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Friends (Quakers) and Women

© Bill Samuel

Friends (Quakers) and Women

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At the beginning of the Friends movement in the 17th century, Friends were controversial for a number of reasons. One of the major ones was the belief of Friends that ministry came through women as well as men.

In the early years of the Friends movement, there were a number of Friends traveling in the ministry often called the "Valiant Sixty" (there were actually more than 60 of them). These Friends evangelized Great Britain, Jamaica, what is now the United States, and a number of other places. There were women as well as men in this work.

Friends in those years were often beaten and jailed for their witness. In a few cases, they were even executed. Perhaps the most famous Quaker martyr was Mary Dyer. In Boston, a law was passed in 1658 banishing Quakers under "pain of death." When Mary Dyer learned that two of her friends were jailed in Boston, she went to visit them in 1659 and was thrown in jail. She and her friends were released, but assured they would be executed if they returned. Less than a month later, she returned to Boston. She was imprisoned, saw her two friends hanged, and was to be executed herself, but was reprieved at the last moment with the rope around her neck. Still not deterred, she returned yet again and was hung on June 1, 1660.

Undoubtedly the most influential of the earliest Quaker women was Margaret Fell. From Swarthmoor Hall, the estate where she lived, she provided hospitality to traveling Friends' ministers, helped coordinate the traveling ministry, administered the Kendal Fund which provided material support for ministers and imprisoned Friends, and did many other things to promote the Gospel as understood by Friends. After the death of her first husband, she married George Fox, generally considered the founder of the Friends movement. Fell and Fox noted that theirs was a marriage of equals.