09.29.07

Quakers, Class, and Exogamy

Posted in Uncategorized at 10:30 pm by maxhansen

I just discovered Jeanne’s blog about Social Class and Quakers. I read the last post, on Education, with some interest. Friends here in Northern California talked about both class and education at last month’s annual Christian Friends Conference retreat, and the conversations we had then have stayed with me strongly.

I’ve read all of Jeanne’s posts (with their comments), and followed links back to some earlier posts and comments, and I found it interesting that in all of that vast literature, there was very little discussion of the roots of class in Quakerism, which go back nearly to the beginning.

At the CFC retreat, our topic was “Toward a Younger Society of Friends.” One of our sessions was on Anabaptism. I’d chosen that sub-topic because, despite much common ground, Friends and Anabaptists have very different approaches to child-rearing, education, and the matter of having their children stay with the church on reaching adulthood.

It was in a completely informal chat after that session that I heard myself uttering a very partially-baked idea. Roughly it was this:

Class was among the reasons Friends disowned Friends in droves for exogamy (”marrying out”).

Here’s the explanation:

Among the differences between Friends and Anabaptists is that the latter attracted very few upper-class people. The whole movement was one of tradesfolk and farmers. By contrast, Quakerism within its first twenty years attracted Mary Penington, Robert Barclay, and William Penn, among other aristocrats.

Couple this fact with another: Anabaptists early developed a “two kingdoms” theology, according to which the world was an entirely different kingdom from that of God. Christians were meant to be full participants only in the latter. The Anabaptist was obedient to the state in all cases where obedience did not violate the way of Christ, but made no effort to guide the state or to be among its officers.

Quakerism, again by contrast, early developed a tradition of lobbying. Friends established a strong presence in London not simply because it was a population center with “a great people to be gathered,” but also, and perhaps mostly, because it was the seat of government. George Fox had the ear of Oliver Cromwell, and throughout England, not only in London, Friends were constantly active in telling rulers how to rule consistent with Christian principles.

Thus Friends were far more in and of the world than Anabaptists, and being of the world necessarily involves class, in one form or another. And Quakers from the beginning accepted class as a fact; their testimonies never included one against class. Among Anabapists, separation from the world largely meant there was never more than one class of Mennonites, or of Amish, or of Brethren.

Now, about exogamy: Simply put, if one is part of a small and peculiar sect, this in itself will restrict one’s selection of marriage partners a good deal. If you add the restriction that one ought to marry within one’s class (and I believe that restriction will exist, even if denied, as long as class exists), then each person’s pool of prospective mates is that much smaller.

If you’d asked them, Friends and Anabaptists would have given the same answer as to what restrictions they put on marriage: it should be consensual, have the consent of parents, be between adults not too far apart in age, and not be between near relations. And, of course, a member of the church should only marry a member of the church, which for Friends would mean a Friend, and for a Mennonite a Mennonite. Finally, both would say that no one should enter into marriage with a partner incapable of supporting a family.

Only if one delved into the precise meaning of that last restriction would any difference become apparent. For a male Mennonite, it would mean being capable of earning a living, that is, having a craft, a farm, or adeptness at business. For a Friend, it would mean whatever it meant for a Friend of that Friend’s particular class. If one were a Penn or a Lloyd, no one would ask whether one knew how to grow potatoes, or sew a fine seam, or shoe a horse.

But an upper-class Quaker seeking to influence his daughter’s marriage choice would (even if never saying so) always have an eye on whether the prospective husband would be earning his money or inheriting it. And of course, if class is alive at all, most daughters would have cultivated that same eye for themselves, well before arriving at marrying age.

Hence the shrunken pool of candidates for each Friend. Hence the greater willingness to seek outside the pool. Hence more marriages that violate one or more of the norms. Hence more marrying out. Hence more disownments over same.

Well, there’s my PBI. (Partially Baked Idea; we should get used to the acronym, the blogosphere being so very full of PBIs.)

Before I stop, perhaps I’ll say a little of how I feel about all this.

I feel that class has been a real problem for Friends. (I haven’t even gone into how our way of ministry was designed such that, for the most part, only the wealthy could afford to be a preacher.)

But I am not against class. Although the Anabaptist way is tempting to me (and partly because of the absence of class), ultimately I do not choose it. I choose the Quaker way of greater involvement with the world, fallen as it is. I believe that Friends need to bring more things out into the open, into the Light, and inspect them. And I believe that class is one of them.

I also believe that if we are to be involved it the world, class is inevitable. I only hope Friends can become class-aware in ways they have generally not been.

Thanks to Jeanne for her contribution to this topic.

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