Gender Differences in Negotiating the Discipline of the Quakers

I have worked with 18th- and 19th-century monthly meeting records of the Society of Friends (Quakers) for a number of years. Those records reveal the inner workings of the Society. Quakers came together to discuss marriages, recognize visitors, and, most often, hear complaints about members who had committed infractions against the Society. While the records can be frustratingly pithy, they offer a glimpse of the psyches of Friends who remained in the Society as well as of those who left the Society, either voluntarily or not.

When George Fox founded the Society of Friends in the 1640s, he wrote a series of over 500 letters instructing his followers on spiritual matters. Those early letters became the core of a code of behavior, the Discipline, of the Society. The Discipline served in Fox’s mind as a barrier of preservation against outside world temptations and dangers. Over time, the Discipline also became a way for members to measure who was and who was not a Quaker, and how well a member upheld the Discipline. Drawing its authority from biblical precedent, the Discipline helped Friends exercise control over any Friend who might stray from the flock in all aspects of their lives. For example, the Discipline expected Quakers to marry only other Quakers.

Thousands of Friends found it possible to live their daily life within the bounds of the Discipline and to submit themselves to the control of the meeting. Growing up under the Discipline, they were conditioned to know what was acceptable Quaker behavior. Members with strong faith believed that by living their lives according to the Discipline they were nurturing “the light,” which meant opening themselves to being closer to God. They believed in the benefits of a faithful life, not only being better prepared for the afterlife but also accepting material advantages from the community for the here and now, for example, financial assistance, a ready-made market for goods, and help during harvest.

Still, the records reveal that each month a handful of Friends for a variety of reasons bristled at living under such strict guidelines and wandered from the Discipline. Neither faith alone nor the benefits of Quaker membership offered enough reason for some to refrain from committing infractions such as drinking too much at a party, attending another denomination’s meeting, falling in love with a non-Quaker, or starting a pre-wedding pregnancy.

When a member violated any aspect of the Discipline, they received a visit—oftentimes, multiple visits—by two or three members of the meeting, known as “weighty Friends,” to be counseled on their infractions. The goal of the visits (again based on biblical precedent) was to lead the “sinner” to publicly admit his or her wrongdoing, apologize, and ask to be taken back into the fold of the meeting. The initial encounters brought a good deal of stress to any wayward Quaker as the whole community was aware of the infraction and through the weighty Friends pressured the errant Quaker to repent. Violators of the Discipline were still expected to go to a meeting, stand before the membership, read a paper condemning their actions, and ask for forgiveness. If an apology was made, the repentant person most often was wel-

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comed back into the meeting. If an offender refused to take part in this public condemnation, then they faced disownment by the Society.

Those who had committed a one-time sin, such as drinking excessively, dancing, or fighting, had little trouble going to the meeting and admitting that they were wrong and would not do it again. Only in the rarest instances did the meeting move to disown someone for such infractions and then usually because other violations had been committed as well. On the other hand, condemning one’s actions became very difficult for men and, especially, women who had to admit they were wrong to have married a non-Quaker or to have given birth to a baby outside of marriage. While it was possible to discontinue committing a lesser offense, it was quite obviously much harder to “stop being married” or impossible to not have had a child. It forced women and men to choose between their religious beliefs and their husbands or wives, or their child.

Quaker men had an easier time condemning their actions than women did. The public venue to stand up and admit their sins was easier for men, who had far more practice at public speaking. Many men rationalized their behavior by saying such things as “I needed to protect myself, so I hit the guy” or “It was a special occasion, so I had too much to drink.” It was even easier for husbands to ask forgiveness for marriages to non-Quaker women, who were more likely to agree to join the Society than were non-Quaker husbands. For men to go before the men’s meeting, knowing that they at another time might be in a position to make decisions about other men, and the other men’s knowing that they might face the accused down the road for their own infraction, eased the process of apology.

Further, while the Society professed equality for both sexes in the eyes of God, reality showed that the men’s meeting still had the last word on punishments. Women not only had to face the women’s meeting’s sanction, they then had to go before the men’s meeting to apologize and ask forgiveness again. Thus, women often found themselves subjected to multiple humiliations: by the male members of their family, by their female peers, and, ultimately, by the men of the community. Consequently, reinstatements of men were greater than of women.

As the 18th century ended, the number of complaints and disownments continued to rise. This happened partly because some Friends recognized that even if they committed violations, their ties in the community would not be severed completely. In addition, as the Quaker community dispersed through migration and as land in the west became more readily available, the need of young Quaker men and women to stay bound to their parents became less important. A young man no longer needed to please his parents to ensure a share of the family, and a young woman could marry a non-Quaker and know that her husband might find affordable property in the newly opened backcountry.

By the early 19th century, more Friends had begun to see the need for increased flexibility in the Discipline. With continued losses of young men and women from the Society, as well as more cases of Friends refusing to condemn their actions, many meetings began to look the other way on matters that only a few years earlier would have been brought before the meeting. By loosening the Discipline, the Friends provided more breathing space for young men and women to find a continued role in the Society.

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