The gentlewoman's remembrance by Isaac Stephens

Author:Isaac Stephens [Stephens, Isaac]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, General, Modern, 17th Century, Social Science, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9781784991432
Google: l-3VyAEACAAJ
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2016-01-15T00:47:28+00:00

Patriarchy and singlehood in Elizabeth Isham's life

The compelling story of how Elizabeth Isham became a never-married woman forces us to consider the historical themes of patriarchy and singlehood in a fresh light. Her ‘Booke of Rememberance’ gives us the rare opportunity to enter into the mind, if not the subjective self of a woman who belonged to a demographic that represented a significant percentage of the English population by the middle of the seventeenth century. If indeed one in five women remained single throughout their lives in the period, then it is very likely that nearly every family – be it nuclear or extended – had at least one never-married female within its ranks. Elizabeth's ‘confessions’ allows us an inside perspective of the emotions and thinking of such a woman, and how these emotions and thinking shaped her view of the world. She was acutely aware that her choice to remain single was unconventional for a Protestant woman in England, and this awareness shaped how and why she decided to write her life into a narrative autobiography. The pious life, as captured within its pages, allowed her to defend against negative assessments of her singlehood and, in turn, her singlehood proved important to how she thought about the most advantageous way to fashion that pious life. In other words, singlehood and worshipping God were symbiotic for her, two sides of the same coin that could and should never separate. If we apply conventional historical wisdom, the fact that a Protestant or, more specifically, a Puritan woman could hold such a belief is truly remarkable. Yet Elizabeth's thinking was not unprecedented for the period, since leading theological and conduct writers and women of a similar confessional leaning could also see the merits of singlehood in an otherwise religious and cultural framework that gave the virtues of marriage precedence. Ambiguity thus existed within Protestant thinking, and it provided intellectual room for a single woman to work within and find legitimacy for her decision not to enter into wedlock. Whether a person married or not was all dependent on providence, and Elizabeth fully accepted that she received the gift of continence from an omnipotent and spiritual patriarch. How apropos for a Puritan woman, although a Puritan women who never married.

We simply cannot fully understand Elizabeth Isham without giving significant pride of place to this marital status – it enveloped and defined her entire existence, both in relation to her internal and external self. In this regard, we need to stand up and listen intently when Amy Froide asserts that the consideration of marital status – particularly as a category of analysis like class or gender – can reveal much about how women in the early modern period constructed their identities. Elizabeth's life probably would have taken a different path had she married John Dryden II; she would have achieved the norm that English society expected of adult women – that of wife and, perhaps eventually, mother. Marriage could have also bestowed on Elizabeth

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