Without benefit of clergy : women and the pastoral relationship in nineteenth-century American culture / Karin E. Gedge.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gedge, Karin E. (Karin Erdevig), 1949-

Series:

Religion in America series (Oxford University Press)

Religion in America series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Clergy--United States--History--19th century.

Clergy.

Christian women--Religious life--United States--19th century.

Christian women.

Christian women--Religious life.

Christian women--Pastoral counseling of.

History.

United States.

Clergy--Sexual behavior--United States--History--19th century.

Clergy--Sexual behavior.

Christian women--Pastoral counseling of--United States--19th century.

United States--Church history--19th century.

Church history.

Physical Description:

viii, 290 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 2003.

Summary:

The common view of the nineteenth-century pastoral relationship--found in both contemporary popular accounts and 20th-century scholarship--was that women and clergymen formed a natural alliance and enjoyed a particular influence over each other. In Without Benefit of Clergy, Karin Gedge tests this thesis by examining the pastoral relationship from the perspective of the minister, the female parishioner, and the larger culture. The question that troubled religious women seeking counsel, says Gedge, was: would their minister respect them, help them, honor them? Surprisingly, she finds, the answer was frequently negative. Gedge supports her conclusion with evidence from a wide range of previously untapped primary sources including pastoral manuals, seminary students' and pastors' journals, women's diaries and letters, pamphlets, sentimental and sensational novels, and The Scarlet Letter.

Contents:

Introduction : Dim views of the pastoral relationship

The bellwether ; or, what the traveler saw

Gone astray ; or, what the public feared

Mending fences ; or, what the public saw

Paradoxical pastors ; or, what the novelist imagined

Forbidden or forgotten territory ; or, where the pastor feared to tread

The unsteady shepherd ; or, what the pastor experienced

Sheep without a shepherd ; or, what women experienced

Epilogue : Separating the ewes from the rams; or, seeing through a new lens

Appendix : historiographical essay ; Counting sheep ; or, what the historian did.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [221]-283) and index.

ISBN:

0195130200

OCLC:

50279923