, this difference was not so marked at
the time which we are immediately considering as it became soon
afterward. It is stated that in 1649 there were in Virginia but three
hundred negro slaves; and, though the strict accuracy of such
computation may be doubted, it may be admitted as substantially correct.
But there was rapid and constant increase, and long before the end of
the early colonial period slavery had become an established institution
and had produced the effects upon Virginia society which were later to
take such emphasized shape. The Virginia lady of the colonial period was
teaching as a mistress of the manor rather than as a housewife. She was
less notable in her accomplishments of "huswifery" than were the women
of New England; but she had charms which they lacked, the charms that
come from opportunity to indulge the impulse of refinement.

Of course all Virginia in its feminine element was not made up of the
cream bubbles of society. There was the lower stratum as well; there
were even strata, diminishing in numbers as in importance as one neared
the bottom of the pail. There were in Virginia, as in New England, laws
which show that the Virginia woman was not always a lady or at least did
not always "demean herself as such." We find, for instance, that there
is an enactment which determines that "women causing scandalous suits"
are to be ducked; and for the furtherance of this penalty there shall be
set up "neere the court house in every county," besides a pillory,
stocks, and a whipping post--a ducking-stool. This same ducking-stool,
which was an importation from England and not an American innovation,
consisted of a pole, with a rude chair fastened to the end, hanging over
a pond or stream, the pole being so balanced that anyone seated in the
chair, and secured there, might be lowered into the water, held therein
until drowning was imminent, and then again hoisted to air and life.
This weapon of an offended justice was, in Virginia as in New England,
made the penalty for divers offences, and the language of one act is
amusing in its evidently masculine origin, where it condemns to the
ducking-stool "brabling women who often slander and scandalize their
neighbors, for which their poor husbands are often brought into
chargeable and vexatious suits and cast in great damages." That "poor"
is significant of experience and consequent wrath.

Yet, while these and similar precautions against feminine dominance