By endeavoring to gain full ownership of her late husband's estate she disregarded her society's set practices of inheritance and land tenure, and challenged the tradition of strong, extended family alliances. By aspiring to deny her two sons of their wealth and social position, she threatened the growth and stability of Putnam family alliances in Salem Village.
Is a woman who betrays her society's social and family conventions worthy of an accusation of witchcraft? Not in today's society, but in seventeenth century New England these offenses were socially and economically serious, and a threat to the divinely sanctioned social order. Specifically, the Putnam family's economic interests and inheritance grew less secure by Sarah's attempt at social and economic independence. Consequently, but not surprisingly, it was members of the Putnam family who accused Osborne.
Is a woman who betrays her society's social and family conventions worthy of an accusation of witchcraft? Not in today's society, but in seventeenth century New England these offenses were socially and economically serious, and a threat to the divinely sanctioned social order. Specifically, the Putnam family's economic interests and inheritance grew less secure by Sarah's attempt at social and economic independence. Consequently, but not surprisingly, it was members of the Putnam family who accused Osborne.