Throughout the history of gender relations, there has always been a considerable tendency to associate the two sexes with their stereotypical and, often oppositional, attributes. While women are widely seen to be endowed with a superior emotional intelligence and great empathy, men are often linked with the abilities of logical thinking and listening to reason. This debate of gender differences, however, can be led on several different levels. Apart from the obvious biological differences which are used as a basis of argumentation, sheer emotional arguments and the arguments that are solely tracked back to personal subjective beliefs and prejudices, people have often pointed out the proclaimed psychological and sociological differences of men and women. Especially in times when main stream societies were still primarily shaped and dominated by men, it was almost impossible to overcome bequeathed and culturally accepted structures and to prevent these ideologies from taking effect on the minds of not only the susceptible. Thus, the incompatibility of male and female psyches was undisputed. Female intellectuality was often even denied which consequently manifested itself in what Laferl calls “die allgemeine niedrige Meinung, daß Frauen kein Recht auf Schrift und Bildung hätten” (Wagner / Laferl 111).
Closely connected to the field of psychological and sociological gender classification is the religious approach of a gender discussion. Whether a woman is weak in her ways of leading her life or whether a man is the bold head of the family was for centuries also seen as a matter of God's creation. Faith alone sufficed as an explanation for female laziness and inferiority as well as for male faithfulness and supremacy. By introducing the Original Sin into a discussion, a different sort of quality could be added to arguments: if one was to argue against this pro-male method of strengthening a case, one was arguing against God's master plan. Few people dared to challenge an adversary in a discussion that was initiated on the grounds of Christian fundamentalist dogmas. In the 17th century, however, two women overcame the barriers of England's patriarchic religious ideology and used the strategy of the original writer of an anti-female pamphlet against him.
This term paper is meant to point out Joseph Swetnam's methods of denouncing women on the basis of Divine Providence and to confront his line of argumentation with those of Rachel Speght and Esther Sowernam's texts. A general note on religious argumentation will be provided and, furthermore, particular arguments of the individual authors will be traced back to their roots in Scripture and, if necessary, checked for their validity. In addition, the internal conflict between Speght and Sowernam will be discussed and Sowernam's criticism on Speght's text will be examined further. The main goal, however, will be to present a literary conflict of the sexes that sees a ostensibly and self-proclaimed heroic author on his quest to improve (wo)mankind and two female underdog authors who with wit and knowledge argue against narrow-minded ignorance and, thereby, present the image of strong and intelligent women worth of being God's creation.
2. Gender-dependent Interpretations of Scripture
The religious domain of 17th century Britain was still strongly influenced and unsettled by the incidents that had taken place in the precedent century. Due to the fact that “in 1534 Henry broke away from Rome and declared himself head of the church in England” (Oakland 255), religious unity and self-awareness was a major issue, though it could not yet be widely achieved throughout the areal extent of British rule. This lack of clarity was even intensified when “Henry VIII's daughter, the Roman Catholic Mary Tudor, tried to restore the Roman Catholic faith during her reign (1553-8), but did not succeed” (Oakland 256) and finally when “her half-sister, the Protestant Elizabeth I (1558-1603), established the Protestant status of the Church of England” (Oakland 256). According to Morrill, “by the time of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9 [the Church of England] had lost the intellectual, moral, spiritual authority it had acquired by 1603” (390). The constant religious factor, though, was “a hybrid of Protestant doctrine and Catholic practice” (Morrill 390).
Which in itself contains the historical irony of two ruling women establishing male dominated religious systems, in this case widens the gap between the genders even further: “Although Henry had established a national church, that church was still Roman Catholic in its faith and practices” (Oakland 255). This implies a strict male hierarchy which was refined and never criticised through the attempted re-establishment of the Roman Catholic faith and finally through the alteration of Protestant conversion. The fundamental basis for religious argumentation, therefore, was the unquestionable authority of the bible, which, by 1611, had just been newly translated and published as the King James Version (The Holy Bible, Foreword: The King James (Authorized) Version), displacing the Genevan Bible of 1560 as the common version of this text (The Holy Bible, Foreword: Sixteenth-Century England). The bible itself symbolises a male monument of dominance. With its authors being known as men (Jesus' disciples, evangelists and prophets), the translator staff consisting of “fifty-four of the best scholars” (The Holy Bible, Foreword: The King James (Authorized) Version), the orderer being King James I and the text constantly dealing with a male deity (cf. The Holy Bible, Eph. 1.3; Mt. 6.26; Lu. 11.13), the masculine sovereignty and monopole over this cornerstone of cultural literature becomes palpable.
