Are my characters too modern? A (partial) answer.

I’ve had a number of reviews lately that declare my first novel, The Midwife’s Revolt, to be too modern in its psychology. These reviews assert that women simply didn’t think in the way I portray them to think. They weren’t as bold, or as accepting, as they are today. One reviewer insisted that TMR‘s “major flaw” is my characters’ attitudes towards sex. Good Christians just didn’t have sex before marriage, he said. Well, to these reviews, I would like to say “poppycock!”

I’m not offended when people dislike my work–that’s anyone’s prerogative. No, my annoyance is the ignorance, coupled with a kind of arrogant certainty, that some reviews display. Anyone who truly believes that women were not silly, daring, bold, fun, naughty, brave, or willing to have sex before marriage in the Colonial (or any other) era needs to read more.

Granted, my Lizzie Boylston is an unusual woman for her time, especially in the spying department. Such women did exist, however, dressing up as men and going to war or on spying missions. In terms of her social mores, she is no more “modern” than Abigail Adams, who refused to own slaves and who fought for the right of a black child she knew to attend a white school. It is especially true that, during the revolutionary war, women were hugely enterprising in the art of survival: bartering for goods, creating items to sell, planting, harvesting, and preserving food. During the war, too, the average woman was a bit freer to peruse a book or two, if she was literate, since no nagging husband stood by ready to point out another chore. The women of Abigail Adams’s acquaintance were for the most part ravenous readers of books, when they had access to them.

Finally, on the subject of sexuality, readers who believe that “good Christians” did not have sex out of wedlock need to take a closer look at the history of civilization! It has always happened, though of course it has not usually been condoned. In the Colonial era, sex before marriage was not a very great sin, so long as the couple was already betrothed. Many a child came miraculously into the world after only six–or four–months of marriage. The Colonial sensibility in these matters was a far cry from the more prudish Victorian era or even–among some Christians–our own.

And yet, the reality is probably that in fact my characters ARE too modern for their time period. This may in part be because I am drawn to those who don’t fit the norms of their society. I like “outliers.” Hamlet, for example, was such a character. But the other reason is that my reviewers are right: I can never know, much as I’d like to, a genuine 18th century human being. I must piece together the world of these people from the artifacts they leave behind. This I did, and do. It’s my passion: I’ve read countless letters and memoirs of the period, eager to listen to those long-gone souls whose voices rise up from the printed word. I just sometimes wish my readers would do the same.