Welcome to the Posey Circuit Court
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Welcome to the Posey Circuit Court
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GAVEL GAMUT by Judge Jim Redwine
“The Unexamined Life Is Not Worth Living.” Socrates said this more than two thousand years before Frances Wright wrote: “All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against.” Socrates, the Gadfly of the State in the Golden Age of Greece, and Mad Fanny in Posey County in 1828 were received much the same for their seemingly harmless call for critical analysis. It appears that many of us humans do not gladly suffer attempts to get us to re-examine core beliefs. Or as a friend of mine, Posey County’s own Gadfly, puts it: “It is not what we do not know that hurts us, but what we know for sure that is not so.”
Frances Wright may have been right in some of her positions on slavery, women’s issues and religion, but she was certainly wrong in her belief that logic alone could prevail against ignorance and prejudice. Mad Fanny could have benefited from that less famous but more practical philosopher, Mary Poppins, who recommended: ♫ a spoon full of sugar to make the medicine go down. ♫ Frances Wright, who was born in 1795, was well read at a time most women were not allowed to attend school past the early grades. She wrote and produced plays. Her brilliance was recognized by Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, all of whom she knew. She studied America and authored a treatise on American society. Fanny and Robert Dale Owen published two newspapers: “The New Harmony Gazette” in Posey County and “The Free Enquirer” in New York City. She was one of the first women to lecture to public audiences comprised of both women and men. She campaigned for Andrew Jackson. She invested her life and fortune in the commune she named Nashoba, where slaves were bought by Frances then freed and given work skills and education. This experiment was grand in purpose but failed due, in part, to Fanny’s inability to understand how the commune’s approach to marriage and interracial relationships struck fear and anger in pre-Civil War America. And what of Fanny’s personal life? Well, let’s just say: “She lived in interesting times” as the French curse goes. Frances Wright was an imposing figure. She was about six feet tall with blond hair, blue eyes and a commanding voice. She thought marriage and religion were used to subjugate women. So what did she do? In 1831, while traveling apart from Robert Dale Owen, she married a man she barely liked because she got pregnant and she did not want society to criticize her and ostracize her child. Her husband, William S. Phiquepal D’Arusmont, raised their only child in France while Fanny spent most of her time in America pursuing her various causes. Ultimately, D’Arusmont divorced her in 1850 and took most of her remaining fortune. Her daughter grew up estranged from Fanny and, as a child sometimes will do, she fell on the opposite side of the tree. The daughter grew up to be a devout Christian. She also publicly spoke against giving women the right to vote. Fanny, who knew her Shakespeare, surely agreed with King Lear: “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.” Act I, Scene iv. As did Socrates, Frances Wright went her own way. And, as did he, she refused to modify her controversial positions. And, as did Socrates, Fanny paid a high price for her public service. Frances Wright, who died in 1852 after slipping on ice, did not live to see slavery abolished and women given equal rights. However, she did more than most to help bring these things about. And she did much of her groundbreaking work right here in Posey County. Wouldn’t it have been interesting to hear her speak at the New Harmony Granary when both the Granary and Fanny were young? |
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