Explore the boundaries between public and private spheres in Order and Disorder.

Dena Goodman claims that “the public sphere… is a dimension of the private…[and that] the false opposition

between them can be collapsed”1. She observes these apparent opposing binaries possess a great deal of

overlap. Most aspects of the public life – court, religion, law – are sub-textually present but inevitably only as

comments by Hutchinson, acquiring a private inclination. Defining the private and public spheres is not a

straightforward dissection. We can extract their meaning as home vs external life, individual vs societal values,

or religion vs court. But Hutchinson does not provide such polemic implementations of these spherical

constructions; rather she creates a chaotic interaction of the two. Focused on truth, she endeavours not to

embellish with “human inventions”2, but permits fragments of truth from her private life to seep through the

explicit public sphere, manifesting most visibly in her family life, religious belief, derision of court, and

ambiguity over the female role in society.

Greer observes that the last “11 cantos… continue in the Virgilian/Biblical epic mode” and are “less doctrinal

than psychological”3. From this point, with “the Hebrew family begun” 4, the text becomes more family-centric,

focusing on the private struggles and endeavours of Abraham’s blood line rather than of mankind as a whole.

Through this public face of the poem, elements of her private life appear. For example, t he passage when

Rebecca meets Isaac runs very true to Genesis 24; read side by side the only prominent difference is Rebecca’s

emotions, feeling “sorrow”5 at first, then “chillness… begot by virgin fears” 6 as she approaches Isaac.

Hutchinson was put in a similar situation by her mother and possibly here she displaces onto Rebecca her own

“distress” towards “a series of arranged matches” 7. This is not the only time when Hutchinson uses Rebecca to

enact passages outside of Genesis; when Jacob is exiled, “his dearest mother’s farewell” is another addition by

Hutchinson, perhaps drawing upon her experience of losing a child in 1647, relating her unspoken goodbye.

However it is Rebecca who dies, inverting the parting perhaps representing how Hutchinson felt.
1
D.Goodman, ‘Public Sphere and Private Life’, p2
2
L.Hutchinson, Order and Disorder (Preface), p3 (subsequent reference: OD, [canto].[line])
3
G.Greer, ‘Horror like Thunder’, p7
4
OD, 10.116
5
OD, 16.203
6
OD, 16.240
7
D.Norbrook, Oxford DNB, p1
Page 1 of 7
 When Hagar and Ishmael are outcast, again Hutchinson’s private life enters the text. In 1674-5 Norbrook

claims she had “family worries, with one son mortally ill and great [financial] difficulties” 8. Hagar’s thirst is also

Hutchinson’s dry finances, and the question “could I prolong his day” 9, is pleading for both their sons.

Moreover Hutchinson herself experienced exile when her mother’s second marriage ended in separation and

she was “shuttled between different, and frequently discordant, branches of the family” 10. Hagar’s earlier

complaint of Sarah's “marriage-privilege dispute” 11 may have been directed at Hutchinson’s mother. By saying

“her glowing portrait of [Colonel Hutchinson’s] life is better understood as an autobiographical account of her

feelings than as a realistic portrayal of him” 12, Porterfield illuminates techniques which Order and Disorder

similarly uses. Narrow gaps appear in the public narrative of Genesis, into which Hutchinson inserts small

glimpses of her private struggles, expounding not on the events but the emotions. Private and public are not

cordoned off from each other, but interlinked and codependent.

In Order and Disorder, religion is presented with a strong Calvinist inclination. God’s word is final and

dissension results in harsh consequences: a venomous speech declares “the Earth… I will with its wicked

dwellers drownd”13, causing “with chokéd carcasses the sea [to grow] black” 14. Neither does he allow second

chances, for when Lot’s wife disobeys God she is immediately turned into a salt “monument of her own

fault”15. Hutchinson believed the purity of religion was not to be tainted by anything. Norbrook summarizes

her motive was to seek “better impressions’” from “only true and pure devine fountaine” 16. Porterfield sees

that “Puritanism was not only [Hutchinson’s] context and subject… but [her] medium as well”, as she writes

with the “humility and self-control that Puritans followed” 17. Both critics see Hutchinson’s close reproduction

of Genesis, which offers augmentation with few embellishments, marginal references throughout proving her

8
DNB, p2
9
OD, 14.368
10
DNB, p1
11
OD, 14.359
12
A.Porterfield, ‘Women's Attraction to Puritanism’, p201
13
OD, 7.249-50
14
OD, 7.486
15
OD, 13.166
16
Norbrook, A Devine Original, quoting LH
17
Porterfield, p202
Page 2 of 7
foundation in scripture. When she does stray she provides extremely dense references to other areas of the

bible, particularly in the first five cantos, as equal proof that she is not “playing with the ‘foolish and impious

inventions’ of ‘Pagan Poets and Philosophers’” 18(e.g. 5.69-104). Whilst Puritanism is very much a part of the

public world, it is also a private belief of Hutchinson's, so it seems true that "private people come together as a

public"19 and conveying a public notion intimates her inner beliefs. Even when voicing no opinion, her strict

adherence to scripture imparts her Calvinist approach: here boundaries between public and private religion

merge.

The public sphere includes the court and monarchy. Greer observes “occasional political asides”20, and

Norbrook devotes an entire section of his introduction to them. He notes Hutchinson’s focus on Cain, who

“exiled by God… establishes… the Worldly State” 21 which is in “endless struggle”22 with the Holy State. Her

private anti-royalist opinion, permeating the public sphere, predicts that Monarchy’s “restoréd glory shall

expire”23. She shows “princes were with vulgar prisoners chained” 24 in the Great Flood, expressing that stature

does not abate God’s judgement. Then in the post flood world Noah sets a precedent for succeeding rulers:

the “world’s monarch, here lies drunk” 25. This passage berates monarchy for “mak[ing] themselves cheap” and

later, shows Monarchy’s egotistical, rash condemnation of Canaan 26. Hutchinson intrinsically connects the

spheres through her attempt to contain her private attack on public monarchy within the context of Genesis:

boundaries here dissolve as the public sphere is assailed by her dissentient private commentary. The source of

antagonism between ‘Holy’ and ‘Worldly’ states can also be defined as “king-craft… undermin[ing]… true

religion”27. Perhaps then the courtly sphere rules public life and the religious sphere, the private.

18
Norbrook, A Devine Original, TLS, p13 (quoting Hutchinson)
19
Habermas, Structural Transformation, p27 (quoted Goodman, p5)
20
Horror like thunder, p8
21
Norbrook, ‘The poem and its Contexts’, OD, p xxxviii
22
OD, Intro, p xlvii
23
OD, 8.15
24
OD, 15.199
25
OD, 9.187
26
OD, 9.211
27
Memoirs, p64
Page 3 of 7
Public doctrine dictates “thy husband shall thy ruler be” 28. Scott-Baumann describes Hutchinson with an

“absence of any self-consciousness about gender” 29. Spending her own life devoted to John, Hutchinson

believed in female subordination: not only does she show Eve made from and for Adam, but when she strays

from him she is “first and easily overthrown” 30. Additionally, God’s chosen prophets are all male, women

featuring as little more than child-bearers. When a greater role is given, such as with Rebecca or Leah, they are

shown to pervert men’s will. Or as Greer sees it, women are “frequently presented as prime movers of evil” 31.

However, female subordination existent in the public sphere is implicitly questioned by Hutchinson’s

private opinion. Poole argues that Hutchinson “subdues herself to convention” but is actually “far from…

apologizing for Eve’s weakness”32. She excuses Eve and supports women by blaming Adam’s failure as “her

firm protection”33, comparing the “devil then… [to] lewd men now” 34, showing that Adam “can no full joy

without a second find”35, and “illustrating…mankind’s dependency”. Furthermore, women are not tested or

punished by God as men are: Abraham’s “faith [is] sufficiently tried” 36 with “sacrifice”37; and Canaanites are

“brand[ed] to all succeeding time” because Ham “scoff[s]” 38. This double standard within the text for the

genders can be understood in two ways: firstly that men are the important figures and so God tests them;

secondly, Hutchinson’s private statement: women are already Godly and do not require testing. Thus Abraham

is tested instead of Sarah, “a virtuous wife [is] desired” 39 by men, and female manipulators go unpunished.

Developing this, we look to Rebecca: engineering her sons she encourages the preordained reverse-

primogeniture (“the eldest must the younger’s servant be” 40) and she fulfills God’s will. Perhaps more notably,

the “angels… that [Gods] work performed” 41, called “Divine Justice”, are females. Hutchinson believes women

28
OD, 5.125
29
Scott-Baumann, 665
30
OD, 4.170
31
Horror like thunder, p8
32
W.Poole, Milton and the Idea of the Fall, p101
33
OD, 4.171-2
34
OD, 4.173
35
OD, 3.336
36
OD, 15.153
37
OD, 15.115
38
OD, 10.283-4
39
OD, 16.12
40
OD, 17.140
41
OD, 13.185-7
Page 4 of 7
are culpable for original sin and thus are punished with subservience, but she insinuates that this consequence

does not mean they are lesser. By foregrounding their “passionate desires” 42 and continually reaffirming the

superiority and importance of men, Hutchinson tries to “mask… her re-workings” 43: that subordination is

choice, not reality. She practices subordination privately in marriage, but as Hirst perceives, “insistence on her

own wifely submissiveness was strenuous”44. So although she never makes any bold, distinguishable

statements about gender, her ambiguous arguments question public treatment of women and cultivate the

intangible private notion that whilst deserving punishment, women are worthy as an “equal mate” 45.

Overall, it seems that Hutchinson’s apparent focus on the public sphere cleverly gives voice to her private

views and experiences of life’s narrative. There is much overlap between the spectrums: handling the public

subject of monarchy, Hutchinson cannot contain her private disdain; detailing the families in Genesis, she adds

her own emotions; and whilst condoning the accepted belief of female subordination, she ambiguously

defends their equal societal value. Her dogged adherence to public scripture, highlights areas of unfounded

digression in the private sphere. Thus unlike contemporaries such as Milton, her text is not dismissible as

untruth or wholly fictional.

When we inquire why she dresses her private view in a public disguise, we can speculate that it is to avoid

mordacious offense, for protection from societal scrutiny, or because this was her Puritanical learning. But her

narrative’s circumnavigation around gender draws our attention. It is here she illuminates the biggest clash of

public and private, for in putting both forward, her poem itself is in conflict. Hutchinson so successfully

suffuses her text with putative female subordination that her hint of women being closer to God is received

with disbelief. She entangles her biblical epic with strands of the public and private spheres, merging their

boundaries, to provide not only textual validity, but to disguise her true belief; so that her private opinion,

without offending the unsuspecting public world, will only converse with subtler readers.

42
OD, 5.126
43
Scott-Baumann, 665
44
Hirst, p682
45
OD, 3.233
Page 5 of 7
Word Count: 1618

Page 6 of 7
 Bibliography:
GOODMAN, Dena. ‘Public Sphere and Private Life: Toward a Synthesis of Current Historiographical approaches
to the Old Regime’, History and Theory, Vol. 31.1, pp. 1-20. Blackwell: 1992 [accessed via JSTOR]

GREER, Germaine. ‘Horror like Thunder’, London Review of Books, Vol. 23.12. 2001. [downloaded .PDF file via
website: <www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n12/gree01_.html>, accessed 12th March 2010]

HIRST, Derek. ‘Remembering a Hero: Lucy Hutchinson’s Memoirs of her Husband’, English Historical Review,
Vol. 119, No. 482, pp. 682-691. 2004 [accessed via The Portal]

HUTCHINSON, Lucy; Ed Norbrook, David. Order and Disorder. Blackwell: 2001

NORBROOK, David. ‘A Devine Original’, TLS, p13-15. 19th March 1999

NORBROOK, David. ‘Hutchinson [Née Apsley], Lucy (1620–1681),Poet And Biographer’, Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography. Oxford University Press: 2004 [accessed via The Portal]

POOLE, William. Milton and the Idea of the Fall. Cambridge: 2005

PORTERFIELD, Amanda. ‘Women's Attraction to Puritanism’, Church History, Vol.60.2, pp. 196-209. Cambridge
University Press: 1991 [accessed via JSTOR]

SCOTT-BAUMANN, Elizabeth. ‘‘Paper Frames’: Lucy Hutchinson’s Elegies and the Seventeenth-Century Country
House Poem’, Literature Compass, pp. 664–676. Blackwells: 2007 [accessed via The Portal]

Page 7 of 7