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Notes feminist forefathers: (capitalization and spelling hers not mine)
Nicholas "Brenton gives a new twist to the story of Eve; since she was a part of Adam, "was she any other than himself that deceived himself?" (Sig. R3). Many of the defenses are clearly ironic: "Some will say women are deceitful, but they that say so be such as deceive themselves in Women to think them trusty" (Sig. S2). However, the tone of the whole is good-humored, full of tongue-in-cheek paradox and delight at his own cleverness; he even reverses the frequent attacker's promise [end of page 14] later amends to women by concluding with a promise that he will make amends to men by writing their praises in the future." pages 14-15
from "The praise of all women, called Mulierum Paean: Very fruitful and delectable unto all the readers, Look and read who that can; this book is praise to each woman" by Edward Gosynhill [c. 1542]
"I say the fable rehearsed before
(The truth well known) is but a lie;
All the clerks that ever were
Do write the same and testify
That God made all thing perfectly.
How should the woman then tongue have none
And be of God's creation?
"Because of Eve, our prime parent,
The will of God did once transgress,
They blame all women in like consent
And make themself always faultless.
There be of women, as of men doubtless,
Albeit that divers have offended,
Yet ought not all to be reprehended.
"All manner cloth is not like fine,
Nor yet all men complexioned like:
Some more of choler, some more sanguine.
Some melancholy, some phlegmatic,
Some long and small, some short and thick.
Not every man of one complexion,
Not every woman of one condition.
"why should the woman then be blamed
More than the man, and he like bad?
Methinks ye ought to be ashamed [end of page 163]
And also in conscience sore adrade
(In case that ye any conscience had);
Witness Saint Paul, it doth no man beseem
Worse of another than of himself to deem.
[Although woman was the first to transgress, it was through a woman that redemption came. Moreover, man was made of "vile earth," but woman was mace of a much more highly valued material, a rib. In creation, man is but the adjective, while woman is "the substantive" or noun: "The man in like effect also/ Without the woman's helping hand/ By himself may not long stand." The Bible shows many examples of God's special favor to women, especially in bringing forth children from women past the childbearing age: Elizabeth, Anne, and the mothers of Joseph, Isaac, Samuel, and Samson.]
"Over that, may not nay'ed:
When man had broken the precept,
Seeing himself so nakedly arrayed,
For shame among the leaves he crept.
God him called; he no foot stepped,
But blamed the woman for his consent
To fortify his evil intent.
"But what said God? Look and read:
'Maladicta terra in opere tuo,
Cursed be the earth thou dost on feed,
And sweat for thy living thou shalt also.'
Mind had he none to call for grace, though;
So where God made him of earth, or then
If he cursed the earth, he cursed man.
"So of the woman it cannot be said,
For she of a rib was made before.
But for she was so lightly betrayed,
Penance she had, but not so sore.
Curst was she not; howbeit evermore, [end of page 164]
God said, in childing when she did lie,
With sorrow her seed should multiply.
"That man was curst oft we read
Besides that I rehearsed have,
As Cain and Ham for their lewd deed,
And those that the prophet did mock and deprave,
With other (no few), whereas God gave
Many times unto the woman
His blessing as well as to the man.
"Thus all things pondered in balance plain,
God favoreth always the femininity;
We then to have them in disdain
Standeth not well with equity.
And whoso said the good rare be,
I durst adventure my head to lose
To prove he lieth that maketh that gloss.
"Thousands or two, I dare well say,
Of them that yet here living be
In full record forth bring I may,
And seek not far out of the country;
I could also manifestly
Divers rehearse and their names tell,
The place affirming where they do dwell.
"Howbeit, as now it shall suffice
Of them that gone be many years past
Example to take, and this treatise
By their goodness to make sure and fast
That none hereafter presume to cast
Fables forged or willful mind
Against the devout feminine kind." pages 163 - 165
from "The womens sharp revenge: Or an answer to Sir Seldome Sober that writ those railing Pamphlets called the Juniper and Crabtree Lectures, &c. Being a sound Reply and a full confutation of those Bookes: with an Apology in this case for the defense of us women." by Mary Tattle-well and Joane Hit-him-home, spinsters, imprinted in London by IO and are to be sold by Ia. Becket at his shop in the inner Templegate (1640)
"Now to show we are no such despised matter as you would seem to make us, come to our first Creation, when man was made of the mere dust of the earth. The woman had her being from the best part of the body, the Rib next to his heart, which difference even in our complexions may be easily decided. Man is of a dull, earthy, and melancholy aspect, having shallows in his face and a very forest upon his chin, when our soft and smooth Cheeks are a true representation of a delectable garden of intermixed Roses and Lilies.
[Women do have faults, but men are subject to the same vices. In fact, scholars have stated that a pure and beautiful woman is "the prefect image of her Creator, the true glory of Angels, the rare miracle of Earth;. . . the man who is married to a peaceable and virtuous wife, being on earth hath attained heaven." Although Sir Seldom Sober considers women contemptible, ancient and modern poets have addressed to them "Odes, Hymns, Love songs, and Laudatories." page 314
"Man might consider that women were not created to be their slaves or vassals; for as they had not their Original out of his head (thereby to command him), so it was not out of his foot to be trod upon, but in a medium out of his side to be his fellow feeler, his equal, and companion." page 317
"As for the first Man, he was made of Earth, Clay (yea, of the very slime of the earth): also, he was created in the open wide field (as all other the rest of earthly Creatures were). And being made, I must confess, he was perfect and full of perfection, yet doth his very Name demonstrate that he was of a mean and pure substance, for the Word (or Name) Adam doth signify Clay or red earth. But when that earth and slime was purified and made perfect with being fully possessed with a Reasonable Soul, then man being in Paradise, a most pleasant and [end of page 318] delectable place, there in that choices and principal Garden of delight (man being refined from his dross) was woman Created. There was she named Eve (or Hevah), which is as much to say "Life," because she was the Mother of all men and women that should ever live or have living. She was made out of the side of the man near to his heart because he should heartily love her. And as all the rest of the Creatures were created before man to show that he was not brought into a bare and naked world (although himself was so), but it was Gloriously and Magnificently adorned and beautified with all things fitting for the entertainment of so glorious an Image (or Deputy to the Greatest). Yet in that great state he was alone without anyone to have a participation or joyful fellow sympathetic feeling of his felicity. Then did it please the Great Creator to Create the noble Creature Woman to be his Helper, associate and companion. Therefore, I conclude that, as man was made of pollution, earth, and slime, and woman was formed out of that earth when it was first Refined, as man had his Original in the rude field and woman had her frame and composure in Paradise, so much is the woman's Honor to be regarded and to be held in estimation amongst men." pages 318-319
"Moreover, women were so chaste that, though they did marry and were married, it was more for propagation of Children than for any carnal delight or pleasure they had to accompany with men. They were content to be joined in Matrimony with a greater desire of Children than of Husbands; they had more joy in being Mothers than in being Wives. For in the old Law it was a curse upon Women to be Barren; and surely if there had been any lawful way for them to have had Children without Husbands, there hath been, and are, and will be a numberless number of Women that would or will never be troubled with wedlock nor the knowledge of man. Thus good and modest Women have been content to have none or one man (at the most) all their whole lifetime, but men have been so addicted to incontinency that no bounds of Law or reason could restrain them. For if we read the Story of the Kings of Judah, there we may find the wisest that ever reigned, Solomon, had no fewer than three hundred Wives and seven hundred Concubines, and that his Son Rehoboam had eighteen Wives and sixty Concubines by whose he begat twenty-eight Sons and three-score Daughters. There have been some good women that, when they could have no Children, they have been contented that their Husbands should make use of their Maidservants, as Sarah and Rachel and Leah did. But I never heard or read of any man that, though he were old, diseased, decrepit, gouty, or many and every way defective and past ability to be the Father of any Child, hath been so loving to his wife as to suffer her to [be] made a Teeming [pregnant] Mother by another man. There was once a Law in Sparta amongst the Lacedaemoninas that if the husband were deficient for propagating or begetting of Children, that then it was lawful for the wife to entertain a friend or a Neighbor. But the women were so given to chastity that they seldom or never did put the said Law in practice, and I am persuaded that the Decree is quite abolished and out of use and force all the World over." pp. 323-324 from the bibliography
John Aylmer, An Harborowe for Faithful and Trewe Subjects, agaynst the Late Blowne Blaste, concerninge the Governmet of Women, Strasborowe [J. Daye, London, 1559] (response (?) to John Knox, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstruous regiment of Women [Geneva, J. Crespin, 1558] )
Sir Thomas Elyot, The Defense of Good Women In aed. T. Bertheleti, 1545
Anthony Gibson, A Womans Woorth, defended against all the men in the world, J. Wolfe, 1599
The world before it became Paradise.
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