| Single men had a unique political identity in early America. Colonial laws demanded greater obligations from men based on marital status. These laws nearly always placed a heavier burden on bachelors than on married men in the form of higher taxes, longer periods of servitude, and harsher penalties for crimes. The laws changed over time, correlating to shifts in the social realities and cultural perceptions of bachelorhood. This dissertation seeks to connect these laws with a wider cultural discourse in order to understand why single men assumed a unique and often inferior position in the polity, and how this affected the evolution of American citizenship.;In the sixteenth century, singles laws existed to control the idleness and immorality of young and landless singles. In England, the Chesapeake, and New England, lawmakers took an interest in singles who were lawbreakers, and they sought to reduce these young men and women to a state of dependency by placing them under household government. Lawmakers made no distinction based on gender, and they took no interest in unmarried people who owned their own land and who were respectable members of society.;In the late seventeenth century, the political identity of bachelors changed. Beginning with the implementation of special poll taxes on bachelors, in Pennsylvania in particular, the singles laws became gender-specific to men and no longer focused solely on lawbreakers. Political writers and belletrists joined in on the conversation. As this happened, all single men, not just the young and the landless, became the subject of intense scrutiny. Laws in the colonies changed to reflect this reality, including taxes on all bachelors regardless of wealth. As more bachelors found themselves receiving unequal treatment before the law, they began to question why this was. They resisted compulsory military service and demanded to receive the right of suffrage for their taxes. At the American Revolution, the unequal treatment of unmarried men before the law was rejected, and laws were adopted that made no reference to marital status. |
