The American Woman in Fact and Fiction; Sinful Eve

The early Calvinist the ocracy of the Massachusetts Bay settlements was deeply rooted in the doctrines of the Old Testament and as such was strictly authoritarian. There was no place in the rigid doctrines of the Puritans for the principles of equality or freedom of thought or action for human beings. Man was born to sin as the sparks fly upward and must be sternly controlled and compelled if necessary to walk on the powers of righteousness. At the top of society was a little clique of the elect the chosen of God who determined what was right or wrong for the unregenerate masses and maintain the authority to enforce their decision. There is a twofold liberty said John Winthrop governor. First the liberty of nature which men shares with the beasts. This is an equal liberty toward good and evil and is to be rooted out. The second or civil liberty is the proper end an object of authority and cannot subsist without it. It is a liberty to that only which is good just and honest what was good just and honest of course was decided by John Winthrop and the other Puritan

elders who also affix the penalties for deviated from their decrees. Women under the system of government suffered even more severely than did men. Since woman was the direct descendant of Eve who had brought sin into the world she must be even more closely controlled and curved than man. It was only under the guidance of a good husband that woman could truly rise above her predisposition to evil. Then there she behaved admirably. She could achieve something like his status in grace. Governor Winthrop says the woman's own choice makes a man her husband. Yet being so chosen he is her lord and she is to be subject to him. A true wife a common source objection her honor and freedom and would not think her condition safe and free but in subjection to her husband's authority. Such a woman was a pearl without price as was the saintly wife of the Reverend Thomas Shepherd. She limited her readings to her husband's notes which she

mused on every week says Winthrop commenting on her untimely death. She had an excellent seat to reprove for sin and discern the evils of man. But woe be unto the woman who departed from such paths of righteousness. There was a mistress Hopkins the wife of the governor of Connecticut who lost her understanding and reason Winthrop says and was brought to Boston to try what means was to be had for her. She had grown into a sad infirmity goes on by giving herself wholly to reading and writing and had written many books. If she had attended to her household affairs and such things as belonged to woman and had not gone out of her way in calling to meddle in such things as are proper for men whose minds are stronger. She had kept her wits and might have improved them usefully and honorably in the place that God had sent her. Her husband he concludes saw his error too late. In this atmosphere the offenses of women against church and state were drastically

punished and the ministers came out of their studies to witness the confinements in the stocks the cleft sticks upon the tongue the whippings and hangings and pressings to death which they had ordain adultery which involved the inheritance and property laws was punishable by death until sixteen thirty eight when the penalty was changed to whipping and banishment. Nathaniel Hawthorne had 1850 looking back upon this time devoted his greatest novel to the subject of such an offender against the Puritan code Hawthorne's knowledge of colonial history was extensive and he has left mankind a compelling document of the somber life of a woman during the Puritan regime. Let us now turn back some 300 years in time and listen to the voice of Hester Prynne as she tells her story of The Scarlet Letter.

You know I know you very well. A throng of bearded men in sad colored garments and grey steeple crowned hat. You know mixed with women some wearing hoods and others bareheaded was assembled before a wooden edifice the door of which was heavily timbered and studded with iron spikes. The place was a prison lane in Boston at the time. Somewhere about the mid part of the seventeenth century. In the early days of the American colony of Massachusetts only some half a century after the great Elizabeth sat upon the throne of England. All eyes in the throng were intently fastened on the iron clamped oaken door of the prison. Behind that door stood I was a babe in my arms and just before me the grim and grisly presence of the town beadle a sword by his side and his staff of

office in his hand. Who represented in his aspect the whole dismal severity of the Puritan code of law which it was his business to administer. Suddenly the door was flung open and a shaft of blinding sunshine lighted up the interior of the jail. The Babe heretofore acquainted only with the gray twilight of a dungeon a rather dark some apartment of the prison winked and turned aside her face from the two vivid light of day. And I for a moment shrank back into the gray twilight of the hall. Looking forth from my blessid consumate upon the faces of my fellow townsman and former neighbors. Whom I could see quite plain. Even to the grim rigidity of their countenances the voices of those closest to the door came to my ears with great distinctness. GOODWIFE. I'll tell you a piece of my mind. It would be greatly to the public Bihu if we women being about your age and church members in good repute should have the handling of such malefactors as this historic Briton would think.

If that has he stood up for judgement before us five that are now here together would you come off with the two sentences the worshipful magistrate demoted to Maddy I trow no ride is suppose to said to the reverend Dimsdale God pastor takes it very grievously to heart the Texas panhandle should have come upon his congregation the magistrate a God fearing gentleman but at the very least they should have put the brand of a hot iron on histograms Florida matter. There would have winced at that I warrant. But she then Artie back into the hole will she care what they put on the bodice of her gown. Well look you to make up for it with a brooch or suchlike heathenish adornment and so walk the streets as brave as ever with the cover of a market she will pay for it will be always do no harm. Why do you talk of marks and brands whether on the bodice of her gown with the flesh of her foreign This woman has brought shame upon us all and up to da yet they are

not love. There is hope in the scripture and then let the magistrate who have made it of no effect. Thank themselves of their own wives or daughters go astray. Mushi honest good wife just good old virtue in woman shape which springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows. Just the hardest work. Mark the soft hearted man. She gasps. Yes sir. We have come to St.. How do you know she's right. Well look you don't have it yet I promise you this first real childish at the moment and they have their side of this and Angel and art that's already been receiving all the right just how many of Massachusetts already declared he is right now to do this I'm sorry. I don't. Let me show you all just let the market place. The blue drawing me forward to the threshold of the prison door. Stood fully

revealed before the throne. My first impulse upon realizing this was to clasp the infant more closely to my breasts. Thereby to conceal the mark which was fastened into by GOLL. However judging that one token of my shame would the poorly served to hide another. I left the child upon my own. And holding my head high I repelled the hand of the beetle and stepped forward into the open air of my own free will. I think my neighbors with a hearty smile and looked calmly around at the townspeople of Boston throwing back my shoulders the better to display the scarlet letter to their view the Beatles stretched forth his official status and opened a lane through the crowd of spectators. And attended by the procession of stern browed man and unkindly visits women and curious schoolboys whom our deal had afforded a half holiday. I followed him to the place appointed for my punishment. It was no great distance from the prison to the marketplace. Yet in my

experience it seemed a journey never to be ended. For despite my awkward calm. I underwent an agony from every footstep of those who throng beside me as though my heart had been flung into the street for them to spurn and trampled upon. Nor did they attempt to restrain their voices and their remarks about me as I progress. In his new fashion. By God now that you had made yourself in the prison upon my life she's more the high and mighty medium ever. I have got to see that when you become a down in the world. You know you. Are fully she had the letter she had a good ear let me go that's what you do for a woman before this brazen hussy can drive such a way of showing it. Why gossip What is it but didn't laugh in the faces of our God the magistrates that make up pride out of what they were the gentleman for when each man had to well if we stick man in Hester's which don't offer anything to show me. And as for the letter which she had stitched so cheery Asli RLB

still alright I got mine own rheumatic final to make up for her one. Piece to this is right here you know not his kitchen at a broader level but you still do dinner. Oh. You know nater there was a provision I like marvelous and most of all that the sufferer shall never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture. But chiefly by the pang that rankles after Thus I pass through this portion of my ordeal until I came to the scaffold of the pillory at the western extremity of the marketplace knowing that in my case it had been judged I should not have to undergo the gripe about the neck and confinement of the head of that instrument of discipline. I ascended the wooden steps turned about and displayed myself to the surrounding multitude at about the height of a man shoulders above the street. On the balcony of the meeting house looking down upon the platform that the governor and several

of his councillors a judge a general in the ministers of the town. Accordingly at this point the crowd became somber and grave. I had fortified myself to encounter the venomous stabs of public controversy and insult. But there was a quality much more terrible in the solemn silence now and in the weight of those thousand unrelenting eyes fastened upon me and concentrated upon my bosom. I longed to hold all those rigid countenances contorted with scornful merriment. And each man. Each woman. Each little shrill voice child burst into one roar of laughter. I might have repaid them with a disdainful smile. But under this leaden inflection which was my doom to endure. As a live moment as if I must needs shriek out with the full power of my lungs and cast myself from the scaffold down upon the ground. Or else go mad. There were intervals as I stood there and the scene seemed to vanish before my eyes.

My memory was preternaturally active. And kept bringing up other scenes than this roughly huge street of a little town on the edge of the western wilderness. Other faces than those faces lowering upon me from the brims of those steeple crowned hat. I remembered my school be. My native village in Old England. My father's face with its bald brow and Reverend white beard flowed over the old fashioned Elizabeth and wrung. My mother's too with his look of Hebe when anxiously. I saw my way. In the end illuminating the interior the desk had been want again. And then came another company. Of a man stricken in years. I'll pay you the scholar like a disease with eyes dim and blue eyed by the lamp light that would serve them to pour over many ponderous books. You're gifted with a strange penetrating power when it came to reading the human soul. This last figure was slightly before. With the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right.

And next. Still in connection with this Michigan scholar. Came the picture of a wedding journey to a continental city with tall grey houses and huge cathedrals. Ancient India. Then at last came back to the market place of the Puritan settlement. With all the townspeople assembled and leveling their stern regarded history. As myself. We stood on the scaffold of the pillory and infant on my arm and the letter A and scarlet fantastically embroidered with gold thread upon my bosom. Could it be true. I clutched the child so fiercely to my breast that it sent forth a groan. I turned my eyes downward to the Scarlet Letter. Even touched it with my finger. You. This was reality. Oh van. From this intense concentration I was at Linc distracted by discerning on the outskirts of the crowd

a figure which irresistibly took possession of my thoughts. It was a man small in stature with approved visitors and with a remarkable intelligence in his features. Dressed in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume. It was evident as well that one of this man's shoulders rose higher than the other. And the features were well known. Yet such was my abstraction that I did not at once comprehend the fact of his presence here before me. His reality was lost in the dreamlike quality of the scene. Yet of a sudden as his eyes met mine. I tell him star and at once I was aware this was no specter. His eyes darkened with a powerful emotion which he instantaneously controlled however and seeing the look of horrified recognition in my eyes he raised his finger and laid it on his lips. Then made his way forward through the crowd to the bottom of the scaffold quite close to me.

And without looking again toward where I stood he addressed himself to the townsmen next to him. I pray you good sir. Who is this woman. Well Farai she has it up to the public shame. You must needs be a stranger in this region friend else he would surely have heard of Misters Hester Prynne and her evil doings. She raised a goodly scandal invested in those judge. You say truly I am a stranger would be no wonder. Surely against my will. I have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land and been held long in bonds among the heathen folk of the southwest. Will it please you therefore to tell me of Hester Prinz. Have I named rightly. Of this woman's offenses and what has brought of yonder scapel and truly Frank and me thinks it must be read in your heart after your troubles and sojourn in the wilderness to find yourself in a land where iniquity is searched out and punched in the side of rulers and people as here in our godly New England. Young woman sir you must know was the

wife of a certain learned man English by birth but he would long dwelt in Amsterdam when some good time a gone he was minded to cross over and cast is a lot with us of Massachusetts for this purpose he sent his wife before him remaining himself to the campus necessary affairs. Mary good sir in some two years or less that this woman has been a drummer here in Boston. No tidings have come of this learned gentleman asked Braine. And his young wife look you being left to her own misguided I can see feel. So in a demand as you speak up for the blue and the stool and his books. And a whole bio fav us maybe the father of young debate which Mr Spin is holding you know of a true friend in that matter remain of the riddle and the Daniel who shall expound it is yet. I want to. Madam Esther absolutely refuse to speak and the magistrates have laid their heads together and write peradventure the guilty one stands

looking on at the sad spectacle unknown of my own and forgetting that God CC the learned man should come himself to look into the mystery it behooves him while it would be still be and like. Now good sir. Our Massachusetts magistrate. Be Thinking themselves of this woman whose youthful and fair doubtless was strongly tempted to her fall. And that moreover as is most likely her husband may be at the bottom of the sea. Well they have not been bold to put in force the extremity of our righteous law against her. The penalty there always death. But in their great mercy and tenderness of heart. They have doing mistress pretty and to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory and then and thereafter for the remainder of her life there where a mark of shame about her bosom. Why Sinton us. She will be a living

salmon again soon. Until the ignominious letter be engraved upon it to store. It irks me nevertheless. But the partner of our iniquity should not at least stand on the scaffold by sight. But he will be no. He will be. I was transported from the numbing effect of this conversation by the consciousness that my name was being called in a loud and solemn tome from behind me. I have mentioned before that directly over the platform on which I stood was a kind of open gallery appended to the meeting house where sat the governor and his assembly each turning and lifting my head I beheld the famous John Wilson. The oldest clergyman of Boston standing now and addressing. Beside him stood my pastor. The Reverend Arthur Dimsdale. The young minister who had come over from England not long since. Bringing all the learning of the age into our

wild forest life. This was a very striking Yes. But the. Melancholy are. Animals which expressed both nervous sensitivity and a power of self-restraint. He's eloquence and religious fervor had already given him the earnest of a high eminence in his profession. The freshness and purity of his thought affecting many people as they professed like the speech of an angel. Now the lady's hand on the shoulder of the pale young man spake again. I have striven with my younger brother here under the preaching you have been privileged to see it. I have sought I say to persuade this God that he should deal with you here in the face of heaven. And before all these wise and upright people. As touching the vileness

likeness of your knowing your natural temper better than I could the better judge what arguments to you whether of tenderness such as might prevail over your hardness in all of us to do so much that you should no longer hide the name of him. Did you leave us. But he opposes to meet with the young man's over softness albeit wise beyond his years that it will wronging the very nature of woman to fall so today opened a hall of secrets in such a broad daylight. I did the presence of so great a multitude cruelly as I sought to convince him to shame me in the commission not to see in and not in the showing of it both. What do you want to caring brother doomsday do most of all I am chilled dealing with this poor sinners soul

speak to the woman my bro though it is of moment to the soul and though far momentous to the I don't know in whose charge Josie is exalted to confess the truth as you will Father Wilson. Hester Prynne Well here's what the good man says and see is the accountability under which I labor. If Garfield stood before the ISOs peace and that I earthly punishment will therefore be made more effectual to salvation. I charge the to speak out the name of a fellow sinner and fellow sufferer. He not silent for any mistaken pity and tenderness for him. For believe me Hester though he were to step down from a high place and stand there beside the on Die pedestal of shame

yet better world itself than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can by silence do for him except to tempt him. Yeah compel him as it were to add hypocrisy to sin. Heaven have granted V and open ignominy. That thereby thou mayest workout and Open triumph over the evil within the under saddle without. Take heed how they will deny us to him who by chance has not the courage to grasp it for himself the bitter but wholesome Cup that is now presented to the lips. It was. Regarding the bravery from the ministers world through what to do with. The robo trolls close not beyond the limits of having small seat. Belts little paper has been gifted with a voice the second don't confer the Consul which was heard from Brother Dimsdale speak go

to the. Birds and repent tell you to take the skull on it. Not at all by breasts. He cannot take it all. It is too deeply grounded and would that I might endure his agony as well as mine the right moment to speak and give your child a father I will not speak. And my child must seek a Heavenly Father. She will never know when earthly one she will not speak. All. One strength and generosity of a woman's heart. She will not speak. The US has two prints in this opening section from Nathaniel

Hawthorne's scarlet letter. For those who are not familiar with the story we note here that the hump shouldered stranger who appeared on the scene during Hester's punishment was her husband and the young minister author Dimsdale who made the plea that she speak out the name of her fellow sinner was the father of her child. From this initial situation Hawthorne in the scarlet letter has gone on to create a compelling drama of human weaknesses and strengths under the grim shadow of the Puritan author and look back upon this period in the mood of a gentler day. And his story is of course a fiction but he has recreated admirably in this work. The harshness and rigidity of the early Puritan era its fanatical emphasis upon asceticism and conformity which expressed itself in a passion for scapegoating as a means of cleansing the community from sin. The rampant superstition of the times pervades the entire work. There is a suggestion of

witchcraft that Hester was in communication with Satan but little pearl her child was a demon offspring. This was the atmosphere which was to give rise to the violence and terror of the witch mania. The late 17th century such an outburst of mass hysteria can be understood only in relation to the asceticism of the time and of the belief in woman's power for evil which goes back to the earliest primitive to Buddha's connected with woman's magic and dominance. The Puritan fathers acting upon to them the highest philosophical principles made a mighty effort to root out of the community. And in that effort hundreds of innocent beings not only women but men who were somehow implicated in this evil were persecuted and tortured or hanged. But this access was followed by a revulsion against the type of thinking which had caused it. Most of those connected with the judicial proceedings publicly admitted their error.

The jurors signed a paper pleading that they had labored under a delusion and many of those who had confessed themselves witches or of been instrumental in accusing others retracted all they had said and admitted that they had acted under the influence of terror. The clergy lost much of its early prestige and weakened its hold upon the people and the atmosphere became one in which the idea of toleration might be permitted to grow. The reaction of society was a move toward the repudiation of the theory of that woman through Eve was responsible for the sinfulness of man. The beginning of the end of this oldest conflict between men and women.