Anne Bradstreet and Womanhood

I just finished reading Beyond Stateliest Marble: The Passionate Femininity of Anne Bradstreet by Douglas Wilson.

I wanted to give you a taste for this book by quoting extensively from a chapter toward the end of the book called “Womanhood”.

“In Anne Bradstreet’s day, the roles for men and women were defined, understood, and loved. The result, naturally, was remarkable social stability. But because of our current widespread democratic egalitarianism, to call for a return to this older, simpler (and biblical) social order is no doubt a thought violation or hate crime of some sort. But it is something we must call for regardless.

The legacy of Anne Bradstreet in this regard is that she enables us to refute the slanders brought by those who hate the older social order. Those slanders keep coming because it is hard to argue with how God created the world. The debate between the forces of egalitarianism and those who embrace the biblical order is not a debate between those who want to paint something blue and those who want to paint it red. Rather it is a debate between those who want to let water run downhill and those who want to sweep it up the hill. The egalitarians have to argue for their position constantly, and so we find them taking every shot they can. Anne Bradstreet has left us with a wonderful collection of answers.

We are told that a biblical social order does not respect women. And so we turn to Anne, who was one of the most highly respected individuals in New England.

We are told that in a biblical society, women would not be educated. And so we look to the stern and gracious Thomas Dudley, a rock-ribbed Puritan if ever there was one, who saw to it that his daughter was one of the best-educated individuals in the colony.

We are told that women in a biblical society would be sexually repressed. And so, again, we turn to Anne Bradstreet, who was passionately devoted to her husband and not at all ashamed of it.

We are told that women must have access to the world of corporate advancement in order to find fulfillment in their lives. And so we turn to Anne Bradstreet who gave herself away to her family, complete and fulfilled.

We are told that women are oppressed through having to bear children, and if they must bear any, it ought to be around 1.2 children. Anne Bradstreet had eight little ones, all of whom delighted her. They were not a burden for her soul—they were her soul’s refreshment and joy.

We are told that a biblical treatment of women will result in them having to live up on a china doll pedestal. So again, we look to find Anne Bradstreet laboring faithfully for her household in the wilderness.

Not only does Anne provide us with a counter-example for virtually every slander, we find that the accusations made against her (and her sisters), all shown to be false, remind us of something.
The accusations can be turned around.

Does our secular culture respect women? Pretends to. But vicious attacks on women are commonplace in the pop music of our day. “Respect for women” is demanded if the target is sexually segregated submarines. The powers-that-be want to station women on submarines because it is too hard to molest them when we leave them on shore. Our intellectualoids’ true intent is seen in how they respond when some rap “artist” wants to rape and dismember women. Our feminist culture today hate women, despises them.

Education? Our current establishment doesn’t know how to educate anyone, including the girls.

When it comes to sexual repression, we find as much sexual unhappiness in our society today (among women) as has ever existed. Women today typically have to deal with the baggage caused by a series of failed relationships. The sexual revolution was a revolution of promiscuous males, for promiscuous males, and by promiscuous males. the women who were manipulated into going along with it (and there were many) did not have a fraction of the sexual contentment experienced by women such as Anne Bradstreet.

As for success in the corporate world, women have been told here that in order to be fulfilled they have to be like men. They have to want what men want, they have to compete the way men compete, they have to deny themselves—and not the way Jesus said we have to deny ourselves. They must deny how God made them, which means denying their essential femininity. Some of them manage it, but the results are not pretty.

Barrenness is not something that can satisfy a woman. If the loss is God-given, then a godly woman can find her satisfaction in His will. But when it is self-induced, the dissatisfaction is profound. And this is something that even many feminists have lately discovered, as they ahve begun listening to their “biological clocks”.

It is quite false that Puritan women were porcelain doll figures. They were women, created in the image of God, designed by Him to complement the men. But if we flip this around, we do find that young girls today are encouraged to become Barbie dolls. And so they do, growing up to acquire their big breasts, just like Barbie, and usually made out of the same material.

For young girls today, it should be quite clear that Anne Bradstreet provides a godly model of biblical womanhood.”

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