Saturday, November 3, 2007
Commentary #9: Margaret Fell
Margaret Fell (But She Got Back Up Again!)
What surprised me about Margaret Fell's story is that she seemed to get away with a great deal more than one might expect of a seventeenth-century Quaker lady. As the dear soul who is referred to as the “Nurturing Mother of Quakerism” in the Gwynned Friends Meeting Historical Notes, she certainly knew how to pack a punch, rhetorically speaking.
We read that Judge Thomas Fell did not approve of his wife’s activism in promoting the brand-new, politically incorrect Quaker religion (Society of Friends) and, at times, even stifled her. He did, however, provide his wife legal protection as long as he could. After his death in 1658, Margaret was no longer able escape legal prosecution and landed in jail several times for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the king.
The issue of women’s rights to speak publicly was a major cause that moved Margaret to action. In fact, during a four-year incarceration, she made use of her time by writing what turned out to be her most memorable work, a pamphlet entitled Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed of by the Scriptures, All Such as Speak by the Spirit and Power of the Lord Jesus And How Women Were the First That Preached the Tidings of the Resurrection of Jesus, and Were Sent by Christ’s Own Command Before He Ascended to the Father, which is found in our Bizzell and Herzberg textbook and online at <http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~kuenning/fell.html>.
She comes out swinging at the beginning of the text, pointing out how clergymen erroneously object to women speaking out in church. But she doesn’t whine or complain unattractively; rather, she forthrightly states her case and crisply uses Scripture to support it. What better ammunition could she have found to endorse feminism at that time, for her audience?
By the time Margaret finished writing her manuscript, she may have worked herself up into a bit of a snit. Here is how she begins the postscript: “And you dark Priests, that are so mad against Womens Speaking and it’s so grevious to you. . .” O.K., maybe I’m reading something into the text that doesn’t exist, but I detect a seething bitterness resulting from womanhood scorned, as well as several undeserved years in the clink.
(Note: A rough abstract of the life of Margaret Fell can be found in the Gwyedd Friends Meeting Historical Notes at <http://www.gwyneddfriends.org/margaret_fell.html>.)
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2 comments:
If it is indeed a bit of a snap back at the powers that be, I think it is deserved. Not that I can speak from this perspective, but I would think that a woman could only take so much before she has to speak out against what she feels is injustice. Speaking as a man, if such indescretions were forced upon me, I would do exactly what she did. Speaking in humanistic terms, we have been doing it since we've been on this planet. Any time a person is oppressed, regardless of gender, that person is deserved to right to fight for their liberty and their due human rights. I don't think this will change moving into the future. What probably incited her foes to take such actions against her was that she used the words of their own ideology against them, or used them to expose their hypocricies, depending on the standpoint from which you are looking at the situation.
I'm glad you wrote about Margaret Fell because I was pretty impressed with her. She did just what you said: instead of resigning herself to her fate of being another ignored woman AND instead of whimpering or whining, she actually used the tools of the trade (art? science? skill?) with which we're becoming so familiar: rHetoric. I like that she used the Scripture so well--clearly she was incredibly literate/literary--advanced logical arguments, and didn't just stop with a couple either.
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