Eliza, I feel, was a woman who was born before her time. That, in and of itself, is a revolution. Think about it: she wanted to be free from the confines of her parent's house. Eliza wanted her freedom; she wanted to live her life without people controlling her every movement. That is what makes her a revolutionary. It was the whole thriving idea of the revolution. The country had just won it's freedom from England - it's liberation. The concept was flowing through people, thriving off if the spirit. They were drunk from the send of freedom.
There's an argument that could be made that Eliza is the representation of the liberation and mistakes that the USA made in the founding decades. Eliza was a change in the ways in which women conducted themselves. She waited to get married - she wanted her time to play around. After all, Sanford was the dashing libertine - was somewhat akin to the Second Earl of Rochester. If a man can do such things, why not women? Is it because men can't get pregnant? Is it because men don't have as many clothes to take off? (Well, technically, all a woman would have to do then, is lift her skirts and shimmy out of her pantaloons. A man would just have to unlace his pants. So, it's just as easy. Never mind that question then.) Is it because women were stifled and treated more as property than as actual people before the 1900's? Eliza's (well, actually Elizabeth's, since it's based off of a true story) challenge of the Malthusian ideas of before made great advancements in the rights of women. Well, let me rephrase: it gave women a little more freedom to be more sexually independent.
But even today, if a man sleeps around or has several women or a mistress, he's considered a "player" and congratulated by his friends. When a woman has several men, she's called a slut or a whore or tramp by everyone, mostly behind her back, but also to her face. She's shunned somewhat, and I think that that idea was still prevalent even in Eliza's time. Her friends wrote to each other, gossiping about what poor, dear Eliza did. She went and played dull Boyer and the rakish Sanford. She went and got herself preggers. She went and ousted herself from "polite society" because she wanted to be a woman and co
ntrol her sexuality - since birth control didn't appear until the 1960's - and, Biblical-terms anyway, abstinence is only 99.99999% effective. Hey, not to offend any, but America was founded on Christian ideals, and according to the Bible, if you believe that, God can do just about anything, so being a virgin doesn't guarntee that you'll not get preggers. Hey, just saying...So, why the double standards? Why should men be ok with it - the playing around - and women think that it's the most horrible thing in the world? Why is it male students are "congratulated" (by their friends) when they sleep with a female teacher, but female students are thought of as wanton or somehow asking for it - be it something as simple as grades or something? Why? Why can't a woman be sexual and not thought of as a slut? Why can't they be just as sexually liberated as men? Why, if we fought for freedom and indepence, can't women choose who they sleep with, when they sleep with them, why they sleep with them and not be talked about?
So, I say then:
SEXUAL FREEDOM!!!!!!
I completely agree! So we like men? So what? People should respect one another, and make their own decisions. And have their own desires. Like Mrs. Lovett. Only maybe they should not, you know, lie about the wife being dead. Yeah. But back to men.
ReplyDeleteWe love them. We need them. But it shouldn't be so hard to find one who respects a woman as a free thinking, sexual creature. Rock on!
While I enjoyed your very honest and outgoing entry (which, I've noticed is sort of your thing hahaha) I don't think that Eliza's circumstance, her attraction to either of the two characters was influenced so much by sexual attraction as it was, more,the promise of affection emotionally and spiritually. She was a woman that longed for a human connection and a common psychological understanding with another as she felt very misunderstood and misinterpreted.
ReplyDeleteCool, exciting entry though, I'm a huge House/Johnny buff myself (not in that way but you know what I mean) Blog on.
My favorite point is that the American revolution gave way to another revolution, only this time based on gender. With the taste of liberation pervading a country, efforts seem to stretch out a bit and allow for more freedoms. Like after WWII, there is another period of civil rights movement, again including women's rights. There seems to be a collective conscience of a culture and once we go through something and all share a common experience it unites us into a push for something better. Keep advocating.
ReplyDeleteI know this isn't a complete, in depth, long thought-out comment or anything...but...I felt the need to respond and say:
ReplyDeleteAMEN! :)
I'm gonna play devils advocate on the double standard of the sexes thing (nothing personal, I promise). And this might get a little rambl-y.
ReplyDeleteI think that sex to men and women is so different that it skews the idea entirely. In the creative writing class I'm in we read a essay by Susan Minot called "Lust". In it she describes how she grew up in a catholic school and the pressure of sex from the boys (which she usually gave into.) She perfectly sums up the difference in sex between men and women (I promise this does connect to the Coquette too!) Here's what Minot says, "The more girls a boy has, the better. He has a bright look, having reaped fruits, blooming. He stalks around, sure-shouldered, and you have the feeling he's got more in him, a fatter heart, more stories to tell. For a girl, with each boy it's as if a petal gets plucked each time." Eliza was only trying to play like the boys. But I'm not so sure girls can. Especially when you compete with boys who sleep for the gratification and not the intimacy. And I do think it comes from girls having more consequences of sex than boys. I think the idea of freedom to choose what you want especially in Eliza's case is entirely wrapped up in sex, because in the classic sense that was the purpose of women. Baby factory and child raiser. And you can't have kids without sex. So it was expected by the husband that she would do her womanly duties. Therefore her wanting to choose to not get married automatically (in society) meant she was sleeping around and failing in her womanly duty. I dunno, just more to think about.