Church discipline records have much to tell us, but they can be opaque. To historians, they can seem too quotidian to be useful. Thus, it is very nice to see a new book taking a modern approach to this material. Puritans Behaving Badly takes a gendered approach to the analysis of church discipline, arguing that men's and women's sins were defined and punished differently in seventeenth-century New England. Women were held accountable for failures of personal piety, while men were disciplined for dereliction of public duties. As time passed, feminized personal piety became the default mode for religious practice in New England churches and set the stage for both religious and cultural change in the nineteenth century.

The book explores this argument from a variety of viewpoints, all introduced by engaging and entertaining anecdotes. Chapter 1 opens with a description of a local dispute that ended in disciplinary proceedings after a household matron sent a servant to dump a full chamber pot on her next door neighbor, before providing important context for the larger argument by describing the mechanics of church discipline. The next few chapters consider various aspects of gender in church proceedings, beginning with the gendered nature of sin itself. Men were more likely to be brought to account for drunkenness, Sabbath breaking, and shady business practices—all acts that undermined public order. Women, on the other hand, were more likely to succumb to private, personal flaws, such as lying and fornication. Fitzgerald notes that even when two people were charged for the same incident, the complaint was phrased in different ways according to the gender of the offender. Similarly, the language of the public confessions made by penitents also followed gendered lines. Women described their personal shortcomings and failures of piety; these confessions were closer to the form of penitence promulgated by ministers, who stressed literal soul searching and self-abnegation as proper Christian atonement. Men, in contrast, stressed their breaches of community norms and neglect of public duties.

The final two chapters before the conclusion look at case studies in gendered piety. Chapter 4, which is perhaps the most interesting chapter in the book, considers the conflict between prescribed piety and conventional masculinity. Men in seventeenth-century New England were constructed to be wise but stern family governors, productive workers in a useful calling, and virtuous members of a stable public order. All of these roles required self-assertion and confident, authoritative action. On the other hand, a pious Christian must admit his faults with deep humility and live with constant humble uncertainty as to the state of his soul. The life of military commander John Underhill provides a fascinating example of this conflict. The next chapter considers the case of Anne Hibbens, who was executed for witchcraft in 1656. Hibbens had been disciplined by her church in the years leading up to her witchcraft trial, culminating with her excommunication in 1640. As many scholars of New England witchcraft have noted, Hibbens was an unusual witch, for many reasons—chief among them her status as a wealthy, high-ranking woman. Fitzgerald makes the case that Hibbens violated gender norms in the form and language of her response to church discipline. Her proffered confession sounded much more like a man's than a woman's, emphasizing her failures of public decorum rather than internal traits. This gender violation led eventually to her downfall.

The book concludes by looking forward to the nineteenth century. Fitzgerald argues that these gendered religious practices foreshadowed the changes in gender roles that emerged in the early republic period. The public-private split that first emerged in religious practice eventually spread into the larger construction of gender: women inhabit the “sphere” of the privatized home and family, while men are associated with the public world of work and politics. Fitzgerald also argues that the decline in piety noted by other historians of New England religion was not so much a decline as a transformation. Following on feminized notions of piety, the church itself exited public life, and religious belief became a private matter centered in the individual rather than the community.

The book has several important strengths. Chief among them is its clear, engaging writing style and deft use of anecdotes to bring this potentially dry material into vivid life. The chamber pot incident that opens the book is one excellent example, as is the opening of the next chapter, a description of neighbors clucking their tongues over a drunken young man who had passed out in the road. These brief narratives remind us of the humanity behind the dry words of the church records. Fitzgerald is also deeply engaged with the extensive literature on early New England religion and society. She does an excellent job of situating her original argument into an ongoing scholarly conversation.

The core of the book's argument is solid and represents a fresh approach to this material. However, as the book progressed the argument remained underdeveloped. While the initial thesis was intriguing, the chapters seem to simply restate it rather than deepen and expand upon it. Similarly, the introduction implies that it will push against the narrative of decline that characterized earlier works on the New England church. However, the conclusion, while subtler than some, still describes a declension.

Despite these weaknesses, the book is well written, engaging, and brings Puritan studies into the twenty-first century. It would make an excellent choice for the classroom in courses on gender history, early American history, or religious studies.