3 - Legislating morality in the marriage market

Summary

On the title page of Ester hath hang'd Haman, Ester Sowernam's 1617 response to Joseph Swetnam's Araignment of Lewde, idle, froward and unconstant women (1615), Sowernam offers up the following detail. In naming herself, she promises that she is “neither Maide, Wife nor Widdowe, yet really all, and therefore experienced to defend all.” Although the immediate motivation for Sowernam's lines is no doubt to counter Swetnam's cursory dismissal of women who are neither maids, wives, nor widows (he calls them “unmarried wantons”), the neither/nor positioning that Sowernam chooses is both unsettling and enigmatic. Numerous writers have taken up her puzzling claim. Linda Woodbridge wonders whether the assertion suggests male authorship or perhaps a “protest against categorizing women by marital status and sexual experience.” Ann Jones, in turn, sees Sowernam's contention as a defense strategy, legitimating her right to speak. Certainly the ambiguity of Sowernam's naming is challenging. What exactly is she trying to tell us? That she is not a she? That she is opposed to categorical definition? That she is justified in speaking? While the above readings seem both valid and useful, we might add another interpretive possibility to this already vexed proposition by considering Sowernam's assertion literally, as an ironic acknowledgment of the actual material circumstances of an as yet nebulous marriage contract.