I’m fascinated by the following paragraph:
“One of the great mythic transformations of the early nineteenth century was the feminisation of angels. Until the 1790s, British art and prose portrayed the angel as masculine or, at most, bisexual – characteristically muscular, strong and even displaying male genitalia, and a free divine spirit inhabiting the chasm of sky and space. But by the early Victorian period angels were virtuously feminine in form and increasingly shown in domestic confinement, no longer free to fly. Women had become divine, but an angel now confined to the house.” (p. 58)

A trip to the Tate Britain to check this out is definitely in order.

But I have seen from personal experience, particularly in the case of my grandmother (born 1901), evidence for the following passage:
“Few women before the mid-twentieth century could even attempt to throw off these shackles of their moral identity. Those who did were … overwhelmingly aristocratic, upper-middle-class, or bohemian and artistic. But for the ‘ordinary’ women to contemplate revolt against evangelical discourse was, as with ‘Amoebe'{a correspondent to the Telegraph], to endanger being a woman. ‘My whole motive in life seemed gone, and I felt that the moral which hung upon the motive must go too.’ Clinging to or acquiring the status of being ‘a Christian’ was sine qua non for most women between 1800 and 1950.” (p. 128.)

A focus on the start as well as the end date there might be important, as the (approximate) date when the position of women changed very fundamentally.

See here for earlier post and reference.

It seems that several times a week now I find another wonderful woman writer from the 16th or 17th or 18th centuries, before, on many popular accounts, there were any at all.

Today’s is Mary Davys, who I encountered during an excellent paper at the “The Women’s Studies Group: 1500-1837”, of which more here.

It was about her The Fugitive, 1705, of which unfortunately there is not a modern edition, but I’ve gone looking for some other writing. A sample:
On why she wrote fiction …

“The Pedant despises the most elaborate Undertaking, unless it appears in the World with Greek and Latin Motto’s; a Man that would please him, must pore an Age over Musty Authors, till his brains are as worm-eaten as the books he reads . . . I have neither Inclination nor Learning enough to hope for his favour, so lay him aside.
The next I can never hope to please, is the Dogmatical Puppy, who like a Hedgehog is wrapt up in his own Opinions . . . I leave him therefore . . . I confess the Royal Exchange, Southsea with a P-x, Exchange Alley, and all trade in general, are so foreign to my understanding that I leave ’em where I found ’em and cast an oblique glance at the Philosopher, who I take be a good clever fellow in his way. But I am again forced to betray my ignorance. I know so little of him that I leave him to his, No Pleasure, No Pain; and a thousand other Chimera’s while I face about to the Man of Gallantry. Love is a very common topick, but ’tis withal a very copious one; and wou’d the Poets, Printers, and Booksellers but speak the truth of it, they wou’d own themselves more obliged to that one subject for their Bread, than all the rest put together. ‘Tis there I fix.”

(The Reformed Coquet, 1724, p. 2)

That’s typical of her delightfully blunt writing, but it seems she suffered for her style, and with the increasing gentrification of the literary world during her lifetime (1674-1732); the Grub-Street Journal (No 80, 15 July 1731) dismissed her as the author of “several bawdy Novels”. Earthy, or down-to-earth
would be a better label.

This is the title of an interesting-looking magazine out of Turkey, with a focus on the meeting of eastern and western cultures, which you can find here. They only have abstracts on the web, but still worth a look.
Two typical stories juxtapose Byzantine amulets and Ottoman talismanic seals.
The Byzantine: “Talismans or amulets were also hung at the doors of houses and churches, in graveyards, and on the cradles of infants. Small bronze bells known as tintinnabula were similarly believed to chase away evil spirits. The 4th century monk Ioannes Khrysostomos recommended a crucifix instead of a bell hung around children’s necks or attached to their clothing as a means of protection.”
The Ottoman: “The relationship of these beliefs with religion is not always a comfortable one, however. Where the Islamic faith is concerned, the Prophet Muhammad specifically prohibited the use of magic, warning that such practices were harmful and a violation of religious principles. Believers were advised to recite certain prayers from the Koran as protection against the evil eye and magic.”
A posting on H-Asia tells me a “women in art” edition is on the way.

for my piece in today’s Independent, about the exhibition Iron Ladies: Women in Thatcher’s Britain .

The exhibition is at the Women’s Library in London until April.

On a more cheerful note, I’ve just finished a fascinating book of this title, by C.G. Brown.

Its thesis is that what it calls the “secularisation” theory, that Britain, and indeed most of the West, has gradually been becoming less and less “Christian”, a trend claimed to date back at least to the beginnings of industrialisation and significant urbanisation, is wrong.

Instead, it argues that while there was a significant change about 1800, when piety became “feminised”, Christianity continued to have a stranglehold, in large part through its ability to define “respectable” femininity. In fact it was at its strongest in the first decade of the 20th century, and enjoyed a post-WWII resurgence that took it to only just below that peak again, a reflection of and adjunct to the attempt to push women back into the home.

This only, suddenly, broke down during the 1960s, with a “cultural revolution”, which it lays down to “the pop record” and later feminism. It makes an interesting point: “The lyrics of all of the 49 songs copyrighted by the Beatles during 1963-4 were about boy-girl romance. Beatles lyrics then changed radically, with romance dropping to … a mere 5 per cent of 1967 output … displaced by lyrical themes influenced by amongst other things the anti-war movement, drugs, nihilism, existentialism, nostalgia and eastern mysticism.” (p. 178)

It quotes the Moral Welfare Committee of the general assembly of the Church of Scotland, which initially was quite optimistic about sexual permissiveness: “If the sanctions of commandment and convention are gone, people are set free to respond to goodness for its own sake … not by the fear of lost respectability.” Finally, however, it concluded: “It is the promiscuous girl who is the real problem here.” (p. 180)

The book says, broadly, the church was right in that conclusion. Go girl!

(Routledge, 2001)

Just came across a really annoying article, about “Single Professional Women: A Global Phenomenon Challenges and Opportunities”. Sounds all right, and it is in the Journal of International Women’s Studies (Vol. 5, No 5, June 2004).

But the theme is: Gosh, isn’t it terrible all these educated women are not getting married and having babies, and it’s all because they’re too picky about husbands. What can we do to change this?

Really, you expect it in the Daily Mail, but in an academic journal of women’s studies?!