"Mr. Winthrop, governor: Mrs. Hutchinson, you are called here as one of those that have troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the churches here... You have spoken divers things, as we have been informed, very prejudicial to the honor of the churches and ministers thereof, and you have maintained a meeting and an assembly in your house that hath been condemned... as a thing not tolerable nor comely in the sight of God nor fitting for your sex." — Transcript, Examination of Anne Hutchinson at the Court at Newtown (1637)
Winthrop's charge that Hutchinson's meetings were "not fitting for your sex" most directly reflects which feature of Massachusetts Bay society?
- A
Roger Williams's separatist demand for a wall between church and state
- B
Cromwellian Parliament's restrictions on dissenting Independent meetings
- Ccheck_circle
Strict patriarchal expectations limiting women's authority in religious instruction
- D
Anglican episcopal rules forbidding lay preaching of either sex
Explanation
Puritan New England assigned women a subordinate household role; Hutchinson's hosting mixed-sex theological discussions in her home challenged that gendered hierarchy, which Winthrop invokes directly.