Chapter 6 -- Methodistical; chapter 7 -- too taxing for women

Chapter 6

An interesting term on page 52. Mrs. Cadwallader speaking of Dorothea:

I knew there was a great deal of nonsense in her—a flighty sort of Methodistical stuff.

I’ll have to ask my Methodist friends how to understand “Methodistical stuff.”

Sir James Chettam finds out about Dorothea’s engagement to Casaubon and is much pained by the report. This chapter ends with a little lesson in the field of virtue:

We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, “Oh, nothing!” Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our own hurts—not to hurt others.

I’m pondering whether I agree with such a sentiment or not.

Chapter 7

Page 60. Mr. Brooke speaking: “Well, but now, Casaubon, such deep studies classics, mathematics, that kind of thing, are too taxing for a woman—too taxing, you know.” And later: “But there is a lightness about the feminine mind—a touch and go—music, the fine arts, that kind of thing—they should study those up to a certain point, women should.”

The idea of women being inferior to men is an ancient concept. Here is a passage from Plato:

                                              

It is only males who are created directly by the gods and are given souls. Those who live rightly return to the stars, but those who are ‘cowards or [lead unrighteous lives] may with reason be supposed to have changed into the nature of women in the second generation’. This downward progress may continue through successive reincarnations unless reversed. In this situation, obviously it is only men who are complete human beings and can hope for ultimate fulfilment; the best a woman can hope for is to become a man (Timaeus, 90e)

But probably more influential than Plato on this question is Aristotle:

It is the best for all tame animals to be ruled by human beings. For this is how they are kept alive. In the same way, the relationship between the male and the female is by nature such that the male is higher, the female lower, that the male rules and the female is ruled. (Politica, Part V)

But the kind of rule differs; the freeman rules over the slave after another manner from that in which the male rules over the female, or the man over the child…For the slave has no deliberative faculty at all; the woman has, but it is without authority, and the child has, but it is immature…the courage of a man is shown in commanding, of a woman in obeying…as the poet says of women, "Silence is a woman's glory." (Part XIII)

The New Testament writer, St. Paul, may have gotten a bad rap in regard to his opinion of women. Mainline New Testament scholars, along with some Evangelical scholars, consider only seven of the letters attributed to Paul as being authentically authored by him. Those are: Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. In these epistles women are viewed quite favorably. A woman named Junia is called an apostle. A female named Phoebe is a deacon. Priscilla is a teacher. And the pinnacle of sexual equality is stated in Galatians: In Christ there is no long male and female.

It is in the “inauthentic” Pauline letters that the Aristotelian idea of female inferiority comes into play. In the letters of Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus. In those letters the “household code” prevalent in the Greco-Roman world is affirmed, and women are told to submit to their husbands. Women are commanded to “learn in silence in full submission” in the church in 1 Timothy. The five Pauline letters that were traditionally thought to be by Paul are now considered to be authored by a later “school of Paul” or disciples of Paul. And there may be scraps of authentic Pauline material found therein.

I bring up Paul in order to say that the Christian Tradition has within its core message a redemptive word on sexual equality. George Eliot was reflecting the culture of her time and place, and was surely intending to put it on display as a way of challenging patriarchy.