Rachel Speght is the first English woman to write a feminist polemic under her own name and whose existence can be corroborated by independent records. Born in 1597 to a Calvinist minister, Speght was a well-educated woman of the London middle class. Her two works A Mouzell for Melastomus (1617) and Mortalities Memorandum (1621) are both feminist tracts and reflect her religious upbringing. Since she was living with her father when she wrote and published these two works, he must have approved of her efforts. She married a minister, William Procter, in 1621 and dropped out of the historical record although two children, Rachel Procter (1627) and William Procter (1630), were later baptized in her husband's church.

      In 1617 John Swetnam's misogynist pamphlet The Arraignment of Women (1615) induced English women to enter the debate on the woman question that had been boiling on the continent for 2 centuries. The debate was in part a game of wit played by men for their own amusement or the patronage of women, in part a serious discussion of women's abilities and rightful roles, and in part an effort by publishers and book sellers to drum up business for the relatively cheap books made possible by the newly invented printing press. Swetnam's tract, a mishmash of, by now commonplace, proverbs, jokes, invectives, arguments, and anecdotes, provoked, not one woman, but three women, to respond to him. Rachel Speght was the first of his respondents in her A Mouzell for Melastomus The Cynicall Bayter of, and foule mouthed Barker against Evahs Sex. Or an Apologeticall Answere to that Irreligious and Illiterate Pamphlet made by Jo. Sw. and by him entitled, The Arraignment of Women (A Muzzle for Evil-Mouth: The Cynical Baiter of and Foul Mouthed Barker Against Eve's Sex or An Apologetical Answer to that Irreligious and Illiterate Pamphlet made by Joseph Swetnam Entitled The Arraignment of Women). In contrast to many of the previous defenses, Speght does not engage in rhetorical gamesmanship. Instead, she re-interprets the Bible in a straightforward manner, making no apology for doing so and assuming that she entitled to comment on scripture as she wishes. Compared to the two works to follow hers, Mouzell, a strictly religious work, is restrained, almost deferential in tone, possibly because she was the only one to publish under her own name. Nonetheless, Speght freely interprets scripture in a female-friendly fashion, presenting an alternative to the traditional, misogynist interpretation of the creation story in Genesis and the Pauline injunctions for the submission of women to men. Her work cannot be considered anything other than feminist. Like standard theological texts of her day, Speght includes the book, chapter, and verse citations in the margin whenever she alludes to the Bible. (These show up below as footnotes.) Her work is a serious work and is meant to be taken seriously. Ostensibly written to refute Swetnam, in the end, she also engages a wider range of adversaries, those who use scripture to debase or devalue women.

      Mortalities Memorandum, a tribute to her beloved and recently deceased mother and godmother, is a religious tract in poetry on death. Again, the Bible is alluded to extensively and is interpreted in a female-friendly fashion.

      In the excerpt below from Mouzell, Speght is addressing the biblical injunction to women to obey their husbands.

      The Kingdom of God is compared unto the marriage of a King's son¹: John called the conjunction of Christ and his Chosen, a marriage²: And not few, but many times, does our blessed Savior in the Canticles, set fort this unspeakable love towards his Church under the title of an Husband rejoicing with his Wife; and often vouchsafed to call her his Sister and Spouse, by which is showed that with God is not respect of persons³, Nations, or Sexes: for whosoever, whether it be man or woman, that does believe in the Lord Jesus, such shall be saved⁴. And if God's love even from the beginning, had not been as great toward woman as to man, then would he not have preserved from the deluge of the old world as many women as men; nor would Christ after his Resurrection have appeared unto a woman first of all other, had it not been to declare thereby, that the benefices of his death and resurrection, are as available, by belief, for women as for men; for he indifferently died for the one sex as well as the other: Yet a truth ungainsayable is it: that the Man is the Woman's Head⁵; by which title yet of Supremacy, no authority has he given him to domineer, or basely command and employ his wife, as a servant; but hereby is he taught the duties which he owes unto her: For as the head of a man is the imaginer and contriver of projects profitable for the safety of his whole body; so the Husband must protect and defend his Wife from injuries: For he is her Head, as Christ is the Head of his Church⁶, which he entirely loves, and for which he gave his very life; the dearest thing any man has in this world⁷; Greater love than this has no man, when he bestows his life for a friend⁸, said our Savior: This precedent passes all other patterns, it requires great benignity, and enjoys an extraordinary affection, For men must love their wives, even as Christ loved his church. Secondly, as the head does not jar or contend with the members, which being many, as the Apostle said, yet make but one body⁹; no more must the husband with the wife, but expelling all bitterness and cruelty he must live with her lovingly¹⁰, and religiously, honoring her as the weaker vessel. Thirdly, and lastly, as he is her Head, he must, by instruction, bring her to the knowledge of her Creator¹¹, that so she may be a fit stone for the Lord's building¹². Women for this end must have an especial care to set their affections upon such as are able to teach them, that as they grow in years, they may grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Christ Jesus: Our Lord¹³.

      Thus if men would remember the duties they are to perform in being heads, some would not stand a tip-toe as they do, thinking themselves Lords & Rulers, and account every omission of performing whatsoever they command, whether lawful or not, to be matter of great disparagement, and indignity done them; whereas they should consider, that women are enjoined to submit themselves unto their husbands no otherwise then as to the Lord¹⁴; so that from hence, for man, arises a lesson not to be forgotten, that as the Lord commands nothing to be done, but that which is right and good, no more must the husband; for if a wife fulfill the evil command of her husband, she obeys him as a tempter, as Saphira did Aranias¹⁵.

1. Math 22
2. Rev 19:7
3. Rom 2:11
4. John 3:18
5. 1 Cor 11:3
6. Ephe 5:23
7. Job 2:4
8. John 15:13
9. 1 Cor 12:20
10. Col 3:19
11. 1 Peter 3:7
12. 1 Cor 14:35
13. 1 Peter 3:18
14. Ephes 5
15. Acts 5:2

      For more information:

      * Used in the preparation of this work

      * Moria Ferguson, First Feminists: British Women Writers 1578 - 1799 [Bloomington, In: Indiana University Press, 1985] (includes excerpts)

      * Barbara Kiefer Lewalski, The Polemics and Poems of Rachel Speght [Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996]

      * Susan Gushee O'Malley (ed.), 1996, The Early Modern Englishwoman: A Facsimilie Library of Essential Works, Part 1: Printed Writings, 1500-1640, Volume 4, Defences of Women: Jane Anger, Rachel Speght, Ester Sowernam, and Constantia Munda, Scolar Press, 1996 (complete text of Protection)

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