Unbecoming Mothers by Gustafson Diana;

Author:Gustafson, Diana;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2005-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Paradox of Quaker Motherhood

Quaker women who left their children to go on spiritual journeys violated expectations for good mothers commonly held in mid to late seventeenth-century England. First, Quaker mothers were not purified ritualistically after childbirth, nor did they have their babies baptized, two expectations of good motherhood held by the Anglican Church (Trevett, 1991). Second, Quaker mothers often ignored the expectations for good motherhood established by the medical community. It is unlikely that the sight of pregnant women (“women in travail”) or new mothers withstanding long bouts in prisons or traveling long distances by foot or horseback would be considered favorably by physicians or midwives.

Most physicians and midwives would have frowned upon Quaker women such as Esther Biddle who gave birth to at least one of her four children while in prison; Katharine Jackson who saw two of her newborn children die during her imprisonment at Warwick jail; and Anne Whitehead, later a confirmed “mother in Israel,” who was imprisoned in Ilchester “away from her husband, and four small children, and one tender child she carried in her arms” (as cited in Hobby, 1992, pp. 37–38). Their religious beliefs, combined with the hardships they endured on behalf of their faith, set most Quaker mothers apart from the idealized mother envisioned by contemporary English society.

Even more significant, Quaker women who traveled great distances from their children occupied an ambivalent position within their own community of Friends. A dichotomy exists in Quaker literature and experience about the roles and expectations for women, especially in regard to motherhood. On one hand, there was a ready acknowledgment that Quaker women, as spiritual equals and the handmaidens of God, were as likely as their male counterparts to be called by God to preach in public, to rail against church and state authorities, to suffer punishment and imprisonment, and to travel great distances (Mack, 1992; Trevett, 1991, 2000). Such women were generally admired and held in great respect. As such, female Friends were not overtly criticized by Quaker leadership for leaving their children, husbands, and homes, for it was understood that this choice was not their own but rather the dictates of their “inner Spirit.” It should be noted, too, that members of the Society of Friends referred to themselves as the “Children of Light,” a telling name which suggests that, like true children, their innocence and virtue would be protected in a corrupt world by God, the father of all. Although this did not, by any stretch, negate the importance of the biological mother, the assumption was that God watched over and protected all of his faithful followers even in the absence of a parent.

On the other hand, there was an assumption of good motherhood in Quakerism that was at odds with the activities pursued by handmaidens of God and female prophets. As in the prescriptive literature concerning childhood, the Quaker mother was implicitly expected to be present and attentive to the spiritual and physical needs of her children. Quaker mothers, like other

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