The Role of the Community in Early Rural New England

In early rural New England, families lived in small, close-knit communities. Privacy for the family from the community in which they lived was non-existent. The communities played an essential role in the life of the family, from helping to maintain social order to helping to maintain order within the family.

The community in early rural New England often would help to keep members of the family from drifting to far from their expected role and behavior in the family and in society. One ways this occurred was through gossip. Arlene Skolnick supports this idea in her essay "The Paradox of Perfection," when she states that "well over 90% of the American population lived in small rural communities. Unusual behavior rarely went unnoticed, and neighbors often intervened directly in a family's affairs ..."[1] If any member of the family in this time drifted from their expected role, everyone in the community knew what their actions were and subsequently, they would become the center of the town's gossip. This is seen in Mary Wilkins Freeman's story, "The Revolt of Mother." The small town in this story acted out this community role when they gossiped about Sarah Penn, a character in the story who steps out of the boundaries of her expected role in the family by defying her husband's wishes. Freeman discusses how the townspeople gossiped greatly about Penn: "Men assembled in the store and talked it over, women with shawls over their heads scuttled into each other's houses before their work was done ... there was a difference of opinion in regard to her. Some held her to be insane; some, of a lawless and rebellious spirit."[2] By having the communities focused so much on each member of the family, people were less apt to drift from their expected roles, thus strengthening their roles in the family for that period of time.

Another way the community in early rural New England helped to maintain discipline within the family structure was through religion. For most communities in that time period, religion played a large role in not only the community, but in the private life of the family as well. If any family member were to drift from their expected role, then the religious organization in that community would most likely intervene on behalf of the community's wishes to maintain the expected family role. This is also seen in Freeman's story, for soon after the town began to gossip about Sarah Penn, the minister paid her a visit, in an unsuccessful attempt to talk her back into returning to her expected role and behavior in the family.2

The community also played an essential role in the early rural New England family by the role the family fulfilled in helping to benefit the community as a whole. Families did this through their roles as economic units, by producing goods or capital in their home for the town in which they lived. Families would even expand their membership through non-relations to fulfill this role, as Tamara Hareven states in her essay "The Nineteenth-Century Retreat: Family and Home," "Rather than catering strictly to the needs of the family, the household served the entire community, by taking independent members who were not related to the family and by helping to maintain social order."[3] In a sense, the family and community consisted of one unit, with the community being the unit in its entirety, and the families within as the functioning parts that kept the community running.

The belief system in that time period concerning family and community was quite clearly seen: people made no distinction between the community and the privacy of the family; they were one and the same. If there was a conflict within the family, then it meant a conflict for the entire community as well; hence the community's willingness to intrude in on family members and attempt to resolve any family conflicts themselves.

This view of family and community as one and the same is very different from the modern view of the two elements of society. In present time, the family enjoys much more privacy from the community that in early rural New England. Any conflicts that occur within the family stay within the contexts of that family. The community does not attempt to intrude in on family affairs as much as so in early rural New England. This is due to the change in the family structure during the Industrial Revolution, and also to the growth of the size of communities. Because communities are much larger than in early rural New England, it is impossible for everyone to keep track of other families' affairs.

Despite the clean separation of community and family in the present time, there are still residual effects that remain from early rural New England's role of the community in the family. One such effect is gossip. While the community in general will not attempt to intervene in a family's affairs, gossip about those affairs still occurs. Those families living in communities that are relatively small will be more affected by this residual effect than those living in larger communities.

Another residual effect is society's role in punishing those guilty of crimes. If any member of a family is accused of committing a crime towards the community as aw while, the community will intervene and punish that person through the judicial system. This has shifted from the early rural New England method because although in that time period the community would react to crimes committed towards other family members, the judicial system in the present time tends in general to avoid domestic disputes and instead concentrates on crimes committed against the community itself.

[1] Skolnick, Arlene. "The Paradox of Perfection."

[2] Freeman, Mary Wilkins. "The Revolt of Mother." Reading Our Histories, Understanding Our Cultures. Ed. Kathleen McCormick. New York: Longman, 2003

[3] Hareven, Tamara K. "The Nineteenth-Century Retreat: Family and Home." Reading our Histories, Understanding Our Cultures. Ed. Kathleen McCormick. New York: Longman, 2003