| Salem's Narrow Gate to Happiness |
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| By Cathy Hartt, RN, CNM, MS |
| music: Granny (The Witch Song) www.angelfire.com/ks/tomes2/CalontirSongs/granny.htm |
| Salem’s Narrow Gate to Happiness Women ruminate more than men. Women get depression more than men. In 2004, we know these two female attributes are linked. Why women ruminate more is still in question - perhaps because we feared abandonment (loss of food/income) more at earlier times in our development. When crisis happens to a woman she is more likely to mentally play out the negative scenarios over and over, perhaps in an attempt to understand how to better protect herself in the future. Unfortunately, ruminating is much more likely to lead to depression. Men, on the other hand, tend to take action and are less likely to experience depression. Women are generally no more likely to be pessimistic than men. But what would happen in a culture that, like Puritan New England, believed women were weaker (body and soul) than men? What if women of this era were just beginning to become church members, and therefore just starting to understand salvation vs. damnation? And what if the church of that day and age created a pessimistic culture through its own doctrine? Christ, according to some prominent preachers of New England, had died for a select few. “Heaven is large, but the way to heaven must be narrow,” retorted one preacher. Another said, “There is the most narrow way of God’s commandments, but there is but one way or gate into this happiness, it is narrow and a little gate, . . . And if you miss the gate, you loose all your labor and shall never come to salvation.” Pessimism involves taking the view that the negative events in life are permanent, pervasive (impact all areas a person‘s existence) and are to blame on the self. The contemporary author of Leaned Optimism, Martin Seligman, went out and rated the political speeches from various elections based on scores rating the presence of optimism (and pessimism) and could “predict” the winners at very high rates. Optimistic people, he found, get elected more often. Optimists see negative events as temporary, local (limited to one instance) and not the fault of the self. People want to follow optimists, it seems. The literature supports that there was some optimism in religious teachings of the Puritans. There were some views that, indeed, gave hope and joy. But the bulk seemed to reflect a more pessimistic view of life and after life. In the above quote, we hear that “If you miss the gate” (blame of the self), “you will loose all your labor” (pervasive) “and will never come to salvation” (permanent). Or, “Though thy good works are not perfectly good and cannot save thee, yet thy bad works are perfectly naught and will condemn thee.” In other words, the good is local, temporary and does nothing to indicate that you can achieve salvation. The bad is permanent, pervasive and indicates that you have not followed that path. If you are the weaker of the sexes, you are (genetically) more likely to miss the gate. It would be interesting to know who among the Salem girls (the accusers) were influenced by this pessimism. It is believed that their accusations were born of a mixture of guilt and jealousy. These two emotions may have sprung from a fear that the girls did not believe they were worthy enough to achieve salvation, so they “named” those who outranked them in some way. Pessimists are more likely to suffer anxiety and depression. In 2004, we also have clear, compelling evidence to support that fact. So what would happen if the women of Salem internalized the pessimism? We could speculate that they would be more likely to be depressed. We could also speculate that they would be more likely to ruminate about their situation, creating yet more depression and pessimism. If this were true, then the accusations and confessions of the Salem citizens would surely reflect this gender difference. And they do. Research indicates that the men’s accusations of witchcraft centered on specific instances, such as cows made sick or pigs set loose. Women were more likely to see specters of the bewitched woman - meaning the woman’s entire soul was evil and, thus, the accused was capable of entering a pact with the Devil. Women making confessions were also more likely to interpret their own sins (even ordinary ones) as being a sign of their own soul’s pact with the Devil. Men focused confession on specific sins, such as breaking a Sabbath. It is impossible to know if the pessimism that we can detect in some of the minister’s words lead to the women having pessimistic responses more so than men. It does seem that they would have to ruminate more about “a witch” to see specters floating around - the specters are most likely the creation of an anxious mind. According to the author of Damned Women, Elizabeth Reis, women saw their identities more aligned with the “most pessimistic” religious views of the time. Men tended to see the wickedness they were accused of as temporary, local (one event) and outside himself - the more optimistic perspective. I will conclude this, our last column in this series on the Salem witch-hunts, by saying that it is quite possible to see Salem as a pessimistic culture. Depression and ruminations could have lead to the creation of spectral evidence. Adding to this the fact that people seem to vote more often for optimists (in modern day elections), this pessimistic female view may have caused the women to be less likely to be acquitted by the court than the more optimistic male. This, in turn, would reinforce the stereotype about women being the weaker gender (body and soul) - a self-fulfilling prophecy. One wonders what would have happened to history if, instead of ergot, Prozac or Zoloft had contaminated the rye grain. (end) |
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