WOMEN AS LABORERS IN COLONIAL NORTH AMERICA: THE IMPACT OF LEGAL RULES AND RELATIONS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM (POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, DEVELOPMENT, VIRGINIA, MASSACHUSETTS)

"Women as Laborers in Colonial North America: The Impact of Legal Rules and Relations on the Development of Capitalism," is an attempt to demonstrate the interconnection and interdependence among various aspects of social development and their impact on the productive role of women.;In Part II, the main concern is an examination of the socio-economic base from which the political and legal structures emerged. To begin, a brief survey of the transition from feudalism to capitalism in western Europe is offered. The main body of this section contains an empirical study of colonial Virginia and Massachusetts as regions were capitalist, along with other forms of development took root. In conjunction with an examination of the variant forms of production extant during the historical phase of colonialism, the relationship between changes in the socioeconomic base and alterations in the political structure is demonstrated.;In Part III, the general focus is on the evolution of the laboring classes with an emphasis on the participation of women in social production. The major task is to analyze the role of the governing apparatus in controlling the labor process as a primary element in the development of capitalism. In concentrating on the colonial period, the recognition that two sets of institutions produced legislation impacting the different sectors of development has been made. On the one hand, following requirements of the imperial scene, the British formulated policies which were directed at controlling the economic realm. On the other hand, following their own course of development, American capitalists who participated on the provincial level or who held sway over the local governing apparatus enacted a domestic set of statutes. The different forms of legislation in conjunction with their impact on the development of the laboring classes in general, and the productive experience of women in particular, is examined.;My study is divided into three major parts. In Part I, a brief survey is offered of those philosophical and theoretical orientations which, while focusing primarily on social, economic and political spheres, have also made attempts to deal with the subject of women. An effort is made to focus on the ideological shortcomings that have precluded thus far, an accurate rendering of the dialectical nature of development and its consequences. In addition, dialectical and historical materialism is discussed as an alternative approach to the concrete conditions of social life and the relationships which evolve from it.