In the 17th century, high mortality rates for newcomers and a very high ratio of men to women made family life either impossible or unstable for most colonists. These factors made families and communities fundamentally different from their counterparts in Europe and New England in the Virginia-Maryland region before 1700, along with dispersed settlements and a reluctance to live in villages, together with a growing immigration of white indentured servants and black slaves. These extreme conditions both demeaned and empowered women.