One should not idealize the situation. This was a highly patriarchal world: a man’s wife or daughter’s reputation for chastity was as much a part of his “credit” as his own reputation for kindness or piety. What’s more, almost all people below the age of thirty, male or female, were employed as servants in someone else’s household—as farmhands, milkmaids, apprentices—and as such, were of “no account” at all.
