Voices Blog 2

Sending Women to Virginia (1622), pp. 25-27.

1. What advantages does the Virginia Company see in the promotion of family life in the colony?

• The Virginia Company promote immigration of women and send them to the colony and forces them to arrange marry with other guy. Then, husband has to give a payment in tobacco to his wife. Also, they have to complete their terms of service before marrying so it takes a time to start a family. When the company forces immigrated women to arrange marry someone it decreases number of the women in Virginia. Company rather have single men, widows, and orphans than happy family.

2. Why does the company prefer that the women marry landowning men rather than servants?

• First, landowning men are rich. They have a large amount of land where they hire people to farm. By hiring people they make more money by selling things from the farm. Landowning men does not have to do anything but they still make a lot of money out of it. Servants are not as rich as landowners. They do not all the free time they have. When women marry landowning men they also get someone their properties and men sends a gift. In the story, they received 120 lbs of tobacco from the landowner.