Emma and the Prudes

No, ‘Emma and the Prudes’ is not the name of a new rock band.  It’s the title of a talk today by Wendy Lee for the Jane Austen Society in New York.  Was Austen’s Emma a prude by the standards of the day?

I was particularly interested in the topic, as a ‘prude’ myself, and having just schlogged my way through the rather awful Spinster for my book club

Lee was careful to distinguish being a prude from being a spinster.  Her source is 17th-century French literature and its female types–the prude and the coquette.  The Queen and the flirt

A prude is a woman who seeks social and political power.  Consequently, she is suspicious of marriage, even if she is married, and avoids it if she isn’t.  Being a prude has nothing to do with sexuality, having or not having sex, nor attitudes about sex.  Instead, the prude simply preferred fem-centric society.

Clearly, the term is derogatory.  The male equivalent is the misogynist.

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Was Emma a prude? She states clearly that there’s no advantage to her marrying. She’s already financially secure. Only love would induce her. She certainly enjoys a circle of female friends. Sounds like a prude to me.

In the literature Lee studied, the prude was depicted as a hypocritical, judgmental killjoy, who could be hysterical and suicidal.  Iconoclast, heretic, vulture.  No one can know what she’s thinking, as she comes across as ‘unfeeling,’ with neither affection not animosity.  She certainly was the best of liars.  From the literature.  Lovely

A spinster had more positive associations initially, referring to 12th-century girls in France who worked as spinners, an acceptable occupation for unmarried women.  Over time, you know what happened.  The male equivalent was bachelor, never a pejorative

Basically, these ugly labels keep women in their place, towing the cultural line.  Lee’s literature included Prude, the novel, by a Young Lady.  I pointed out that whether or not the author was a woman, the point was to keep women in the marital way.  Lee shows how the husband in marriage replaced the circle of women, a sacrifice by the prude

I also asked Lee about the link to the history of feminism.  In the U.S. from the 1850s on, women who advocated for their rights were certainly considered difficult.  They merely wanted to be sovereigns of their own lives.  In other words, a prude.

When you think about it, sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

Small Worlds

In the category of it’s-a-small-world-after-all, today’s lecture on Jane Austen’s Emma and the screening of the Israeli film “Fill the Void” I attended yesterday are completely related.  Both the novel and the film used “economy of means” — just a word or gesture is full of  significance.  Not much is needed to get a whole world across.

Emma paints a social canvas of a small community in the radius of greater London, which had surpassed a million residents in the early 1800s.  “Fill the Void” follows one Hasidic household in the teeming city of contemporary Tel Aviv.  Both accentuate the vulnerability of unmarried women in restrictive, rule-bound communities.  Neither suggest the possibilities of a wider world, in which characters have greater choice.

Given how relevant these issues are even in non-cloistered communities today, I needed some fresh air.  I decided to walk the 20 blocks to my crosstown bus.  And what a day for a walk through another set of small worlds.  The lecture took place at the Columbia University Faculty House, and the campus was breathtaking.

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I followed this bride for awhile before passing her.  She was marrying in a traditional Korean ceremony.

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Yes, there are temporary, tiny petting zoos in New York City.

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And enormous cathedrals for the ages.

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Cathedral of St. John the Divine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Children’s Sculpture Garden across the street from the cathedral has small works and giant monuments.

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Spanish Harlem is a small world of its own, full of taquerias, beauty shops, and barber shops.  I liked how the orange shirts of the barbers and the capes on their patrons were reflected in the mirror.  I was too self-conscious to go for a better shot, to show the diversity of young and older men getting their hair cut and heads shaved.

 

 

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And street fair season has started up again.  On Amsterdam above 96th Street, it’s quieter than those further downtown.  But all the usual suspects were there, including the booths with stuff that fell off the back of a truck, the jewelry stalls, food trucks, and this place which had attracted a crowd:

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What interested me was how many small worlds I walked through in just 20 blocks.  We all live in a small world of our own making.  What a difference stepping outside can make.