Chastity Hoar: My Life

In early America's Massachusetts Bay theocracy, dissenters, especially women, lived lives of quiet desperation, subject to men and their harsh laws in almost every aspect of their lives. Such is the world that Chastity Hoar faces in seventeenth-century Boston, and such is the world that two of her friends, the historical Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer, face in their dissent against the iron laws of that theocracy. The whipping post, the stocks, the pillory, and, worst of all, the gallows remind the women daily of the need to walk carefully and speak softly. Disobey your husband, dress immodestly, forget Sabbath church services, engage in alleged witchcraft or criticize the prevailing religious orthodoxy, and you risked severe punishment, including death by hanging. As the spirited Chastity makes her life in the colony, forced to marry a cruel magistrate and religious elder; she sees and experiences behavior and practices almost defying belief. The more she sees and experiences, the more resilient she becomes. We know from history the fates of Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer. Chastity, narrating her story, shows us how brave women, facing horrendous obstacles, built their lives in America's early days.