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Contesting Cultural Norms: Women's
Public Speech
The social upheaval produced
by the English Civil War and Interregnum
(1642–60) prompted women on both sides,
royalist and revolutionary, to take on new
roles in the absence of their husbands. Many
now had full responsibility for their household.
Others undertook sometimes dangerous partisan
activity, like the royalist Anne Halkett (NAEL 8, 1.1764),
who
took part in managing the escape from parliamentary custody of the Duke of
York, the future King James II. Some ventured upon new kinds of authorship,
e.g., Lucy Hutchinson's republican history of the Interregnum, set forth
as a memoir of her husband (NAEL 8, 1.1758),
and
the royalist Margaret Cavendish's science-fiction utopia The Blazing
World (NAEL 8, 1.1780). And
some were prompted to claim a voice in the affairs of state and church, contesting
their exclusion from the public sphere (on the grounds spelled out in The
Law's Resolutions of Women's Rights).
One example of such a voice
is a women's petition supporting
several imprisoned leaders of the Leveller
party who had been agitating for a new political
compact, an Agreement of the People, to
settle the government after the regicide.
Whether or not women actually drafted this
petition, it is remarkable for its defense
of women's share in the freedom of the
commonwealth and their right to engage in
political agitation. Also, some female prophets
appeared among the more extreme religious
sects, scandalizing the more conventional
by their preaching and testimony; examples
are Elizabeth Davies, Mary Cary, and Anna
Trapnel.
These
were individual voices, but a species of regular female ministry appeared
among the Quakers, sanctioned by their theology of the Inner Light, which
might illuminate any Friend, male or female. The treatise
of Margaret Fell defends women speaking in church meetings against the
supposed Pauline prohibition of such speech. (1 Corinthians 14.14–15: "let
your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them
to speak. * * * And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands
at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.") The same
prohibition had been cited by the opponents of the martyred reformer Anne
Askew in the previous century.
From The Petition of
Divers Well-Affected Women
To the Supreme Authority of England,
the Commons Assembled in Parliament. The
Humble Petition of Divers Well-Affected
Women of the Cities of London and Westminster,
the Borough of Southwark, Hamlets and Parts
Adjacent. Affecters and Approvers of the
Petition of Sept. 11 1648. (May 5,
1649)
Since we are assured of our creation in
the image of God, and of an interest in Christ
equal unto men, as also of a proportionable
share in the freedoms of this commonwealth,
we cannot but wonder and grieve that we should
appear so despicable in your eyes as to be
thought unworthy to petition or represent
our grievances to this honorable House. Have
we not an equal interest with the men of
this nation in those liberties and securities
contained in the Petition of Right, and
other the good laws of the land? Are any
of our lives, limbs, liberties, or goods
to be taken from us more than from men, but
by due process of law and conviction of twelve
sworn men of the neighborhood? And can you
imagine us to be so sottish or stupid as
not to perceive, or not to be sensible when
daily those strong defenses of our peace
and welfare are broken down and trod underfoot
by force and arbitrary power?
Would you have us keep at home in our houses,
when men of such faithfulness and integrity
as the four prisoners,
>> note 1 our
friends, in the Tower, are fetched out
of their beds and forced from their houses
by soldiers, to the affrighting and undoing
of themselves, their wives, children ,
and families? Are not our husbands, o[u]r
selves, our children and families, by the
same rule as liable to the like unjust
cruelties as they? * * * And are we Christians,
and shall we sit still and keep at home,
while such men as have borne continual
testimony against the injustice of all
times and unrighteousness of men, be picked
out and be delivered up to the slaughter?
And yet must we show no sense of their
sufferings, no tenderness of affections,
no bowels of compassion, nor bear any testimony
against so abominable cruelty and injustice?
Have such men as these continually hazarded
their lives, spent their estates and time,
lost their liberties, and thought nothing
too precious for defense of us, our lives
and liberties, been as a guard by day and
as a watch by night; and when for this they
are in trouble and greatest danger, persecuted
and hated even to the death, should we be
so basely ungrateful as to neglect them in
the day of their affliction? No, far be it
from us. Let it be accounted folly, presumption,
madness, or whatsoever in us, whilst we have
life and breath we will never leave them
nor forsake them, nor ever cease to importune
you, having yet so much hopes of you as of
the unjust judge (mentioned, Luke 18), to
obtain justice, if not for justice's
sake, yet for importunity, or to use any
other means for the enlargement and reparation
of those of them that live, and for justice
against such as have been the cause of Mr.
Lockyer's
>> note 2 death.
And therefore again we entreat you to review
our last petition in behalf of our friends
above mentioned, and not to slight the things
therein contained because they are presented
unto you by the weak hand of women, it being
a usual thing with God, by weak means to
work mighty effects.
Margaret Fell, from Women's
Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed of
by the Scriptures. All Such as Speak by the
Spirit and Power of the Lord Jesus
Let this word of the Lord, which was from
the beginning, stop the mouths of all that
oppose women's speaking in the power
of the Lord; for he has put enmity between
the Woman and the Serpent; and * * * those
that speak against the Woman and her Seeds
speaking, speak out of the enmity of the
old Serpent's Seed. * * * Moreover, the
Lord is pleased, when he mentions his Church,
to call her by the name of Woman * * *
and those that speak against the woman's
speaking, speak against the Church of Christ.
Mark this, you that despise and oppose the
message of the Lord God that he ends by women,
what had become of the redemption of the
whole body of mankind, if they had not believed
this message that the Lord Jesus sent by
these women
>> note 3 of
and concerning his Resurrection? And if
those women had not thus, out of their
tenderness and bowels of love * * * if
their hearts had not been so united and
knit unto him in love, that they could
not depart as the men did, but sat watching,
and waiting, and weeping about the sepulcher
until the time of his Resurrection, and
so were ready to carry his message, as
is manifested, else how should his disciples
have known, who were not there?
And now to the Apostle's words,
>> note 4 which
is the ground of the great objection against
women's speaking. * * * Here the Apostle
clearly manifests his intent; for he speaks
of women that were under the Law, and in
that transgression as Eve was, and
such as were to learn, and not to speak
publicly.
And what is all this to women's speaking
that have the everlasting Gospel to preach,
and upon whom the promise of the Lord is
fulfilled, and his Spirit poured upon them
according to his word.
More might be added to this purposed, both
out of the Old Testament and the New, where
it is evident that God made no difference,
but gave his good Spirit, as it pleased him
both to man and woman, as Deborah, Hilda,
and Sarah.
And so let this serve to stop that opposing
spirit that would limit the power and Spirit
of the Lord Jesus, whose Spirit is poured
upon all flesh, both sons and daughters,
those in his Resurrection; and since that
the Lord God in the Creation, when he made
man in his own Image, he made them male
and female; and since that Christ Jesus,
as the Apostle saith, was made of a woman
* * * and when he was upon the earth, he
manifested his love, and his will, and
his mind, to the Woman of Samaria, and Martha, and Mary her
sister, and several others, as has been shown;
and after his Resurrection also manifested
himself unto them first of all. * * * And
thus the Lord Jesus has manifested himself
and his power, without respect of persons,
and so let all mouths be stopped that would
limit him, whose power and Spirit is infinite,
that is pouring it upon all flesh.
And thus much in answer to these two Scriptures,
which have been such a stumbling block; that
the ministers of Darkness have made such
a mountain of; but the Lord is removing all
this, and taking it out of the way.
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