Kristianna Polder
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198814221
- eISBN:
- 9780191851858
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198814221.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter examines the radical matriarchal identity of Margaret Fell (1614–1702), an indispensable figure in early Quakerism who promoted, funded, defended, and monitored the growth of the ...
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This chapter examines the radical matriarchal identity of Margaret Fell (1614–1702), an indispensable figure in early Quakerism who promoted, funded, defended, and monitored the growth of the movement both in the north of England, where she was based, and across Great Britain. Fell’s identity as the ‘mother of Quakerism’ has been frequently associated with more apparently private roles, such as that of wife and mother. Fell instead lived as a Spiritual Mother in the context of the arrival of ‘the New Jerusalem’, an apocalyptic framework that challenged gendered social constraints and freed women from the curse of mother Eve. Various vignettes from Fell’s biography reveal matriarchal activities that were countercultural and politically assertive. Fell emerges as an autonomous and powerful mother, wife, and Spiritual Matriarch, free from the strictures of seventeenth-century society.Less
This chapter examines the radical matriarchal identity of Margaret Fell (1614–1702), an indispensable figure in early Quakerism who promoted, funded, defended, and monitored the growth of the movement both in the north of England, where she was based, and across Great Britain. Fell’s identity as the ‘mother of Quakerism’ has been frequently associated with more apparently private roles, such as that of wife and mother. Fell instead lived as a Spiritual Mother in the context of the arrival of ‘the New Jerusalem’, an apocalyptic framework that challenged gendered social constraints and freed women from the curse of mother Eve. Various vignettes from Fell’s biography reveal matriarchal activities that were countercultural and politically assertive. Fell emerges as an autonomous and powerful mother, wife, and Spiritual Matriarch, free from the strictures of seventeenth-century society.
