2. You had a reputation for being argumentative: Nobody liked or trusted an assertive woman back in the 16th and 17th centuries
If being an independent woman was enough to set tongues wagging at the height of ‘witch hysteria’ in the 16th and 17th centuries, then being assertive and argumentative was almost guaranteed to get you labeled a witch. While men might have been able to get away with arguing with their neighbors, women could not – especially those who lived alone, without a man to ‘control’ them. Being drunk and disorderly was no excuse, nor was being in an abusive relationship – as Rachel Clinton found out to her cost in Salem in 1692.
Clinton, who was in her 60s when she was accused of being a witch – more specifically, she had been blamed for making a child’s elbow blame, and even for making a man’s beer go bad – was destitute and somewhat eccentric. The prosecutors at the Salem Witch Trial directly linked her argumentative nature with the practice of black magic. They told the grand jury: “Did she not show the character of an embittered, meddlesome, demanding woman—perhaps in short, the character of a witch? Did she not scold, rail, threaten and fight?” In the end, Clinton was released after several months in jail. She died soon afterward, alone and with her reputation in ruins.