Perhaps one of the most original ideas posed in thisismyusername’s “Lady Mary and Her Little Lambs”, is the idea that Lady Mary regards reproduction as the redeeming factor in a loveless marriage. Thisismyusername writes that Lady Mary feels “imprisoned by the oppressive English laws”, that she comes off as a “resentful wife” who lacks companionship and closeness with her husband. Thisismyusername points towards the letters between Lady Mary and her husband as specific evidence; Lady Mary writes to him to request more money and to update him on his son, despite the fact that Lady Mary, seething, writes “your son is very well; I cannot forebear telling you so, tho’ you do not so much as ask after him”. “Lady Mary and Her Little Lambs”, in arguing Lady Mary’s life circumstance, suggests the reasons as to why Lady Mary believes that reproduction is important to Muslim women. As an afterthought, Thisismyusername writes that Lady Mary’s identity is found in her children, or rather that it in an essential part of her identity. What Thisismyusername fails to recognize is that Lady Mary, while dedicating a few letters on the subject of family, reproduction and children, it is not central in her letters. This is to say that Lady Mary’s letters, more concern matters of politics, history and culture of the Ottoman Empire than her children. If it was such a central part of Lady Mary’s identity, her children would be more of topic. Instead, Lady Mary’s identity resides in her independence, her curiosity, and her wit. Her children are more of a marginal part of her identity.
Tag Archive: female reproduction
In response to hpga26’s, “Lady Mary’s Obsession with Power,” I found the writers connection with sexuality and reproduction with power to be an idea worth exploring. Lady Mary spends a lot of time focusing on the role of reproduction and sexuality in the Ottoman Empire. At one point she makes the comment, “…but in this country, ‘tis to more despicable to be married and not fruitful than ‘tis with us to be fruitful before marriage.” (151) Which is basically saying that in the Ottoman Empire it was more disgraceful for a woman to be fertile and not bear children than it was taboo or disgraceful in England to have a child out of wedlock. In this culture, a woman’s value was calculated on her ability to produce offspring. In the quote, “They have a notion that whenever a woman leaves off bringing children ‘tis because she is too old for that business, whatever her face says to the contrary, and this opinion makes the ladies here so ready to make proofs of their youth…” (151) She makes the connection of a woman’s ability to reproduce as a proof of their youth, and possibly even a measure of a woman’s value. Where in England, the goal of reproduction was to produce an heir, so numbers didn’t mean much, but in the Ottoman Empire, your ability to reproduce and provide offspring was equivalent to the amount of respect and power you had as a woman. I think the sheer quantity and numbers in which the women are able to reproduce, was also fascinating for Lady Mary. She says, “Without any exaggeration, all of the women of my acquaintance that have been married ten year have twelve or thirteen children, and the old ones boast of having five and twenty or thirty apiece, and are respected according to the number they have reproduced.” (152) However, I do disagree with hpga26, when they said that, Lady Mary doesn’t see the Muslim women’s roles as mothers as a limiting one, because it is limited, in this culture your ability to reproduce is a determining factor to the value of your worth. The Muslim women do know how to take advantage of their sexuality and sex, but those without the ability to produce offspring are definitely limited in that aspect.
Gabriellehstowe’s original post, entitled “The Ecstasy Motherhood”, states that Lady Mary is comparing and contrasting the Muslim religion and culture to the English religion towards the attitude of women sexuality. Also, the blogger comments that Lady Mary admires the courage of these Turkish women because she knows how painful and difficult the process of reproduction is. Lady Mary respects their living rules because these women do not perceive themselves as sexual objects; on the contrary, they believe that by having more babies, they get more blessed by their God. Moreover, Lady Mary remembers with a full love that the most important she has is her son. Turkish women were very strategic, because they know the importance that this “tradition,” of having many children, has in their religion. However, the blogger, Gabriellehstowe, leaves out important details that are essential to have a better understanding of the admiration that lady Mary has towards these women. For example, in one of her letter she is criticizing the Islamic and Catholic religion. As Lady Mary says, “they have no more faith in the inspiration of Mahomet, than in the infallibility of the Pope, they make a frank profession of Deism among themselves, or to those they can trust…” (p. 230). She is describing how the Muslim people has lost their faith in the Catholic religion, and that is why they only believe in one God. Therefore, the Turkish women has been living under those “rules” that have been created or as Lady Mary says “invented” by the men. These women follow what is written in the Alcoran, because they are afraid to be excluded of the paradise that Mahomet promised them. However, here is where Lady Mary critics these rules as she narrates, “For Women, says he, not being capable to manage Affairs of States, nor to support the Fatigue of War, God has not order’d them to govern or reform the World; but he has entrusted them with an Office which is not less honourable, even that of multiplying human Race” (p. 229). Lady Mary is a critical and clever woman who knows the intelligence that these women possess and says that they are more than reproductive machines. In conclusion, Lady Mary admires the bravery that these women have to follow this unwise rule of reproduction and the respect they have for their religion. Also, she states that these women are not ignorant and that they respect this rule because they know that there is a reward afterwards.
In response to hpga26 post “Lady Mary’s Obsession with Power”, I agree that Lady Mary is obsessed with power, but I would argue that although Lady Mary views Turkish women’s sexuality to be different (freer even) than that of the English women she finds it to be controlled by religion. The only instant in which I would note there to be an admiration of power is when Lady Mary talks about “those that like their liberty and are not slaves to their religion content themselves with marrying when they are afraid of dying” (144). Here, she admires those who do not use religion as a model to live their lives, for their bodies, sexuality and reproduction are in their hands and they are to reason with it anyway they want. Lady Mary being aristocrat women, who stole her own education is critiquing the role of women that is imposed on them by religion. Turkish women might be at more liberty with their sexuality and reproduction, but it is ultimately controlled by religion. As Lady Mary notes that they believe that “the end of the creation of woman is to increase and multiply, and is only properly employed in the works of her calling when she is bringing children or taking care of them, which are all the virtues that God expects from her” (144). Although they are not a slave to their husbands, they are a slave to their religion. When discussing the subject of remarriage, she explains how the husband can only take back his wife if she sleeps with another man because that is part of Turkish law explained in the Qur’an. Lady Mary is offering a deist perspective on how religions with holy text are the ones that limit women to certain roles that deny the possibility of sexual liberation.
In the blog post written by gabriellehstowe on September 18, 2013 titled “The Ecstasy of Motherhood,” the publisher points out details of Lady Mary’s Turkish Embassy letters regarding Lady Mary’s views of female sexuality in the Ottoman Empire. Perhaps what is most striking about the letters, as pointed out in the post, is Lady Mary’s use of possessive pronouns when she contrasts between Islamic and Catholic beliefs regarding female sexuality. As mentioned by the blogger, Lady Mary writes in one of her letters ‘“What will become of your Saint Catherine…. the whole Bread-roll of your holy Virgins and Widows.”’ Here, Lady Mary noticeably distances herself from the Catholic ideology that virginity is holy and pure. The blogger also mentions the fact that Lady Mary, after contrasting female sexuality in Catholicism with female sexuality in Islam, subtly implies that the Islamic practice of women having an active sex life (within the context of marriage) for reproductive purposes is better than celibacy and abstinence by leaving the issue open to the reader’s discernment. One thing that may have been worth mentioning by the blogger is that the same trend of contrasting Islam with Catholicism is present in Joseph Pitts’ texts. This idea spans beyond the issue of just female sexuality, but touches on a recurring theme in literature which concerns itself with Western encounters with Islam – the theme of Islam versus Catholicism. Where Joseph Pitts sees Islamic practices concerning the accessibility of their holy texts as better than those practices of Catholicism, Lady Mary also sees female sexuality in Islam as superior to female sexuality in Catholicism. It seems that Lady Mary sees the idea of women being married and bearing children as more practical and beneficial than the very restricted sexual practices in Catholicism, which represses female sexuality altogether in Lady Mary’s point of view.
In the Turkish Embassy Letters, Lady Montagu notes on multiple instances how it appears that the Muslim Turks’ culture comparatively venerates women who complete their role as ‘baby-makers’ as opposed to the Christian Europeans who seek to keep women eternally chaste. In the book she, boldly even, invites her reader to compare which tradition is more contrived. It is clear the Lady Montagu is in favor of and ‘admires’ Muslim female sexuality and reproduction. However, I would shy away from romantic notions, that she enjoys the idea of motherhood being put on a pedestal so merely because she enjoys it so much. Though she is clearly closer to her son while Lord Montagu doesn’t “so much ask about him” (228), her fondness for the Muslim appraisal of motherhood is not because it helps her keep her identity in a foreign land although it does. Yet, it would have allowed her identity in any land. She is fond of it because it suggests that through the Muslim female sexuality and reproduction women are able to gain power and autonomy in other areas of their life at least indirectly. As opposed to Lady Montagu’s marriage with Lord Montagu which was a ‘bad business transaction’ and one that was forced on her, at least the Turkish Muslim Women of around her same class have the possibility of choice. Lady Montagu is seduced by the power to choose, and to not necessarily have her life dictated to her by one man. And of course the more children a Turkish Muslim Woman has the more power she has. Though, the notion does fall within horrendously stereotypical and masculine dominated views of women, during the time such views the norm and so from merely a Enlightenment standpoint, Lady Montagu saw this as truly innovative if not even progressive.
Transnational Encounters with Islam in 18th- and 19th-Century British Literature 