Suffer Not a Woman to Speak (R)

Women have often been considered the lesser sex. They have been treated as such, with laws that consider them property and leave them with no voice. Women have been seen only as a means to continue family lines, as a caretaker of children and a means for meals and a clean, efficient household. Even in this role, however, women have managed to be influential, by supporting the men in times of war and political unrest, by fulfilling the requirements of their position to the best of their abilities and stepping up to the plate when it is asked of them.

"Suffer Not a Woman to Speak" revolves around the disadvantages women have suffered throughout the history of America as the lesser sex. It points out several truths, such as women's subservient role to men in Christianity and in the legal system, but does this in an almost immature way in various places within the text. When discussing the Salem witch trials, the women who confessed to "practicing sorcery" are portrayed as either mentally unsound or of leading such "monotonous drudgery" of lives that inspired wishful thinking of a "very strong...fantasy." (19). This manner of approaching the subject generalizes that all the persecuted women were innocent, which is a generalization that, without hard textual evidence, one cannot make and expect the reader to believe. Another instance of inappropriate wording is in the discussion of Common Law, in which the writer leads up to how feminists of that time opposed the treatment of married women as property of her husband. It's repetitive in how it states several times what Common Law is in regards to married women, then for emotional affect talks of a part of Common Law that does not pertain to the topic. After the irrelevant mentioning of the Common Law's criminal code, it attempts to connect the idea with the main one with the obvious statement that "when feminists assailed the Common Law system, it was not the criminal code to which they objected. The...complaint...rested on its civil code." (22). These typed of remarks degrade the passage's appeal by making it appear to be a less than reliable source prone to exaggerating in order to validate its point.

In telling of the disadvantages women endured, the passage continuously shows them as helpless victims on which to be pitied. But the women from the colonial and American Revolution period were far from helpless. They were responsible for the wide array of duties entailed in running the household. The women who immigrated to the colonies had to be hardy and strong willed to survive the harsh conditions of the wilderness and still go through with the childbirth and childcare they were expected of. A sense of sexual equality was a necessity in colonial times, as the women had to partake in the men's work for the colonies' survival. During the Revolution, women had to hold the home front down, doing both sexes' jobs of managing farms and businesses while the men were away, and women employed as nurses and cooks also traveled with the militias. It is evident then that, though women were oppressed as this text says, they were not completely reliant on their male counterparts.

As "Suffer Not a Woman to Speak" focuses on the subjugation of women in a political and religious sense, it undermines the importance of women. The disagreement is that, even though women had an unfair, predetermined life path, it did not diminish the importance of their occupations. After the Revolution, women were held to the expectations of Republican Motherhood, to stay at home and take care of and educate the children. That education of the next generation of males was highly important for the future of the country, which would be under control of those male children. In this sense, though men shaped the country and contributed to it economically and politcally, women were responsible for the future of the country by ensuring that the necessary values and lessons were passed down through the generations.

It is true that women in colonial America had disadvantages in comparison to their male counterparts and were seen in religion as more sexually deviant and satanically inclined beings. Women amounted to less than men in society and, in this sense, were dependent on the opposite sex. The passage, while correct in what drawbacks it presents to prove the inequality between men and women, incorrectly portrays women as frail in occurences where they were anything but. The text becomes unreliable in instances where it attempts to emotionally convince the reader, which is when it begins to overlook certain important aspects of the history it is using as evidence.



Works Cited:

Murrin, John, Paul E. Johnson, James M. McPherson, Gary Gerstle, Emily S. Rosenberg, and
Normal L. Rosenburg. Liberty Equality Power A History of the American People. Third
Edition. Tonronto

"Suffer Not a Woman to Speak"