‘Do not forget your bit wife’: love, marriage and the negotiation of patriarchy in Irish Presbyterian marriages, c. 1780–1850

Calvert, Leanne

doi:10.1080/09612025.2016.1163923

Cited by 20 publications

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“…As my own work on courtship and sexual behaviour has shown, Presbyterian sources modify Irish understandings of claims to exceptional chastity. 104 Focusing as they do on men's sexual misconduct, Presbyterian sources bring into sharper focus the intersections between gender, religion and sexuality. The minutes demonstrate the continuing importance that sexuality played in determining reputation -a concept that was important to the identities of men and women in Ireland.…”

Section: Men's Strategies To Recover and Restore Reputationmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘To Recover His Reputation Among the People of God’: Sex, Religion and the Double Standard in Presbyterian Ireland, c.1700–1838

Calvert¹

2022

Gender & History

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This article explores how Presbyterian religious belief and practice shaped the operation of the sexual double standard in Ireland. It argues that reputation continued to have a public element into the nineteenth century and highlights the role of religion as a locus around which male reputation was validated, restored and safeguarded. Through a system of surveillance, and underpinned by the gossip network, the Presbyterian church courts in Ireland held men to account for lapses in sexual conduct. Presbyterian men, too, were concerned to maintain clear characters. In their efforts to keep sexual indiscretions private and silence their accusers, some men even resorted to bribery, threats of violence and extortion. Others turned to the church courts to validate their reputations, recognising the place and power of the church as a source of moral authority.On 27 February 1786, the Presbyterian Kirk Session of Cahans, county Monaghan, met to discuss a 'fama clamosa' that was circulating among its community. Two of their members, Agnes Connolly and Joseph Young (who was also an elder of the Kirk Session), were spotted engaging in inappropriate behaviour on the roadside. Under questioning, the couple confessed that they were intoxicated at the time and that Joseph had touched the 'bare skin' of Agnes' hands, neck and breasts. Both denied that their activities had progressed any further, and Joseph offered to swear an oath to that effect, remarking that 'no member pertaining to his body was ever in her'. 1 The responses of Agnes and Joseph to the questions of the Kirk Session are illuminating for two main reasons. On the one hand, the emphasis placed by both parties on the non-penetrative nature of their physical contact reveals much about the ongoing negotiation between church and believer on the boundaries of sexual sin. Framed within the language of the 'sliding scale of sexual misbehaviour', Agnes and Joseph explained that their physical contact had not transgressed beyond acceptable limits. For both parties, penetration was the point at which sexual contact became most problematic. The emphasis on penetration as a measure of sexual sin underpins the second point: the disruptive potential of male sexuality. The response of the Kirk

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Section: Men's Strategies To Recover and Restore Reputationmentioning

confidence: 99%