Social Control. Cases involving sexual actions and moral behavior were sometimes handled by church courts and sometimes by city or state courts; whatever the venue, because the consequences of sexual misconduct became visible within the bodies of women, they appeared more frequently than men in these courts. The vast majority of cases involving sexual misconduct were for premarital intercourse, termed fornication. It was often difficult for unmarried women to avoid sexual contacts. Many of them worked as domestic servants, where their employers or employers' sons or male relatives could easily coerce them. They worked in close proximity to men (a large number of cases involved two servants in the same house) and were rarely supervised or chaperoned. Female servants were sent on errands alone or with men, or worked by themselves in fields far from other people; though...