Wayward Puritans free essay sample

Compares ideas on deviance conformity, sociology history, hypocrisy. (Kai Erikson) Confidence Men Painted Women ( Karen Halttunen ) In Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance, Kai T. Erikson provides an account of the nature and function of deviance among Puritans in living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. For this devout and pious community known for its lack of tolerance of values in contrast to its own, Erikson argues that deviance united the Puritans because punishing those who were deemed deviant showed how much variability and diversity can be tolerated within the group before it begins to lose its distinctive shape, its