TW for domestic violenceThe Shakers — the ones who made furniture and hated sex — were not only ahea
TW for domestic violenceThe Shakers — the ones who made furniture and hated sex — were not only ahead of their time on women’s rights, they were ahead of ours, tooThe Shakers believed in one unassailable truth: That equality of the sexes is a human right“[I]n late 18th and early 19th century New England, Shaker settlements were well known for sheltering victims of abuse. Then as now, alcoholism, poverty and isolation were powerful abettors of domestic crime — except that it wasn’t considered crime in those days, thanks to common-law “rule of thumb,” which allowed a husband to beat his wife as long as he employed a rod no thicker than his thumb. “Legal” or not, many women were pummeled, whipped, stoned and raped. Joining a Shaker community promised safety.The Shakers did not simply protect women from violence at home. They institutionalized women’s equality and, in doing so, not only were they ahead of their time; they were ahead of ours. They began at the top: In the Shaker firmament, the spiritual incarnation of the religion’s founder and leader, Mother Ann Lee, sat side by side with Jesus Christ. This bold proclamation of a dual godhead, composed of male and female equals — coupled with the notion of Ann Lee at the helm of Shakerism — incensed men of the era, many of whom railed against Lee’s teachings in the East Coast towns she visited while preaching The Word. According to numerous accounts taken both from the Shakers who accompanied Lee as well as from observers outside the faith, mobs often abused her, stripping away her skirts and undergarments to check if she was a woman, a man or a witch. Weakened by the assaults, she died not long after completing her evangelical journey.A few years after the death of Mother Ann (as she was known to her flock), Mother Lucy Wright took over as head of the Shaker Ministry, thus becoming “the Lead” over all existing Shaker villages. Wright presided over the Society from 1796 to 1821, but the 16 settlements she oversaw were each managed on site by two Elders and two Eldresses. The “believers’” lives could be confining—sisters and brethren working hard at narrowly defined jobs with little crossover. Still, no one gender’s work was valued over the other’s, and there was an understanding that the community would fail if the sisters did not respect and support the brethren in their labors, and vice versa.” Read the full piece herePhoto source -- source link
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