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What if women’s writing in the nineteenth century didn’t have to be about “killing the angel,” but about “finding the angles”? What if Harriet Beecher Stowe, X, and X, each in their own way, from their own subject positions, found that the most effective means of persuasion was to accept a set of limitations? Elizabeth Howells has argued that Hannah More, Eliza Cook, and Isabelle Bird prefaced their publications in ways that “gesture to appropriate feminine codes and to powerful rhetorical precedents in order to justify their projects” (137). These disclaimers, while limiting the persona of the author, seem, contradictorily, to establish an ethos of reliability and trustworthiness. Like Anne Hutchinson, the early American poet, each of these female authors acknowledges her limited resources and talent before presenting their products. The question is, to what extent was this modesty artificial, and to what extent was it useful?
“Artificial” has a range of connotations. On the negative end, it implies that something is not natural; false. On the other end, the origins of the word relate to something skillfully made. “Artifice” stems from this meaning but implies the use of skill for the purposes of deceit. The balance between deceit and cunning lies in the rhetor’s correct and ethical gauging of audience perception. If the rhetors aims are clearly stated, and he or she is really who he or she claims to be, then there is no fraud. If, on the other hand, the rhetor is claiming to comply with a custom or conform to a norm, and does not, there is fraud. From the outset, then, looking at the rhetorical and authorial claims of conservative 19th century women is a pursuit of an ethical question: were these women honest with themselves and their audiences?
For the most part, I believe they were. It was left to the 20th and 21st centuries to invent claims for women and then impose them on 19th century rhetors. The original question provoking this project was, if conservative Christian women knew the Pauline injunction against women preaching, why did they do it? The answer is simple: most of the time, they did not. Though modern scholars and thinkers like to attach the idea of “preaching” to the works of 19th century women, this is only a figure of speech, and it has gotten out of hand. A conservative 19th-century congregation would not feature a sermon by a woman. They might sing a hymn sung by a woman.