About Colonial Maryland Family Life

Family life in colonial Maryland was very different from modern family life. Children became employed as apprentices as early as 7, and each member of the family had a specific role in the home's finances and maintenance. Many families in colonial Maryland were farmers. Families were often large so that children could help the family economically when the parents reached old age.

Function

The family in colonial Maryland was a person's main source of entertainment and learning. Mothers and fathers taught their children to read in order to read the Bible and, for boys, to attend school. In farming families, there was a unity during the annual harvest, when the entire family would stop their schooling and domestic chores to help bring in the year's crops.

The family was also the basis for social interactions, economic support, and political opinions and ideals in colonial Maryland. Families in colonial Maryland were predominantly Protestant and had a strong religious background with an emphasis on education and hard work that was passed down from father and mother to children.

Features

Colonial Maryland family life was very simple. Many of the people were farmers or worked in a skilled trade. Candle makers, blacksmiths and tavern owners were among the professions available in colonial Maryland. Each of the different families had at least one common bond, however: the father was always the head of the home.

If you were a member of a family that owned a trade business, then you would have begun learning the trade from a very early age if you were a boy. Young girls helped their mothers with domestic chores instead of working with their father.

Education was primarily for children in grades one through six. Boys would have completed 12th grade if their family approved, although many boys went to work on the family farm after sixth grade.

Size

Colonial family life in Maryland was often based on hard work, and with limited medical care, families could suffer from numerous types of death. As many as three in 10 children died before their first birthday. Parents also had high death rates, from both illness and disease and from childbirth itself.

The result of a high mortality rate in colonial Maryland was that families were large, with six or more children being the average for families. There was also a high rate of step-families in colonial Maryland, since many mothers and fathers were left widowed at an early age.

Facts

Indentured servants were also a large part of the population of colonial Maryland. An indentured servant was bound to the person who purchased them, which paid for their trip from England to the Colonies. The debt to the buyer was paid off in five to seven years, after which the indentured servant was free.

The family of an indentured servant was often nonexistent, or very minimal. A woman who was an indentured servant might have been allowed to keep a child until he or she was the age of 7, but after that the child was either apprenticed to a tradesman or sold as a servant.

Marriage was usually monitored by the person for whom the indentured servant was bound. If he did not approve of the union, then he did not have to allow his indentured servant to marry.

Evolution

Family life in colonial Maryland often included living in several households, and with several different families, before reaching adulthood. Children could leave home as early as 7 to become formally employed as an apprentice. After their apprenticeship was over, older teens became journeymen, and then perhaps became business owners themselves.

Education also became increasingly important. Children were expected to know how to read and write, and boys were taught Latin in grammar school. Puritan families realized that education could help the family become economically stable, and often sent their sons to higher educational institutions.