Hour of the Witch

Hour of the Witch analyzes domestic and social violence against women in colonial America and the patriarchal Puritan beliefs that justify and obscure it. In a stern religious world filled with stories of hellfire and eternal damnation, Mary Deerfield’s petition for divorce is regarded as a scandalous upending of a “natural order” which demands a woman’s subservience to her husband and other men. Mary’s subsequent trials reveal the rampant misogyny within her society, exploring how such misogyny shapes both gender roles and the violence she experiences.

During Mary’s trial, she is often blamed for not fulfilling her role as a good and dutiful wife. Even one of her defenders, Reverend John Norton, frames his defense of her in terms that reinforce the gender hierarchy instead of questioning it: “We expect a man’s government of his wife to be easy and gentle and, when it is not, something is amiss. Something needs to be remedied. A husband should rule in such a fashion that his wife submits joyfully” (183, emphasis added). Words like “government,” “rule,” and “submit” reveal that the Puritans’ strict ideas about gender roles subjugate women to a role of servitude and submission. Mary defies this “natural order” to escape Thomas’s violence, and while Reverend Norton does allude to Thomas’s guilt, the Court of Assistants rejects her petition because they believe that Mary should bend to her husband’s will no matter what—and if he does beat her, it is likely Mary’s fault for failing or displeasing Thomas in some way.