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he turned to them for comradeship, sharing with them his joys and confiding to them his sorrows. If he spent much of his time in hunting, or in fishing, or in fighting he always returned to the softening influence of his home, and it was inevitable, under these conditions, that the importance of the female sex should increase.[86] As we have seen, the Virginia plantation bore a striking analogy to the feudal estate. The planter, like the baron, lived a life of isolation, coming into daily contact not even with his nearest neighbors. His time was spent with his servants and slaves. He too could turn only to his family for companionship, and inevitably, as homage and respect for women had grown up among the feudal barons, so it developed in Virginia. There is no proof that the colonists of the 17th century regarded womanhood in any other than a commonplace light. They assigned to their wives and daughters the same domestic lives that the women of the middle classes of England led at that time. Predominated by the instinct of commerce and trade, they had little conception of the chivalric view of the superiority of the gentle sex, for in this as in other things they were prosaic and practical. The early Virginians did not hesitate to subject gossiping women to the harsh punishment of the ducking stool. In 1662 the Assembly passed an Act requiring wives that brought judgments on their husbands for slander to be punished by ducking.[87] In 1705 and again in 1748 the county courts were authorized to construct ducking stools if they thought fit.[88] That the practice was early in vogue is shown by the records of the county courts. We read in the Northampton records for 1634 the following, "Upon due examination it is thought fitt by the board that said Joane Butler shall be drawen over the Rings Creeke at the starn of a boat or canoux." How inconsistent with all the ideals of chivalry was that action of Bacon in his war with Governor Berkeley which won for his men the contemptuous appellation of "White Aprons!" Bacon had made a quick march on Jamestown and had surprised his enemies there. His force, however, was so small that he set to work immediately constructing earthworks around his camp. While his men were digging, "by several small partyes of horse (2 or 3 in a party, for more he could not spare) he fetcheth into his little league, all the prime men's wives, whose husbands were with the Governour, (as Coll. Bacon
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