R "Suffer not a woman to speak"

The passage “Suffer not a Woman to Speak” shows the treatment of woman through different views. The author shows how woman were badly treated and abused; but the author also shows how they got an education and could run church groups. This leads me to believe that the author basically qualifies the opinion of how woman were treated in that era.

Right off the author exemplifies that woman were religiously looked at as inferiors to men. The author also gives examples of how woman preachers who were giving sermons were being persecuted, just because they were of opposite sex. The author says that it wasn’t because of the slander or heresy that they were preaching; but because they were woman. Also many other stories such as the Salem witch trials support his case of the fact that woman were always the one to blame when something went wrong. Another interesting comment he made was femme coverte, which was the fact that a husband owned a woman as property basically. All these examples build a solid argument that woman were definitely mal treated and abused during the colonial era. As soon as your sure this is the authors argument, the author suddenly changes the perspective.

The author shows us another argument, the argument that the certain group the “Quakers” allowed their woman to do many different things. This includes encouraging women to speak out on spiritual and moral issues, which is a big deal during this time period. Protestant men also believed that women and men should be held at a single standard, which to a degree hints equality somewhat maybe.

So I believe from interpreting this passage that the primary purpose for the author’s different approaches was the fact that it would let the reader interpret and choose for themselves what their opinion on the article is.. As society changes, so will the status of women.