Bastard Child Research Paper

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If a woman bore a bastard child, child out of wedlock, which twenty percent of indentured servants did, she paid heavily for the transgression. A typical punishment consisted of nine lashes to the back, an extension o-f her service to repay master for the lost labor to childbearing, and the child would be bound out to another family; meaning the child would have to work for another family in order to be clothed, fed, and sheltered until they turned twenty-one (64). In her book, America’s Women, Collins states, “some of them [women who bore a bastard child] must have been seduced or raped by the master of the house, but they were still punished as if they had chosen freely.” (Collins 9-10). I also believe that some, if not many, women were

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