Bible Position of Woman.
Stone, Lucy. Bible Position of Woman. Indianapolis: The Indiana Free Democrat, Thursday, December 8, 1853.
Printed news sheets - 19 x 25” (folded to 9-1/2 x 12-1/2”), sheets disbound with discreet stab holes at right margin. In custom-made lettercase.
At the behest of Abby Kelly Foster, the American Anti-Slavery Society hired Lucy Stone in the fall of 1847 to lecture on the abolition of slavery. She soon undertook to speak out on women’s rights as well. Though sometimes heckled, she proved an able and sought-after lecturer. NAW provides a vivid portrait: “An impressive speaker, she drew large audiences. As a young woman she looked like a small pink-cheeked schoolgirl, with her smooth brown hair cut round at the neck and her clear gray eyes; but her voice was her chief asset—low and musical, yet clear and strong. She used no rhetorical tricks and little humor, but concentrated intensely on her subject, her very sincerity producing a natural eloquence that stirred her listeners.”
When a young girl, she had heard her pastor read out from his pulpit the infamous Pastoral Letter denouncing women’s attempt to enter the political sphere. As a grown woman, she was determined to point out the traditions, which had shaped the language concerning women in the Bible. The Free Democrat reports Stone “claimed a totally different position for woman from the one usually assigned her by theological teachers.” She cited instances where the Bible’s original Greek or Latin had been poorly translated. Paul’s stricture that “it is a shame for women to speak in the church” reflected the substitution of ‘speak' for the more likely 'gossip'. Yet even as inadequate or slanted translation combined with the force of long-forgotten local tradition to cumulatively hedge women round, Stone insisted that the central teachings of Christianity involved no such subordination of women.
Stone delivered this lecture on a number of occasions, causing her Congregationalist Church to excommunicate her. As American Women’s History emphasizes “Stone’s career as a controversial but profitable lecturer predated that of Anthony by a number of years, while her thoughts on the Bible predated Stanton’s work in that area by decades.” A rare first-hand account of this important lecture.
American Women’s History, pp. 324-325.
NAW, Vol. III, pp. 387-388.
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