1688: Felicity Mallard
The People of the Dawn—our Wampanoag neighbours—say that winter is not death but dreaming, and that the earth remembers herself more clearly in sleep. I believe them. They speak of balance between the seen and unseen, between strength and stillness, between man and woman too, and in this they possess a reason and justice deeper than our proud philosophers of England have ever yet conceived.
I have been long in this New World, long enough to feel how thin the wall is between one creature and another; and I find myself ever questioning that presumption which makes woman the secondary sex. Here, the Wampanoag tell no such tale. They say that in the beginning the Maker set the world upon the shoulders of Two—spirit of woman and spirit of man—neither greater, neither lesser, but turning one within the other as flame within air. How graceful a thought, and how contrary to all that is daily preached from the English pulpits that rise here like stone weeds in fields that once grew maize.
In their stories, a woman may speak to the wind, to the river, to the wolf, and the world listens as readily as to any man. She is keeper of seed, of death, of dreams; he, of hunt, of craft, of fire—but each borrowing from the other without shame. The notion of mastery between them seems to the Wampanoag as childish as boasting which hand is the better. And truly, as I grow old, I think our own customs suffer most from the noise of command and the muteness of those commanded.
I have thought much these past months upon what society might become if such balance were restored—if reason and compassion were wed in human governance as they are in nature. The Englishmen here see only wilderness and the correction of it. Their God still wears a beard and speaks thunder; their women, poor souls, must wear silence. Yet the world whispers another doctrine: that mind and virtue are neither male nor female, but the birthright of all who draw breath. I hold such persuasion now in my heart though I dare not voice it to many; it would be called wild fancy, much as they call the wisdom of the native people. But the pattern of truth is clear as water when the mud has settled.
If ever some bold and educated woman were to set down this argument in print, it might change the air of England itself. She would say that the mind of woman, if exercised, grows as strong as man’s, and that the barriers men call “nature” are but habit grown hard with age. She would argue that reason, not sex, should determine virtue and power. But perhaps that day lies still beyond my years. For now I am content to write these lines in secrecy and call them my comfort in exile.
I begin to suspect that the true New World lies not upon these shores at all, but within the awakening of thought that such a land occasions. If the Maker indeed set the world upon two shoulders, then surely one cannot bear it without faltering when the other is kept in chains.
You are here: States of Grace > Philosophy