem, she also challenged the authority of the male hierarchy that supported it. Ruth H. Bloch concludes that reformed Protestantism was generally empowering for Anglo-American women, partially because of the stress on the priesthood of all believers, but also because of the insistence on literacy to give every individual access to the Scripture. ³⁴ In “A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Dedham, 1638,” the Reverend John Allin describes the process by which thirty families met regularly to pray, to address questions raised at previous meetings, and so to be “further acquainted with the (spiritual) tempers and gifts of one another.” Each member of this small community, formed at nearly the same time as that of Providence, watched over one another, “admonishing and exhorting one another, etc. in love, wisdom, and piety and for the better settling of a body newly gathered….” Eventually, the families made a collective decision regarding the acceptance of individuals into church membership that would form the basis of their congregation. Of the original eighteen members, six were women, all of whom participated in a public profession of their faith and the entering into a solemn covenant with the Lord. ³⁵

The Puritan divines tended to view marriage as both reciprocal and hierarchical. In their “Biblical Blueprint,” the theologians stressed “one flesh, two heads.” ³⁶ The influential divine William Perkins described a married couple as “that whereby two persons standing in mutual relation to each other, are combined together as if it were one. And of these two, the one is always higher, and beareth rule, the other is lower, and yieldeth subjections.” ³⁷ The violence of Joshua Verin’s discipline of his wife clearly raised issues of religion and authority within the Puritan patriarchy and within the institution of marriage. Despite the fact that Roger Williams’ acted in support of Jane Verin’s liberty of conscience, he accepted an essentially subordinate role for women as one consigned by the Bible, arguing that even “though the Holy Scripture were silent, yet Reason and Experience tell us, that the Woman is the weaker Vessel, that she is more fitted to keep and order the House and Children, and…that the Lord hath given a covering of longer Hair to Women as a sign or teacher of covering Modesty and Bashfulness, Silence, and Retiredness; and therefore [women are] not fitted for Manly Actions and Employments.” ³⁸ He was equally staunch in his opposition to female prophesying, arguing that any woman who preached in public assemblies represented “open violence” to God’s way, a “business sober and modest Humanity abhor to think of.” ³⁹

Foster defines Puritanism as a continuing interaction among magistrates, ministers, and laity dedicated to creating a godly society by imposing their version of social and ecclesiastical discipline on their neighbors. ⁴⁰ In order to accomplish this, the Puritans set up a state church system. Roger Thompson agrees that the English puritans were essentially reacting against the anti-Calvinist measures of Archbishop Laud. He argues “they emigrated to conserve the purer, pre-Laudian faith and liturgy, and to return to the primitive. ⁴¹ His study of 2,000 Anglian emigrants to New England during the 1630s has found that,

[T]he great majority had come from long-settled ancestries and personally stable backgrounds. The trauma of uprooting and transatlantic relocation was minimized by their moving almost exclusively in groups, by their personal and resident longevity in New England and by their rapid sinking of roots there. They were, quite literally settlers. Few of the different occupational groups betrayed a zest for modernization. Preservation of traditional norms and values was the aim of their errand into the wilderness. ⁴²

In Massachusetts, in fact, Puritans had “the possibility of ideological control unimaginable in England” and could “attempt to achieve a previously theoretical commitment to uniformity through state power.” ⁴³ Civil power reinforced ecclesiastical authority. “Civil government, the Puritans believed, became an absolute necessity after the fall of man. The sin of the first Adam had so vitiated human nature that family governors could not be trusted to maintain the order that God had commanded.” ⁴⁴ These structures of control were not well established in the Providence community which was still in its infancy.

Discord in Providence

According to Roger Williams’ recollection, he gave permission to William Harris, “then poor and destitute,” John Smith (banished also), Francis Wickes, and a lad of Richard Waterman’s named Thomas Angell to accompany him to Providence. Thomas Bicknell, a historian, comments on Williams’ failure to include Joshua Verin as among the earliest settlers, stating: “it is not easy to see how Mr. Williams could have forgotten Joshua Verin, one of the six who crossed the Seekonk to find shelter under the western slope of Moshassuck Hill. He it was, who, his next door neighbor on the north, vexed his soul to its depths, and to whom he bequeathed the title of wifewhipper.” ⁴⁵ Although it is not entirely clear whether Jane or Joshua Verin initiated the decision to accompany Roger Williams in his exile, Verin counted himself among the “six which Cam[e] first.” ⁴⁶ There Joshua Verin would encounter many other Puritan men, whose experiences would determine their level of sympathy toward him.

Not all of the men supported Roger Williams on the decision to disenfranchise Joshua Verin; it was a contentious and divisive issue. According to Winthrop’s journal, William Arnold, “a witty man of their company,” argued strenuously that when he consented to Williams’ dictate that no man should be molested for his conscience, he never intended that “it should extend to the breach of any ordinance of God, such as the subjugation of wives to their husbands, etc. and gave divers reasons against it.” Arnold repeated his assertion that they had all left Massachusetts because “they would not offend God to please men.” He asked, would they “now break an ordinance and commandment of God to please women?” Arnold also disagreed that Joshua Verin had denied his wife her liberty of conscience, arguing rather, that it wasn’t Jane Verin’s desire to “go so oft from home, but only Mr. Williams and others.” He was rather directly criticizing Williams’ influence over Jane Verin. Arnold declared that censuring Verin for denying his wife’s liberty of conscience violated their own rules, “for what Verin did that he did out of conscience.” ⁴⁷ Although Arnold was a Separatist, he did not support the challenge that Jane Verin’s actions posed to the social order.

Speaking out according to a biblically informed conscience was central to puritanism but paradoxically, it could also be a threat to it. Women like Jane Verin and Anne Hutchinson were not feminists. They did not challenge their God-given roles within the social order or within their marriages. But, their conscience drove them to actions which challenged male authority in puritan society. In her analysis of Anglo-American Puritans, Ann Hughes argues that they were English Protestants whose commitment to conventional attitudes and values were especially strong. “Their internalized predestinarian theology, and support for a preaching ministry and for broad campaigns of godly reformation, were broadly shared among English elites and amounted to a consensual commitment to order and authority.” She argues that the English Puritans were naturally conservative and that it was only in face of the “rise of a distinctive ecclesiastical establishment hostile to evangelical Calvinism, backed by Charles I,” ⁴⁸ that radicalized them from conformist to oppositional views. This would seem to fit the character of Joshua Verin, a man very much concerned with maintaining order. He despaired of the lack of order and effective government in Rhode Island as he despaired of maintaining order in his own household. Despite severe methods, he was unable to control completely his religiously inspired activist wife. Jane Verin is more exemplary of what Thomas Freeman calls a predestinarian bias among women who sustained these Puritan congregations. This nurtured a “strongly confident sense of individual self-working in cooperation with god’s purposes.” ⁴⁹

During Mary’s reign, a failure to attend Mass, which was required of all subjects, was a mortal sin. Calvinists, however, shunned all Catholic services as sources of “spiritual pollution.” ⁵⁰ Freeman explores the stark choices available to committed Calvinists: flight, death, or idolatry. He then breaks down the decision by sex of whether or not to conform. Men who chose not to conform faced the possible loss of status, family, and life. Women non-Conformists confronted what Freeman calls the “conflation in Protestant thought between idolatry (spiritual infidelity) and adultery (carnal infidelity). Well before Jane Verin’s time, obedience to God’s command “could, and did, have the consequence of forcing godly wives to disobey their husbands.” ⁵¹

Although only male property owners who were heads of household could be admitted into the “fellowship of vote,” present among the women of Providence were many who shared with Jane Verin a willingness to defy authority in following their consciences. They formed in essence a kind of “spirit group,” a group of women who met to pray, to read the Scripture, and to discuss the week’s sermon. ⁵² Several of the married couples present in Providence at the time of the Verin decision had a history of challenging ministerial authority that often predated their decision to emigrate to New England. They shared experiences and convictions which would have predisposed them to be sympathetic to the plight of a woman like Jane Verin, a woman who acted out of religious conviction and devotion and was clearly prepared to suffer the consequences of acting on her conscience.

Take, for example, the case of Alice Daniell(s) who is the representative of many of the women present in Providence at the time the residents considered their decision regarding Joshua Verin. Alice was born sometime around 1597 in Dorset, England. ⁵³ She was married sometime before 1630 to Richard Beggarly. ⁵⁴ The couple apparently had severe difficulties because she immigrated to New England without him. In fact, John Winthrop reports that the Court had considered “the cause between Richard Beggarly and his wife, who had been here six years, and he in England.” ⁵⁵ Alice sued for divorce, but the Court decided it had insufficient evidence to grant her request. Instead, the Court granted her twenty shillings to send to England for further proof. ⁵⁶ Alice was a well-educated woman of stature in the community. In 1634, Alice Beggarly/Daniel was granted controlling interest in the estate of the Reverend Samuel Skelton. Subsequent court records indicate that she was actively involved in the disposition of his properties. It is interesting to note that the Reverend Skelton was chosen to be pastor of the first Salem church organized on July 20, 1629. Roger Williams was copastor with the Reverend Skelton of the Salem church from 1633 until Skelton’s death. This was the first church organized by the English emigrants to Massachusetts Bay, a church that acted “on principles of perfect and entire independence of every other ecclesiastical body.” ⁵⁷ John Winthrop noted that the Reverend Skelton had criticized regular meetings by the ministers of the Bay, “fearing ‘it might grow in time to a presbytery or superintendency, to the prejudice of the churches’ liberties.’” ⁵⁸ In 1636, Alice had been admitted to the Salem Church. Subsequently, she received several land grants not only in Massachusetts Bay but also in the new settlement of Providence. She appears in two lists of Providence landowners as early as 1638, when she became John Greene’s second wife in December. It should be noted that John Greene, too, was a man who had a record of defying the authority of the magistracy. ⁵⁹

Further, John Greene had a long association with the Verin family. His is another example of the dense network of interconnectedness among the Puritan émigrés to New England. Prior to his departure from England, John Greene was a surgeon in Salisbury; he married Joanne Tattershall in 1619 at St. Thomas Parish, the same church where the Verin family worshipped. His first wife died in 1635—the year he left for New England. Greene and his six children journeyed to Salem on the same ship as the Verins; and Greene, like Joshua Verin, had accompanied Roger Williams to Providence. ⁶⁰

Alice Daniels was a landowner even before she married John Greene (according to a petition by her stepson, John Greene, who in 1682/1683 demanded from the town of Providence “right of commonage and undivided lands which appertained to that lot which was granted and laid out to my mother-in-law before my father Mr. John Greene Sr. married her who was at that time called Mrs. Alise Daniell”). ⁶¹ Although she could not vote in town matters, certainly her opinion must have influenced some of the decision makers. An educated, responsible landowner who had exhibited independence of judgment and action by leaving her husband and emigrating to New England, she was clearly associated with a Puritan minister, Roger Williams, who carefully guarded religious liberties against any potential usurpations. These factors might have influenced Alice Beggarly Greene to be sympathetic to a woman like Jane Verin who had followed her conscience and disobeyed her husband in the process.

According to John Endicott, Alice had considerable medical knowledge. Her husband John was referred to as one of “two local surgeons” in Goodwin’s Pilgrim Republic, noting that “the people of Providence relied solely upon him for surgical aid.” ⁶² Is it not inconceivable in the event of grievous bodily injury, both Alice and John Greene might have been called in to tend to Jane Verin after her husband’s assault? There are no official records attesting to the fact, but in a close-knit, small community such as Providence, it is probable that the Greenes would have been involved when Jane Verin became the victim of her husband’s brutal carriage, especially since the Greenes lived only two house lots from the Verins. ⁶³ It appears that the bonds of community, which might have influenced John Greene to support his Wiltshire countryman, were trumped by the bonds of mutual affection and experience between John and Alice Greene, as well as their roles as healers. If this is the case, it is likely the Greenes would have been willing to condemn Joshua Verin’s behavior by supporting the decision to disenfranchise him. ⁶⁴

Another example of a wife who would most likely have supported Jane Verin and her actions is Mary Holliman. Mary Sweet Holliman was born Mary Periam in 1581. She married John Sweet of Modbury, Devon in 1619. ⁶⁵ Their sons John and James were born in 1620 and 1622. They arrived in Salem in 1632, where their neighbors were the Reverend Samuel Skelton and his family. After Mr. Skelton’s death, Alice Beggarly Daniels was the executrix for Mr. Skelton’s estate. Given what has been described as the dense network of social interactions in Salem, it is highly likely that Mary Sweet knew Alice Daniels. They would be reunited in Providence where the Greenes and Hollimans were neighbors. John Sweet died sometime between 67 June, 1637, and Christmas Day, 1637, when his widow received a grant of meadow and swamp and ¾ acre for a household of four. ⁶⁶ She married Ezekiel Holliman, one of the original proprietors of Providence, in 1638.

Her husband was called by some, the “leader of the followers of Roger Williams,” and had been summoned to appear before the general court on March 12, 1637–1638 “because hee did not frequent the publike assemblyes, and for seduceing many.” ⁶⁷ Clearly, Mary Sweet Holliman agreed with her new husband’s radical views, because she and Jane Verin’s mother, the widow Reeves, are two women listed in Hugh Peter’s letter as persons who had “wholly” refused to hear the word at the Church of Salem. Like Jane Verin and the Widow Reeves, both Margery and her husband Ezekiel challenged the ecclesiastical authorities while acting on their faith. ⁶⁸ These interconnections also indicate the likelihood that Ezekiel, influenced by his wife Mary, would have voted to disenfranchise Joshua Verin.

It should be noted that the Widow Reeves, who owned the property immediately to the north of the daughter and son-in-law, was also present in Providence. ⁶⁹ She clearly knew and felt kinship with the Hollimans. She, too, was a follower of Roger Williams; and like her daughter, she too had already challenged the authority of the magistracy in Salem prior to her arrival in Providence. She too was a woman of conscience who would undoubtedly support her daughter Jane when was subjected to her husband’s domestic tyranny.

Margaret Weston is of particular interest insofar as understanding support for Jane Verin is concerned. Born Margaret King about 1570, she was the daughter of Francis King, in Great Baddow, Essexshire, England. She married Robert Pease (b 1565 in Great Baddow) in 1586. ⁷⁰ Their son, Robert, was born on June 10, 1604, and their son, John, was born November 20, 1608, in Great Baddow. Her husband Robert died at the age of fifty-eight on April 16, 1623. Sometime between that time and 1630, she married Francis Weston. They appear on the passenger list of the Mary and John, part of the Winthrop fleet that arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1630. ⁷¹ Her sons, Robert and John Pease (ages twenty-six and twenty-seven), both arrived in Boston on the Francis which departed Ipswich on April 30, 1634 and arrived in November of that year. ⁷² The Weston family moved to Salem by 1633, as indicated by the fact that her husband was admitted to Salem church prior to November 5, 1633 (implied by the granting of his status as a freeman). ⁷³ Her husband took on Joshua Harris as an apprentice for five years. On November 3, 1635, it was ordered that “John Pease shall be whipped, and bound to his good behavior, for striking his mother, Mrs. Weston, and deriding of her, and for diverse other misdemeanors, and other evil carriages.” ⁷⁴ The exact reason for John Pease’s abuse of his mother is unknown. What is significant here is that Margaret Weston, like Jane Verin, was a victim of family violence.

Additionally, like Jane Verin, Margaret Weston also had a history of challenging the authorities of Massachusetts Bay. Essex Quarterly Court records indicate that on December 26, 1637, “Margret Weston challenged three of the jurymen of Salem, Jeffrey Massie, Edm. Batter, and Anth. Dike.” Later that year, at a Quarter Court held at Cambridge on June 5, 1638, “Francis Weston’s wife was censured to be set two hours in the bilboes here, and two hours at Salem, upon a lecture day.” They moved to Providence in 1638 prior to that punishment being carried out. Further, just as Jane Verin continued to challenge the authorities after her return to Salem, so too did Margaret and Francis Weston. ⁷⁵ There are multiple reasons to believe that Margaret (Pease) Weston would have been sympathetic to Jane Verin. Both women had a history of challenging male authorities when acting out of conscience. Further, both women had been victims of family violence perpetrated by a male member of their family. In a small close-knit community brought together for common purpose, surely these bonds of sympathy would have been influential, particularly since Francis Weston participated in many of his wife’s challenges to the magistracy of Massachusetts Bay.

Return to Salem

Joshua Verin received several grants of land ⁷⁶ after his return to Salem and also served in a variety of capacities at the Church. ⁷⁷ Clearly, he and his family remained members in good standing in both the town and church community. For example, on July 6, 1644, Joshua Verin was assigned to check on church attendance and attentiveness. ⁷⁸ Verin evidently supported the right and duty of the Church to enforce morality in Salem. Jane Verin, in contrast, continued to challenge the legitimacy of the Puritan hierarchy. Court records note that on October 4, 1638, she was “referd to Salem,” ⁷⁹ and on December 25, 1638, Jane Verin was presented in court at Salem for absence from religious worship, ⁸⁰ shortly after her husband received a substantial land grant. Church records indicate that Jane Verin was excommunicated from the First Church of Salem on January 7, 1640. ⁸¹ Joshua Verin clearly disagreed with his wife on the status of the New England churches relative to England as he remained a congregant; he ultimately resorted to beatings to discipline her. Puritan men were expected to exercise “governorship” over their wives. In Massachusetts Bay, when marital discord threatened social harmony, neighbors, ministers, and magistrates would intervene in the interests of restoring peace. In other words, civil and ecclesiastical authorities were charged with maintaining order not just in the community, but within the commonwealth of marriage as well. Records indicate that Jane Verin obeyed Roger Williams and challenged the authority of the other ministers even before she left Salem. Yet, there is no evidence that Joshua Verin abused his wife during this time. It is only in Rhode Island, where these tools for maintaining social order were poorly developed, that Joshua Verin beat his wife. Upon their return to Salem, records indicate that Jane Verin continued to defy her ministers. But, there is no further evidence of any continuing mistreatment by her husband. Instead, the church authorities stepped in to discipline Jane Verin, ultimately barring her from continued church membership.

The question of conscience also split the extended Verin family. Although they never traveled to Providence, Joshua Verin’s brother and sister-in-law probably sided with Jane in that they, too, challenged the authority of the First Church of Salem and later suffered admonishment, removal from the church, ⁸² and physical punishment for their beliefs. Between 1660 and 1663, Joshua’s brother Philip and his wife Joanna (Jane) were presented many times for nonattendance at public worship and Philip was set by the heels in stocks in November 1663 for denying the country’s power to force any to come to the public worship. Liberty of conscience seems to have split the Verin family down the middle.

Conscience, Marriage, and Family

Paradoxically, Puritan families and communities were patriarchal and hierarchical, but Puritan marriages stressed reciprocity and partnership. ⁸³ Marilyn J. Westerkamp has argued that English sectarian groups firmly asserted the direct operation of the Holy Spirit on the individual, articulating a form of spiritual egalitarianism which Westerkamp deems “an equalizing faith irreconcilable with the hierarchy necessary to order seventeenth-century society.” ⁸⁴ While the Puritan divines agreed that women could experience the saving grace of God and thus attain church membership, they disagreed on the public role of women in Puritan congregations. In 1 Corinthians 14:34–35, Paul admonishes, “Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in church.” But Paul also encourages women to read the Bible and notes that women have a teaching function. Further, Paul insisted that women were to share equally in the benefits of Christian belief and life. Women like Jane Verin had been admitted into membership into a congregation of “visible saints.” In some churches, such as Salem, women made public professions of their faith experience as a condition of church membership. An entry in John Fiske’s notebook states: “This day Deborah Holden Bro”. Gidnies wife Bro. Marshls wife, Ja. Moulton made their professions and Testimonies were given of your godly life and ye next sab. Yr. were rec’d into [communion]. ⁸⁵ This meant that they had testified either in public or in private to a faith experience.

Acting on that faith, Jane Verin and countless other Puritan women tried to lead sanctified lives following the dictates of Scripture, their ministers, and their conscience. At times, however, living out their faith led them into conflict with their ministers or their husbands, males who had authority over them within the Puritan patriarchy. This activism of English Puritan women dated back to the earliest days of the Protestant Reformation in England. Puritan writers, who envisaged a natural order in which the family was central, sought to preserve a husband’s power. Devout women who acted on their conscience inherently threatened this vision.

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, both Catholics and Protestants believed that devotion to God’s will superseded obedience to a husband’s authority. In fact, women were allowed to join churches separate from their husbands’ place of worship. ⁸⁶ Spiritual activism might also include prophesying, an emotional and authoritative form of speech, “If God commanded a Protestant women to prophesy, she was required to do so, ‘yea though the Husband should forbid her.’” ⁸⁷ There is no evidence to support the idea that Jane Verin was called to prophesy, but certainly, the facts support the contention that she was willing to challenge both the ministry in Massachusetts Bay and her husband’s authority in following her religious conscience. In a fascinating twist, Winthrop’s journal notes that some of the Providence residents who voted to disenfranchise Joshua Verin believed that “if Verin would not suffer his wife to have her liberty, the church should dispose her to some other man, who would use her better [my emphasis].” ⁸⁸ Roger Williams’ letter to Winthrop asserts that Jane was willing “to stay and live with him or else where [sic], where she may not offend, etc.” What is significant about this exchange is that Jane Verin obviously was given a choice. She could have chosen to separate from a husband who had beaten her savagely when she had challenged his authority within the marriage. As subsequent events demonstrate, she was evidently ready to continue to submit to his authority, except in the case of her religious conscience. Williams urged Winthrop not to countenance Joshua Verin in any way. ⁸⁹

“Turbulent Carriage” and Puritan Print Culture

At the same time, the Verin family reveals some of the deep tensions within the puritan world regarding domestic violence or “turbulent carriage” as it was sometimes called. An examination of ministerial and prescriptive literature shows that the civil and ecclesiastical leaders were divided on the extent to which a husband could use physical violence in exercising governorship over an unruly wife, just as the Joshua Verin’s neighbors in Rhode Island were divided on how to respond to his behavior. The puritans engaged in a rich pamphlet culture. These included sermons, theological examinations, self-help manuals, marriage manuals, and a variety of other printed materials. All agreed on the vital importance of safeguarding marriage and family as the most stable foundation for an orderly society and government. All reflect a world view that is hierarchical. They also reveal deep divisions among puritans in the British Atlantic world when it came to devout puritan women who, feeling compelled to act on the dictates of their conscience, came into conflict with male leaders, both civil and ecclesiastic, in their communities, their churches, and in their marriages. ⁹⁰

Understanding the basic tenets of Puritan theology, no less than their world view, is essential to understanding the context for the disturbances in the relations between Joshua and Jane Verin. Ultimately, their marriage reflects in microcosm the larger stresses experienced by the communities of English settlers attempting to live out their faith in New England. The Reverend John Geree published “The Character of an Old English Puritan, or Non-Conformist” in 1646, a pamphlet that presents a clear synopsis of the main tenets of puritan theology and worship as it took shape in England. According to Geree, the first care of the English puritan was to honor God above all, “making the word of God the rule of his worship” rather than following the traditions of men. Geree asserts a divinely directed social order, noting,” God had left a rule in his word for discipline, and that aristocratical by elders, not monarchical by bishops, nor democratical by the people. Right discipline he judged pertaining not to the being, but to the well-being of the church.” Religion was “an engagement to duty” to assure that every Christian would be the best persons, best husbands and wives, best parents and children, best masters and servants, best magistrates and subjects, and so on. Geree also points out the parallelism between church and family structure, arguing that God “set up discipline in his family, as he desired it in the church, not only reproving but restraining vileness in his.” He concludes by calling for a balance of equity and piety, “knowing that unrighteousness is abomination as well as ungodliness.” ⁹¹ Many of the puritans who settled in New England had been influenced by William Perkins, who argued faith resulted from God’s effectual call rather than from sinful man’s “free will.” ⁹² He published The Golden Chain, Or the Causes of Salvation and Damnation in 1591, a how-to manual for those who desire to be instructed. In his introduction, he rejects the typical excuses that his contemporaries might have offered to justify their sinful nature, stating “it is not sufficient to say all these [the Creed, Lord’s prayer, and ten Commandments] unless you can understand the meaning of the words and be able to make right use of the Commandments, of the Creed, of the Lord’s prayer, by applying them inwardly to your hearts and consciences, and outwardly, to your lives and conversations” ⁹³ (my emphasis). Perkins exhorted his brethren to live out the dictates of their biblically inspired consciences in their daily lives. In his pamphlet, Christian Economy: Or a Short Survey of the Right Manner of Erecting and Ordering a Family, According to the Scriptures,” Perkins reaffirms God’s will and intent as they relate to the institution of marriage, stating, “marriage was made and appointed by God himself to be the fountain and the seminary of all other sorts and kinds of life, in the Common-wealth and in the Church.” ⁹⁴

But where did women fit into this paradigm? Historians of the early modern period have been fascinated by the tensions inherent in the activism of Puritan women. Many women, despite repeated exhortations to be submissive and accept their place in a male-dominated Puritan order, underwent deeply emotional faith experiences that inspired them with a sense of spiritual or moral authority. The confidence stemming from that sense of God’s personal salvation empowered them to act on their faith, even if it meant approbation from ministers, magistrates, or their spouses. ⁹⁵

Puritan Prescriptive Literature

The Puritan church used censure, admonition, and excommunication as tools to keep its members in line because the bonds of family, such as those between husbands and wives or parents and children, were the “bonds of society itself. If they snapped, neither church nor state could survive.” ⁹⁶ In Massachusetts Bay and Rhode Island—all persons, male or female—were held accountable for sinful behavior. This does not mean, however, that either Puritan ministers or magistrates would accept women who did not know their place in the Puritan social hierarchy. In Rhode Island, this distinction would explain why Puritan men like William Arnold, who had fled Massachusetts Bay for conscience sake, would not endorse Jane Verin’s challenge to her husband’s authority, even if it too were for the sake of her conscience. As mentioned earlier, records indicate that once the Verins returned to Salem, Jane Verin continued to challenge the magistracy. ⁹⁷ There is no evidence that Joshua Verin beat his wife after their return; instead, it is clear that the civil and ecclesiastical leaders stepped in to chastise his unruly wife.

In attempting to reform marital relations and put them on a godlier track, Puritan ministers frequently wrote guides and manuals. These formed a rich prescriptive literature that was widely read by the devout in both Old and New England. Examining the roles ascribed to men and women provides a context for understanding the dysfunctions in the Verin marriage and why the Providence community was so divided on how best to respond to the outbreak of violence within the Verin household.

William Gouge published Of Domesticall Duties in 1622. This collection of eight treatises provides the reader with a remarkable opportunity to understand the place of marriage in puritan civil and religious society. The first treatise analyzes the Scriptures as the source of authority on marital structure and responsibilities. Gouge begins with an exposition of Ephesians 5:21: Submit yourselves one to another in the fear of God, in which he distinguishes between general and particular duties. General duties are those to which God calls every person, including faith, obedience, repentance, love, mercy, truth, justice, and so on. In contrast, particular duties are those which are required by God of individuals, according to their place in the “Commonwealth, Church, or family.” ⁹⁸

Describing the family as a “seminary of the Church and the Commonwealth,” Gouge argues that “a conscionable performance of domestical and household duties, tend to the good ordering of Church and Commonwealth, as being means to fit and prepare men thereunto.” ⁹⁹ Preserving the family, it follows, contributes to the good of both the religious and civil order. The husband and the wife are the governors of all of the rest of the house, although wives are inferior to, and therefore subject to, the authority of their husbands. Gouge exhorts both husbands and wives to do their duty and to honor one another. Put more precisely, Gouge instructs a wife to submit herself voluntarily to the authority of her husband. However, this must be a “subjection of reverence.” ¹⁰⁰ Gouge also exhorts both men and women to love one another, as Christ loved his Church. In fact, he makes a direct connection between the duty of husbands and wives to love one another and the commonweal when he states, “a loving and mutual affection must pass betwixt husband and wife, or else no duty will be well performed: this is the ground of all the rest.” ¹⁰¹

While women are enjoined by the Scripture to obey their husbands, Gouge does, however, note the limitations on a wife’s duty to obey. Namely, “they may not be subject in anything to their husbands, that cannot stand with their subjection to the Lord.” In other words, God’s authority takes precedence over that of the husband. Paradoxically, wives in refusing to be subject to their husbands, refuse to be subject to the Lord. ¹⁰² To a devout woman like Jane Verin, obeying her husband’s wishes when they contradicted what her God (and her conscience) dictated would be the equivalent of disobeying God. But disobeying her husband’s wishes also risked offending God. Perhaps that is why Jane Verin expressed her willingness to stay with Joshua Verin and therefore submit herself to his authority, despite his foul and brutish carriage. Her submission, however, was limited by her unwillingness to accede to her husband’s judgments regarding religious matters. On this issue, she adamantly followed her conscience and continued to disobey her husband.

Gouge likens a husband’s authority to that of Christ and his Church. He advises that the head “ruleth the body not as a cruel lord and tyrant, rigorously, inhumanely, basely, and slavishly, but meekly, gently, with great compassion, and fellow-feeling. Even so doth Christ, his church, binding up that which is broken, healing that which is maimed, directing that which wandereth….” Another paradox emerges in this treatise. While Gouge calls for a loving and mutual affection between husbands and wives, he at the same time points out that Christ may “have a golden scepter of grace and favor to hold out to his Church…yet he hath also a rod of iron to break the men of this world….” ¹⁰³ Later, in Domesticall Duties, Gouge uses the following analogies to describe the duties of husbands and wives to one another: “Love as sugar to sweeten the duties of authority, which appertain to an husband. Fear as salt to season all the duties of subjections which appertain to a wife.” ¹⁰⁴ Clearly, he is arguing against the unlimited authority of a husband over his wife.

When it came to a woman challenging her husband’s authority within the household, Roger Williams and his supporters in this controversy, while they expected Puritan wives to be submissive and obedient, also expected these same women to obey God. In his May 22, 1638, letter to John Winthrop, Williams describes Jane Verin as a “gracious and modest woman,” qualities that were deemed most desirable in a woman. Williams also states that Verin tried to draw his wife “to the same ungodliness with him.” The wording of Williams’ description of the events leading up to Verin’s censure seems to indicate more than one physical admonishment: “he hath trodden her under foot tyrannically and brutishly: which she and we long bearing [my emphasis]….” Clearly, it was not the fact of the beating, but rather the severity of the beating that finally propelled Williams and the others to take action. He states, “though with his furious blows she went in danger of life, at the last [my emphasis] the major vote of us discard him from civil freedom, or disfranchise, etc.….” ¹⁰⁵

All of the men and women in Providence were Puritans who had recently emigrated from England. In seventeenth-century England, the status of married women was determined by the doctrine of feme couverte, that is, that “after marriage, all will of the wife in judgment of the law is subject to the will of the husband.” ¹⁰⁶ The law, however, was unclear about the extent to which the will of the husband prevailed in the event of the wife’s challenge to his authority. The editor of the seventeenth century The Lawes Resolution of Women’s Rights argued that under English law, “castigation” was permissible, but he was uncertain as to the limits beyond which a husband’s reasonable right to correct his wife became unlawful and unreasonable. ¹⁰⁷ The author, “T. E.,” was probably Thomas Edgar, a seventeenth-century puritan lawyer. It is likely that Edgar was influenced by Puritan prescriptive literature, particularly the religious advice manual, Domesticall Duties by William Gouge, published ten years earlier. ¹⁰⁸ Later, Blackstone’s Commentaries, published 1765–1769, were also ambiguous on this issue, emphasizing a husband’s right to chastise his wife, again within reasonable bounds. ¹⁰⁹ Historians also disagree on the extent to which domestic violence against wives was tolerated by seventeeth-century puritans. For example, an influential legal guide published by William Lambarde in 1599, “Eirenarcha: Or of the Office of the Justices of the Peace,” details “allowable battery.” In this guide, a husband is not allowed to beat his wife. Indeed, scholars point out that physical beating could be the grounds for separation suits in the ecclesiastical courts or the basis for alimony or “separate maintenance.” ¹¹⁰ Section VII of the Laws Resolution of Women’s Rights allows that “The baron may beat his wife.” Such action is “dispunishable, because by the Law Common these persons can have no action.” Despite this clear statement, the document itself is ambiguous as to the extent of the right of a husband to beat his wife, stating “How far that extendeth I cannot tell….” ¹¹¹ The key variable seems to be the level of community intervention.

Both Anglicans and Puritans were divided on this issue. “An Homily of the State of Matrimony” (1563) was published in a collection of sermons to be read by all parsons, vicars, and curates during the reign of Elizabeth I. ¹¹²  The homilist points out how “few matrimonies there be without chidings, brawlings, tauntings, repentings, bitter cursings, and fightings.” Later in the sermon, women are advised to patiently suffer anything their husbands do, but that husbands should under no circumstances beat their wives—this being the “greatest shame that can be…to him that doeth the deed.” ¹¹³ Stressing woman’s weaker nature and constitution, husbands are further urged to spare their wives harsh punishments. “By this means,” it is argued, “thou shalt not only nourish concord, but shalt have her heart in the power and will; for honest natures will sooner be retained to do their duty rather by gentle words than by stripes.” ¹¹⁴ Puritan divines such as William Gouge argued that a husband should correct his wife only verbally, since to beat her would be like beating himself. In contrast, William Whately noted that in extreme cases, physical punishment might be necessary, although he cautioned against it being undertaken in anger in that “it seemeth too impious in him to do it and too servile in her to suffer it.” ¹¹⁵ In “The Mutual Duties of Husbands and Wives Towards Each Other,” Richard Baxter (1615–1691) warns married couples to love one another, care for each other’s souls, and to avoid contention, stating, “If different religious understandings come between you, be sure that you manage it with holiness, humility, love, and peace, and not with carnality, pride, uncharitableness, or contention.” ¹¹⁶ Like Puritan sermonizers before him, Baxter draws parallels between the loving relationship between husband and wife and that between Christ and his church.

As mentioned earlier, Protestant wives were expected to defer to the authority of their husbands. The Elizabethan minister, Richard Greenham, explained that regardless of the virtues a wife might have, “yet not being subject to her husband they are nothing…if she be not obedient she cannot be saved.” ¹¹⁷ Women could, and did, inherit land, if there were no other male heirs. Widows received for the rest of their lives, a “widow’s dower,” that at least allowed them live out their lives without fear of losing their homes. At the same time, both common law and statutes made it possible for wives and daughters to retain control of their land and personal possessions. For example, fathers or first husbands could create encumbrances on estates that preserved the property of their daughters and their progeny for posterity. A legal historian has found that although English women were at a significant legal disadvantage during the early modern period, they nevertheless enjoyed relatively greater authority within marriage than they would in later times, suggesting that “…both within and outside the household, legal disadvantage was modulated sharply by status.” ¹¹⁸ Numerous other studies have demonstrated that there was a gap between the ideal role of women as identified in ministerial and prescriptive literature and the reality of women’s lives in Old and New England in the early modern era. ¹¹⁹

Puritans were a covenantal people; among the most important covenants governing their lives was marriage. However, despite couverture, a woman’s standing in church could be claimed with or without a husband. ¹²⁰ “In Puritan New England, women, in particular, were justified by faith alone.” ¹²¹ A study of New Haven colony court cases involving married couples between 1638 and 1670 finds that, aside from violence directed against Indians, “most violence in New England was probably one variant or another of family violence within English-led households, and most of it was probably directed against wives, children, servants, and slaves.” ¹²² Paradoxically, during that same time, between 1640 and 1680, Puritans in Massachusetts Bay would enact the first laws anywhere in the world against “domestic tyranny,” especially spousal and child abuse. ¹²³

In conclusion, the experience of the Verins demonstrates that women’s willingness to challenge male authority was far more pervasive in colonial New England than the focus on more famous individuals such as Ann Hutchinson or Mary Dyer would indicate. The townspeople of Providence were divided on the extent to which a wife’s liberty of conscience, even when challenging her husband’s authority, could be tolerated. This debate was at the root of a far larger debate regarding whether or not a church state system, in which civil and ecclesiastical power reinforced one another, or complete separation of church and state were the best means of securing liberty of conscience. Further, like the puritan divines who attempted in their ministerial and prescriptive literature to advise their readers on the maintaining order and stability in puritan marriages, the voters of Providence were also split on how much family violence they would tolerate. While the Massachusetts Body of Liberties of 1641 criminalized wife abuse and the Rhode Island Charter of 1663 granted complete liberty of conscience to its citizens, in practice, the deep differences of opinion on women’s right to religious liberty and their husbands’ right to discipline them continued to roil in the British Atlantic world.

Although the Verin Case set no precedent for subsequent legal cases involving women’s rights in Rhode Island, it must be examined within the full context of events both in Old and New England. Despite the fact that the colony was very young, the Verins forced Williams and other residents to confront the very issues which were perceived to be undermining the quiet and calm of England and the Massachusetts Bay Colony: namely, the right to dissent within the Church of England, the issue of liberty of conscience, the differing positions within Puritanism on the issue of domestic violence, the place of women in Puritan social and religious life, and the role of civil government in responding to these developments. Many women in the colony, given their previous experiences in defiance of authority in defense of individual conscience, might through their spouses and male relatives, exert both a tacit and an indirect influence on male decision makers that could result in the community condemning Joshua Verin for his disrespect of Jane Verin.

Afterword

Jane Verin continued to defy the religious authorities, even after her return to Salem. The Reverend Hugh Peter, pastor of the first Church of Salem, requested time to confer with her again, most probably to try to dissuade her from her continued defiance. ¹²⁴ Joshua Verin moved to Barbados by September 1663. He appears on the register of St. James Parish, Barbados on December 20, 1679. Records indicate that he owned ten acres of land and eleven slaves. ¹²⁵ This indicates that he had been accepted into the new congregational community there. He married Agnes Simpson at St. Michael’s, Barbados on October 7, 1694, shortly before he died on March 15, 1695. Jane Verin and her mother, the Widow Reeve, disappear from the historical record.