A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812

Content Warning: This section of the study guide contains references to child/pregnancy loss, mass murder, and sexual assault.

Religion’s role in everyday life in late-18th-century New England plays an important role in Martha’s diary and Ulrich’s historical analysis. From the Introduction, Martha’s religious faith is clear and her devotion to God evident. Like her neighbors, she was a fastidious and practicing Protestant, a faith that was all but compulsory in her region. Despite the cultural requirement of faith, Martha still had an authentic relationship with her religion, often praying in her diary to God for faith, patience, or a change of heart in those she deemed rude or wicked. During trying times, Martha inadvertently compares herself to Biblical figures, which Ulrich notes: “She, like Job, would endure” (320). In the Bible, Job was at the center of a bet between God and Satan in which Satan bet God that Job would turn away from his faith if God took everything from him. After relentless torment and losing his family, wealth, and health, Job remained faithful to God. In comparing Martha to Job, Ulrich makes a somewhat sarcastic connection with a serious undertone: Martha’s complaints did not match what Job endured, but the impacts of her husband’s imprisonment, the losses she endured, and her own health concerns were not trivial.