Long-hidden family scandal in #Jamestown colony revealed 400 years later by ancient #DNA
That connection led researchers to documents proving that one of the men — #CaptainWilliamWest — was illegitimate, born to Thomas West’s spinster aunt, Elizabeth.
the oldest English settlement in North America
#GovernorThomasWest
#CaptainWilliamWest
#SirFerdinandoWenman
#Virginia
https://www.yahoo.com/news/long-hidden-family-scandal-jamestown-080249128.html
@GeezerWench up until the Victorian age, women having children out of wedlock wasn't seen as anything "shameful", nor was it a hindrance to marriage later. in fact, women who already had a child were seen as able to provide heirs. it was just Victorian prudery that made childbearing some kind of "disease"
@redenigma It's hard to get rid of that stigma. Or wipe it from my head. I grew up with it and have been working at it for decades. My mother cried when she admitted her mother was "illegitimate." Her mother was born in 1900.
When my sister had a child out of wedlock, I tried to tell Mom that kids are just kids.
She wasn't impressed with my thoughts on marriage either. Marriage is merely a joining of property, not a LoVe cOnTraCt.
But I did get married. I was young and not so cynical then.
@GeezerWench marriage has almost never, in the history of humans, been a "love contract". it was a man (potential husband) negotiating with another man (father) for possession of property & a house slave
@redenigma Yup. Someone to have his heirs and all. 🙄
The proof of that is when it comes to divorce. What is divorce? A dividing of the property.
@GeezerWench @redenigma
It is a cruel stigma, and was very real for our mothers and grandmothers. The shame that was heaped on women for having sex outside of marriage (but not on men) was very painful for many. And the shame heaped on their innocent children was even worse.