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17 things that would get you accused of witchcraft in 1692
A little over 320 years ago, more than twenty people died as a result of a witchcraft hysteria that swept New England. What would have happened if you were there? Think you’d survive? Think again. Take a look at these seventeen things that would likely get you accused of witchcraft. For example:
YOU HAVE ONE OR MORE FEMALE FRIENDS
A note to all popular teens and the cast of Sex and the City: A group of women congregating without a male chaperone was deemed a “coven meeting to worship the Devil.” Ladies be communing with flirty cosmos and the devil.
YOU ARE A MIDWIFE
Put simply by writer Joel Southern, a midwife’s “age, social and marital status, autonomy, pagan influences, secret knowledge of herbs and most importantly, the vilification of her profession as unclean and demeaning served to demonize the midwife. In short, the midwife represented everything the Church feared.”
YOU HAVE EXHIBITED “STUBBORN,” “STRANGE,” OR “FORWARD BEHAVIOR”
Let loose any kind of sass or backtalk and ye be a witch, probably. Again, in the trial of Rachel Clinton, her accusers solidified the case against her with the following: “Did she not show the character of an embittered, meddlesome, demanding woman—perhaps in short, the character of a witch? Did she not scold, rail, threaten and fight?”
http://holykaw.alltop.com/17-things-that-would-get-you-accused-of-witchcraft-in-1692?tu3=1
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Mike Nelson
(10,943 posts)...but they lost. Today, most of us would fit one of the definitions of a "witch." 
Whisp
(24,096 posts)with No Sexism and Misogyny.
Feel like complaining about the status quo? Well, you aren't being burned for being a witch now are you?! You should count yourself lucky and just shut up!
lol.
o lordy lord lord.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)are already suggested on a regular basis. See below my post on midwives. See anything familiar?
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)
REP
(21,691 posts)Last edited Sat Mar 1, 2014, 05:07 PM - Edit history (1)
"God will give you blood to drink."
Sarah Good was an annoyance - she slept in people's barns and sometimes set them on fire with her pipe. She was pregnant when she was jailed. She gave birth in prison and the child died due to the horrible conditions.
Her daughter, Dorothy (usually referred to as Dorcas due to a mistake on the warrant) was mentally ill for years after her imprisonment but is said to have recovered.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)but at least they get to live after being forced into marriage and servitude. Yikes.
REP
(21,691 posts)Parris's daughter and her friends were the first 'afflicted' - bored children, one exhibiting the cruelty of her uncle, acting out for attention - and instead of being told to stop it, Parris saw an opportunity to gain status. Others quickly saw a way to get even with people they didn't like - accusations against the rich, connected and/or well-liked were quickly recanted - under the guise of religion and then the killing began.
As outsiders became involved (including Cotton Mather), it became increasingly clear what was really going on, and shame set in, even among the accusers. One of the first accusers gave an eloquent apology to the town; the "we walked in clouds" speech given by another is well-known.
That to me is as shocking as the wiling carnage inflicted on neighbors by neighbors: how quickly they admitted to what they had done.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)Why? Because they had knowledge of herbs to provide abortions, prevent pregnancy and also had knowledge of herbs to aid women to make pregnancy easier and prevent miscarriages.
As you all know, both things are no no's. If a woman dies in childbirth, that is God's will. If a woman miscarries, it's because she's a sinner. If a woman uses herbal abortifacients (which have been used since the beginning of time), she's devilspawn. The woman who provides such services is without doubt devilspawn and must be executed.
Where have I heard this before? Oh, abortion providers should be jailed/put to death. Women that have a suspected abortion or miscarriage must be investigated and tried for murder. Thank goodness I haven't heard any of those ideas in ...oh, the last few minutes.
How far have we really advanced? If you think that conservatives aren't trying to drag us back into the dark ages, you have not been paying attention.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)male doctors at the end of the Middle Ages was responsible for that. It was during the rise of the Great Universities that were sponsored by the church that doctors were trained as physicians at those universities. They saw the female midwives and herbalists, many who were illiterate and taught their craft by word of mouth, as a threat to their profession so being they were clerics or in the lower ranks of priestly Holy Orders, they literally went on a witch hunt for these women.
All the links I had then no longer exist, but I'm sure the information is out there along with a lot of history about when abortion became a sin.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)The real reason is because women being in control of their own bodies is dangerous. Same reason for accusing a woman of witchcraft if she has too many female friends (or really, friends at all). Why? Because if she has an abusive spouse or he dies, friends can be a source of support. Women without a man in control of them are dangerous.
That's exactly why an abusive spouse attempts to cut off the support system of the abused. A woman with a shitload of children has no control over her future, either - though a woman with too many children that love her might threaten such control, too.
Why do you think this continues to come up over and over and over again? It has nothing to do with religion, and the Church had nothing to fear about doctors losing business. They had reason to fear women gaining any independence whatsoever and if there weren't enough parishioners, the Church lost money so that's the main reason for the "sin" of abortion.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)We knew the guy when she was dating him and even socialized a lot with them. He seems okay then although a couple of women in our circle had reservations, but that is usually the case so I didn't take notice. After they got married he took control. There was no girl time. If you wanted to have coffee, he was there, lunch he was there. Then they moved.
By that time he was always answering the phone and making excuses why she couldn't come to the phone. He wouldn't give out their address because she had requested it. Many of us thought she had snubbed us. Then one day he showed up at my job and wanted to borrow money from me. I told him I wanted to talk to his wife first before I made up my mind. He left and we never heard from them again.
In retrospect I should have filed a missing persons report. She was an orphan from foster care and has no family but us. I really hope she came out okay. She would be elderly by now.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Spot-on!
frogmarch
(12,251 posts)in the 1692 witchcraft trials and another one was a grand juror for the 1693 trials. His sister had been hanged as a witch the year before. Many other long-ago relatives of mine were involved in the trials. Some testified against the accused, but I'm glad to say that most of my long-ago kin signed petitions to have the accused freed and charges against them dismissed.
Here's a great resource for reading actual court documents of the Salem witchcraft trials proceedings:
http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/texts/transcripts.html
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)
yuiyoshida
(45,413 posts)
Warpy
(114,615 posts)was outliving a husband with no sons and daring to control his property instead of marrying some widower and giving all the property to him.
They burned witches in Europe. They hanged them or crushed them (in one case, only) in Salem.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)and eligible bachelors were willing to marry those widows, for the land and other property.
raven mad
(4,940 posts)You don't belong to the local (mega) Xtian church.
eppur_se_muova
(41,939 posts)looking nervous, looking relaxed, etc., etc. ... all grounds for suspicion.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)...in Salem. She was accused by the two daughters of her owner. One claim was that she told tales about sex with a devil... maybe she was telling about her own abuse by their father, using her own folklore to obscure...or maybe they saw the truth, or...
And the same girls accused other girls who were family members of others with whom their family was having a feud. Hatfield and McCoys with some hallucinatory religious hysteria.
Even more than a hundred years later, in the U.S. - I know of at least one woman who owned property of her own who was thought to engage in witchcraft, too, and, when people in the South were relocating the Cherokee, etc. - they also oftentimes held the belief that they were haunted by the ancestors of the Cherokees left behind when their bones were discovered when planting fields.
laundry_queen
(8,646 posts)midwifery and knowledge of herbal remedies are something that runs in my family - my great-grandmother was locally famous for her midwifery skills. I've taken a few midwifery courses and know quite a bit about herbal remedies.
As is mentioned in this thread - midwives were a threat because they helped women control their fertility. Groups of women were a threat because with support, a woman would be more likely to get help in abusive situations. Witch hunts were all about controlling women.