From Eve to Rachel: Biblical Women in Lucy Hutchinson’s Order and Disorder

Abstract

Lucy Hutchinson’s biblical epic Order and Disorder (1679) rewrites Genesis from the beginning to the story of Jacob. In thus recounting the story of the origin of the humankind, Hutchinson also tells the stories of various biblical women who have played their part in this history. But what strikes the reader as puzzling is the conspicuous absence of any obvious “feminist” interest in her recounting of their stories. This paper argues that although Hutchinson’s treatment of biblical women appears to be broadly traditional and conservative, in subtle and oblique ways she undermines the patriarchal bias in the biblical text to voice opinions, attitudes and assumptions that are oppositional. By conflating the birth of Eve with that of the church, by claiming that without Eve creation would be incomplete, Hutchinson gives an entirely new dimension to the roles played by Eve in the creation story. The poem’s play on the dichotomy of what belongs to spirit and what to mere flesh takes the women’s roles beyond that of mere procreativity usually assigned to them and thus dignifies their position within the story of God’s providential design for Israel. This paper will show how Hutchinson revises the lives of the early matriarchs to give them an untraditional and a more egalitarian position within a patriarchal family structure.