Margaret Fell: A Shout-Out to Eve

After a time of quandary, I decided to proceed with the topic of early Quaker women in England. The topic drew my attention to the plethora of areas to explore regarding Quaker women, from pamphleteers to prophecy to power. One of the main women I will likely be exploring in my paper is Margaret Fell, a seventeenth-century Englishwoman who is recognized as one of the key founders of Quakerism. Fell is referred to at times as the “Mother” of Quakerism, a categorization I take issue with as it attempts to confine Fell to a maternal and therefore, in some ways, lesser position of power within the Quaker movement. However, her words reveal strength, authority, and agency. As an example, I will utilize Fell’s Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed by the Scriptures, a work by Fell in 1666.

In particular, Fell discusses the biblical story of Eve being persuaded by the serpent to eat from the forbidden tree. In reference to Eve’s confession of her deeds to God, Fell argues that “the woman spoke the truth unto the Lord,” which is aimed at establishing an honest characterization of women. Furthermore, Fell argues, “for he [the Lord] hath put enmity between the woman and the Serpent; and if the seed of the woman speak not, the seed of the Serpent speaks.” In this manner, Fell not only combats the traditional lumping of woman and serpent, woman and evil, together, she even suggests that to disallow women to speak is to permit evil to take hold. To a modern eye, she limits her argument for women’s claim to power generally by stressing that women must be allowed to speak in the “power of the Lord.” On the other hand, her own power could not be separated from the religious context in which she wielded it; thus, in such circumstances, her invocation of the Lord demonstrates a need for women’s authority aptly appropriate to the religious movement she was a part of. Secondly, her argument is one that shows a unique understanding of the traditional discrediting of women in power prior to the time period. For me, the images of the medieval association of woman and serpent immediately come to mind when regarding Fell’s argument.  As you can see in the fifteenth-century image below, Eve not only takes from the forbidden tree, but the snake has taken on a gendered appearance, one of a woman. In distinct contrast, Fell actually utilizes the story of Eve to prove a certain necessity of women’s voice in decisions and processes of authority.  Overall, Margaret Fell proved a unique awareness of the ways in which women had been denied power traditionally, which ironically empowered her own access to it.  

 

Primary Source- https://users.wfu.edu/zulick/340/Felltext.html

Image Source- https://mediaevalmusings.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/adam_eve_detail.jpg