# Cross dressing in colonial Pennsylvania



## lmarie (Aug 8, 2017)

Does anyone know how cross dressing would be legally prosecuted in colonial Pennsylvania (early to mid 1700's)? Im assuming it would be treated as a crime, but Im looking for a specific law that someone would be charged with breaking, even if it wasnt a law that was specifically intended to deal with cross dressing?


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## ppsage (Aug 8, 2017)

For matters like this, Pennsylvania wouldn't have been that coherent a legal jurisdiction at the time so things might differ considerably depending on the community. I'm assuming you're thinking of it as a sexual proclivity; as a disguise or as a (actually somewhat common) theatrical gag, it would likely not be prosecuted. Some legal codes from that period exist, so you could eventually research that out. Probably a lot of places would just have had some kind of generic rule against 'perversity' or some such.


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## lmarie (Aug 9, 2017)

Thank you ppsage. I didnt explain it very well. The character in question is not cross dressing herself but trying to disguise the gender of her small child for practical reasons, mainly of safety. Still Im not sure if a judge would care about any of that back then. She would probably just sound a bit crazy and paranoid to him and likely to get locked up for something like moral terptitude (or whatever the equivelant of that was back then). 

Its hard to tell how codified the law was back then and if judges were kind of just making up the rules as they went along. In some places it seems that way, based upon the rulings, and if I knew that was the case in pennsylvania then I would feel more at liberty to come up with something by myself. There was one case in virginia for example, (not sure of the year) and it said the woman was locked up for wearing mens clothing. I dont think there was an actual law against it that she broke but the judge said she was guilty because she was 'turning nature on its head', or something to that affect.


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## Jack of all trades (Aug 9, 2017)

In doing some research into the Salem witch trials, I learned that judges weren't what we think of as judges today. During the witch trials, the arresting, executing, incarcerating of "witches" was finally halted when a new set of "judges" arrived from England. They were people of stature in the community, but not necessarily legal experts. So made up and whimsical rulings did happen.

If the woman had sense, she would lie about why the child was dressed "improperly". Then question then becomes, what does she do once the lie is exposed?

I also wonder why she would want her daughter to be dressed as a boy. What benefit was there? I can only think of one. 

I am curious about this story.


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## Cran (Aug 9, 2017)

Colonial Pennsylvania was one of the thirteen original colonies, and was controlled by the Quakers. In most things, peace and tolerance were central. Gender roles, however, were strictly delineated and the society was fully patriarchal; with rare exception women were treated as chattels. A woman came of age at thirteen. 

A girl, therefore, pretending to be a boy was asking for harsh treatment from women, from men, and from what passed for courts and judges. The capital crime of witchcraft was occasionally employed when lesser charges were deemed insufficient. A mother who encouraged a daughter to disregard her gender could be considered a witch.



> *How Crimes Were Dealt With* — While the Quakers were an honest and  quiet people, there were many in the province of different character,  and these made plenty of work for the  courts. Among the common offenses were stealing, swearing, working on  Sunday, assault and battery, selling rum to the Indians, and various  others. These were usually punished by fines. A  liar was fined half a crown. The fine for playing cards and gambling in  any way was five shillings and imprisonment at hard labor for five days.  For drinking healths the fine was also five  shillings. Anyone who smoked tobacco in the streets of Philadelphia or  New Castle was fined twelve pence, the money thus obtained being used to  buy fire buckets and other fire apparatus. Ten  days in prison and twenty shillings fine was the punishment for taking  part in plays, revels, bull-baiting, cockfights, and the like popular  sports of the times.


-http://www.celebrateboston.com/history/pa/laws-and-customs.htm




> Women who stepped outside of the traditional gender roles were especially dangerous. They represented a world turned upside down; a world in which men simply were unable to make sense of their position. Men had been socialized from birth to be in control of their families and society. Their collective insecurity about their social place contributed to their harsh treatment of women who stepped outside the traditional gender roles of Colonial life.
> 
> Women who “broke the roles” faced public ridicule, and occasional legal admonishment for their actions.
> 
> ...


-http://public.gettysburg.edu/~tshannon/341/sites/Gender%20and%20Sexuality/Gender%20Roles.htm


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## lmarie (Aug 10, 2017)

Its not a girl its a boy (5 or 6 years old). Im not sure if that would make it better or worse in the judges mind. Probably worse but either way something like witchcraft might be fitting because the reasons the mothers dressing him like that are rooted in superstition. And she cant really lie because her delusional thinking is the only way she can explain her behavior on other matters. For one thing the rest of the males in her family have died under questionable circumstances. I think that may be part of the reason she got hauled before the court in the first place.


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## Jack of all trades (Aug 11, 2017)

lmarie said:


> Its not a girl its a boy (5 or 6 years old). Im not sure if that would make it better or worse in the judges mind. Probably worse but either way something like witchcraft might be fitting because the reasons the mothers dressing him like that are rooted in superstition. And she cant really lie because her delusional thinking is the only way she can explain her behavior on other matters. For one thing the rest of the males in her family have died under questionable circumstances. I think that may be part of the reason she got hauled before the court in the first place.



Sorry. There were so many "she" and "her" references in your earlier post that I thought the child was also female. Anyway...

I don't know about Pennsylvania specifically, but in colonial times men played women in plays. I'm not sure there would be such an outcry, in general. Also, how was the cross dressing discovered? That would have a great deal of impact on things.

Bottom line, all we can do is conjecture. The colonies didn't have a structured court system, so "justice" varied from town to town. Appeals were not very likely.

This is an interesting topic, and could make for an interesting story. In the end, you are the author, and you have to decide what happens to the mother and child. Write what piques your interest, is my advice.


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## Cran (Aug 11, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> I don't know about Pennsylvania specifically, but in colonial times men played women in plays. I'm not sure there would be such an outcry, in general.



In general, perhaps not. But in Quaker-controlled Pennsylvania, there would have been an outcry. As per my earlier quote:


> Ten  days in prison and twenty shillings fine was the punishment for taking  part in plays ...



Twenty shillings was not pocket money in colonial times.


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## ppsage (Aug 11, 2017)

The website Celebrate Boston (?) is quoting this: History Of Pennsylvania by Charles Morris (1913). I looked around only a tiny bit but saw no other obvious attempt to establish either their bona fides or Morris's. Morris is in wikipedia here. His history is a free Google ebook here. (I'm not sure why the link points to this spot in the facsimile. The whole book seems to be there.) Morris apparently does not believe in citation. Perhaps it hadn't been invented yet.


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## Jack of all trades (Aug 12, 2017)

ppsage said:


> The website Celebrate Boston (?) is quoting this: History Of Pennsylvania by Charles Morris (1913). I looked around only a tiny bit but saw no other obvious attempt to establish either their bona fides or Morris's. Morris is in wikipedia here. His history is a free Google ebook here. (I'm not sure why the link points to this spot in the facsimile. The whole book seems to be there.) Morris apparently does not believe in citation. Perhaps it hadn't been invented yet.



I'm not sure how much faith I would have in one book, written in the early 1900s, about life in the 1700s.

There are living history folks that do considerable research. Philadelphia, with the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, etc, probably has a lot of info. Not sure who or where. But, if it were me, I'd dig deeper if it mattered to me to be historically accurate.


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## Jack of all trades (Aug 12, 2017)

Not Pennsylvania, but I found this when I Googled "quaker cross dressing". 

http://www.shorenewstoday.com/cape_...cle_33ccca1f-1ea2-5189-9427-4c9317c53607.html

Maybe you didn't need to worry if you're related to the Queen.

I also found this : 

https://books.google.com/books?id=v...ved=0ahUKEwiIqbbJ0NHVAhWj6YMKHa5wBW0Q6AEIHDAG

I didn't read much of the second one. It doesn't work well with my phone, and my computer's out of commission today.


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## lmarie (Aug 12, 2017)

Thanks Cran and Jack you've both given me some good ideas here and I really appreciate the interest in my story.

I think I've come up with a way to do this that would avoid some of the gender issues or at least would dial down the negative reaction of the townspeople toward the mother. What I was thinking I will do is have the mothers clothing choices appear to be determined by poverty and emphasize the fact that she has limited materials available to make childrens clothing from. It makes sense because the family is very poor and have lost their farm and been scratching out an existennce in the woods. She would have to dress him in things shes cobbled together from sack clothes blankets etc, which will appear much more genderless as they are more or less over sized shirts. Of course that can only be a temporary measure so the mother will have to eventually find something better to dress him in which will probably be where she gets caught.


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