Articles & Essays by Marai Ratajzack
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The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, Unconstant Women: A Woman’s Defence For Dr. Holly Nelson
“Not unto the veriest idiot that ever set Pen to Paper,
Joseph Swetnam’s pamphlet on the accusation of lewd, idle, forward, unconstant women met with varying press. On the female side it was abhorred and ridiculed in poetry, prose and plays even one hundred years after it had been first published in 1615 . The Arraignment’s thesis contains the ideas that lewd, forward, idle, and unconstant women are dangerously deceptive, expensive, desperate about maintaining their beauty, shallow, and deceived of their role on Earth as submissive wives, helpmates and mothers. According to Swetnam, women have lost their place, and gone in with their mother, Eve, to “wantonly procure man’s fall”. The view that nearly all women fall into one of the negative categories surrounds the work, as women are portrayed as little more than a necessary vice to mankind. This Through Swetnam’s life travels and writing, it appears that the man knew too many whores and not enough ladies, for that could account for his grandiosely negative views on all women. Rachel Speght came into the English literary scene upon publication of A Mouzell for Melastomus, in which she crusades against the “rough of [Swetnam’s] fury” (Broadview 397). Beginning with the sentiment that no good fish could come from such putrid waters of rage and excremental statements against the fairer sex, Speght analyses the open sluice’s mess spewing from Swetnam’s every word. According to the grammatically, disordered method and cognitively nomadic styel in which Swetnam wrote, Speght charges the fencing master with becoming an accidental scholar, not unlike a boy learning his grammar with rudimentary skill. Charging the Arraignment’s author with absent sense, and a loss of not only the complete picture, but a complete debauchery of logic and right reason, Speght uses the analogy of “that painter, who seriously endeavouring to portray Cupid’s bow, forgot the string” (Broadview 397). In other words, he missed the point entirely by concentrating on the method of his fury instead of the reasoning behind a grammatical, concise argument. Ending the argument with a derogatory comment about the relationship between loudness of sound and the emptiness of barrels, Speght carries on to discredit Swetnam’s arguments with her own. Logically speaking, Speght writes, the body of Swetnam’s arguments lie the blame on his own sex. Debasing him again, by doubting “to bestow so good a name as the dunce” (Broadview 398) upon him, she backtracks by keeping to the minority situation of women inside English culture. As a minister’s daughter, she has a particularly poignant sting in calling Swetnam a “fit scribe for the devil” (Broadview 398). Thrusting the title of “Bear-baiter of women” (Broadview 398) upon Swetnam, she dubs him cynical, because it would seem that none other than the fencing master had the disposition to do such a deed, else they would have published something so forward and derogatory. It would have benefited Swetnam if he had been recognisant of the “muzzle” Saint James charges Christians to wear, where speaking no evil of one another is the central focus. Beyond condemning Swetnam of faulty Christianity, Speght goes out on a limb by proclaiming women’s rights to be thought of in an equal Christian sense. Despite the lack of a muzzle for Swetnam, his toothless, snake-like nature still vomits the vile poisons in a backlash to his original intent: According to Speght, Swetnam has only hurt himself. Assailing again the going over of Christian limits, Speght charges Swetnam with endangering his soul for his blasphemy against members of God’s creation. In Calvinist theology, he must have proved that he is one of the reprobates, and in imminent danger of losing his soul to the depths of hell’s fires. Proving these sentiments by analysing his offence against God, Speght charges Swetnam with manhandling and perverting every place in Scripture that Swetnam used in his assault. Women were the creation of God’s hands as perfect comforts for men, and not the wanton harpies, who solely procured men’s fall. Combine his heretic views with the giving of many heathen examples, and Speght declares he has shown his true paganistic colours. An intelligent person, she says, could see through his demerit, although the vulgar, unlearned person would most likely applaud his statements as true to form and factual. Looking at the Arraignment, one can see this educated statement to be true, as his example of Alexander, among others, is faulty. For, in Alexander’s case, he could not have mourned his goodly wives’ deaths, when the both of them outlived him by some stretch time. Shifting A Muzzel for Melastomus from a direct arraignment of Swetnam, to Women’s excellence, Speght tuns the focus from Swetnam’s wrongs, to women’s rights, and the respect and sincere sympathy men and women should have one to the other. In the beginning God. . . familiar words that come to mind in the first sentence of this section, yet follows with a slightly different bent than the usual creation passage. “The work of creation being finished, this approbation thereof was given by God himself, that All was very good” (Broadview 398). This biblical statement is fully inclusive to women, yet if there be any objections to the factual statement, Speght is prepared fully. Women alone did not bring forth “death and misery upon all her posterity” (Broadview 398), for the offensive sin of Adam and Eve are to be found parallel. “For as an ambitious desire of being made like unto God, was the motive which caused her to eat, so likewise was it his; as may plainly appear by that Ironia, Behold, man is become as one of us” (Broadview 399). Adam’s desire to become perfect and God-like, is reproved, and if Adam had found himself with Eve along the dark path to sin, being the head of her, should have reproached her to turn back and repent for such a sin before committing it himself in desirous action. Her example for holding the blame in equality with Adam continues with a man burning his hand on a flame. Is the flame to blame for burning the man, or is the man to blame for putting himself in such a predicament in the first place? Surely logic suggests that to whom had been given the greater capacity to accomplish acts of right reason; more authority to accomplish such acts has also been given. Women, being baser, and less worthy of such reasonable right, have need of a male influence to guide their choices, as Eve needed Adam’s reasoning mind to contain her sinful nature and thusforth save humanity from this darkened path. In the end, a punishment was inflicted on Adam as well as Eve, proving that even the Heavenly Father thought that Adam had done his share in the sinful act by cursing not only male kind, as was the case with Eve and her sex, but all the world in it’s entirety. Condensed into a single thought: “he who was the sovereign of all creatures visible, should have yielded greatest obedience to God” (Broadview 399). Second in the objections, upon deeper inspection of the accusation that Eve was the only of the two deceived, one will find that the Apostle does not exempt Adam from the sin, but attests to Eve being the primary transgressor (Broadview 399). For if Adam was not deceived, and made no sin, then the redemption of humanity would have come from Adam, not Eve as was the case with Christ, and his lack of earthly father. Thirdly, Saint Paul’s proverb that “It were good for man not to touch a woman” (Broadview 398) was not a positive prohibition, but a word to the specific Church of Corinth. The true meaning, according to Speght was that one of the persecuted Corinthian church should not seek a marital bond when “these perturbations should continue in this heat” (Broadview 399). Ultimately, those with a wife are called to another calling filled with more earthly care, and the continuation of the human race, where Saint Paul says that he would rather the Corinthians have as few earthly concerns as possible, to instead concentrate solely on the Lord. Last of the objections was Solomon’s saying that he found no woman in a thousand, where he could find one man. Historically speaking, Solomon’s thousand women ended up leading him astray, he doesn’t mention that any thousand of women would not reveal one of value, but in his case this was his personal follies listed in Ecclesiastes. If women are to be the helpers of men, then men hold greater responsibility for the women’s actions, for the male line is thusly more fit to carry the burden. As yolk-mates, the stronger of the oxen carry more of the burden, so it is with men and their wives (Broadview 400). Paul says that the man who does not provide for his family is an infidel, and if nature can teach those animals not gifted with the human arts of intellect and reason to take care of their mates in healthy bonds, then humanity, which carries with it the Law of God, and the benefit of his wisdom in book form should apply this principle with greater fortitude and strength. Let it not be said that a couple have no need of each other, or that, like Swetnam professed, one is more trouble than worth, but that they are in a good, wholesome happy place together in a paradise of mutual love. WORKS CITED Black, Nelson, Rudrum. The Broadview Anthology of Seventeenth Century Verse & Prose. Broadview Press. Ontario, 2004 WORKS CONSULTED Van Heertum, Cis. A Hostile Annotation of Rachel Speght’s A Mouzell For Melastomus. English Studies, 1987, 6, pp. 490-496 1. The first publication of The Arraignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, Unconstant Women was in 1615, but it continued in reprint, with Joseph Swetnam’s name in lieu of the Tell Troth alias in 1616, 1617, 1619, 1622, 1628, 1629, 1634, 1637, 1645, 1660, and 1682. Other printings outside the 17th Century kept it popular much longer. Last update: August 13, 2007 |