Sex and Witchcraft!

If neither of these topics prompt interest as the basis for your ninth assignment, then I will consider carefully my options for early retirement. Open your collection of essays on "Social History" to page 264 and read carefully Joseph Klaits's Sexual Politics and Religious Reform in the Witch Craze, paying particular attention to the editor's introduction to the essay itself. In the essay itself, the author concludes (among other things) that ". . .the West's traditional misogyny [look it up!] result[ed] in the execution of many thousands simply because, as women, they were automatically suspect."

1. Why would women be "automatically suspect" just because they were women?
2. Why was witchcraft primarily a women's crime?
3. What were the sexual elements in the idea of the witches' sabbat?
4. Who was the typical witch and what characteristics did she have?
5. Does Klaits's emphasis on the role of sexuality in the craze help to explain why approximately eighty percent of those accused as witches were women?
6. Why, then, were men accused at all?

For many more witchcraft links, click here! And visit here for student work on witches at the University of Arizona.

Due date will be 2 December.