by Beth Cohen
*** Dally Blyth’s days were spent playing alone in the woods beside her home. Although alone, Dally Blyth never felt lonely. Her parents were kind and loving people with many friends who’d stop by for a visit that could last several days or weeks. These friends would often come by with a ‘pet’ that would somehow wind up staying long after the guest left…By the time Dally was ten, she had a gaggle of friends that included two dogs, several geese, a goat and some cats. Dally had a deep love of all things alive — she treated her pets, the flowers in the garden and the trees in the woods with the same love and respect that her parents had given to her. Her heart was big and it seemed to her parents that her heart was always full and had the capacity to love more…This capacity to love and her openness toward others would not serve her well once she left the illdefined bubble of her family home.
*** As she came close to the age of her
womanhood, her parents began to worry. They began to understand that Dally, as she was raised, would not be a welcomed entity in the Wideness. They began to wonder, a bit more and more — what would become of this free-spirited being that they had brought into the world? They both knew that the Wideness, the world outside their home, would not look upon Dally Blyth with kindness. She had not been taught the basic skills she would need to survive away from their home. Indeed, they had never once hinted to her that she would ever face any limitations on what she could do — certainly not because of her Womeness. One day, one of the many visitors who came to their home asked Dally if she knew what type of man she would like to marry — would he be a government man, a businessman or a laborer like her father. Dally said that she didn’t know what her husband would do, but she wanted to sculpt like her mother and take care of animals. The visitor was quite shocked. A long-time acquaintance of both her parents, he turned to them and said, “You’ve ruined her and her future…no man will want her and she will be an outcast. She will be alone.”
And he left, not able to hide his sadness and disgust, from Dally or her parents. He could not imagine that these acquaintances of his could have been so irresponsible with their daughter, letting her believe that she would have choices to make, other than what would be served for dinner.
*** That evening, after they had all gone to bed, Dally lay awake wondering what could have caused this man to say such a mean thing to her parents and act so sad and strange. That next morning, she awoke to a sound that she wasn’t used to hearing, her parents arguing. Their ‘friend’ had left, but not before engaging her parents in a conversation that they weren’t prepared to have. What was to become of their daughter? She was beautiful both inside and out. She was smart and she was free. Sending her out in the world as she was would be cruel. Men would take advantage and she wouldn’t even know what or why all of this was happening. Dally’s parents knew that he was right. They had behaved selfishly, raising their only daughter as they wished, without taking into account the world in which they lived. That very moment, her parents had finished arguing, they knew that they were wrong and all would have to change. To wait any longer would do none of them any good. Her parents decided that they had to take immediate action. They called to their sleepy daughter and told her it was time they had a talk…about life, about her future and the world.
Dally Blyth would never forget those last days of her childhood. Her parents spent hours, and then days, talking and explaining to their daughter about the world and what would be expected of her once she left their home. After, they consoled her. As she began to understand what they were telling her, her misery was deep. Although she could barely grasp their words, she knew that a terrible change was soon to come. They had a friend in the city who had a school for girls her age. She was to start the following week. This was the first time in Dally Blyth’s life that she was told that she had no choice. She was introduced to the Wideness. This was the world and this was the way, the only way.
*** One beautiful fall day, before her 14th year and before she was to leave for the school in the city, that same old family friend came to visit again — the one who had asked her what kind of husband she thought she would marry. He asked Dally to take a walk with him. He told her he had something to show her. Dally, who had lived in such a protected world — her father showing the utmost respect to her mother; her father, a man for whom violence was not his nature.
Dally did not know. She could not know. Up until this point she had been lucky. Nothing in her sheltered world prepared her for the world outside her family, her home. This man, this friend, decided to teach Dally a lesson. He took her to the wooded area, far from the reaches of her parents, secluded enough that any sounds she would make would blend in with the trees. He told Dally that he had to show her something she would to need to know to take her place in the Wideness. He explained to Dally that he understood that this was his responsibility as a good family friend; if he didn’t share this, she would never understand her place, never understand her duty and her future would be wasted. No man would want such a proud woman. Dally was too proud.
The family friend pushed her to the ground and held her down. Dally was shocked and didn’t move. She had never been touched that way, never shoved, never smacked…Her parents had raised her to be free. Suddenly, that freedom was gone. He pulled on her clothing, and parted her legs and began to stab her with his weapon. Dally was stunned. She did not understand. She understood that there was something wrong with her behavior and that this man, this friend, was here to correct that for her. Dally had never felt such pain, experienced such sorrow. She felt him breaking her open with every push. Eventually he stopped. She felt a wetness dribble between her legs. Her back was sore and bruised from pounding her body into the ground. When he got up, he took her face roughly in his hands and said, “Now you know. I have taught you the most important lesson of your life. You owe me your gratitude. This is your place and this is what you will provide for whoever takes you as his wife.”
Dally was dazed as he told her to get up and clean herself. They walked back in silence to her parents’ home. He didn’t have to tell her not to tell. She understood that it would cause her parents’ pain and she had somehow shamed them. Perhaps her parents had even arranged for this ‘lesson’ she had now learned. She didn’t know why, but she also felt a deathly shame. It was then that she decided, that no matter what her future held — she would not bring this upon herself again. She would be a good woman in the Wideness. But she also decided that she would keep to the company of women and girls. Avoid the men. If this is what happens and what she could expect when she left home, the world, her world, all the Wideness was an awful place. There is no place safe. And she would have to learn to live with that. Her parents called it Weltschmerz. And that is what she felt. She felt sorrow, accepting her place in life. For her there would be no choices.
When Dally Blyth was just fourteen, her father took her to town. They both boarded the bus and rode in silence to the city and to her new school. Dally watched as her father left. She could barely feel his arms as he hugged her. He was gone and he had left her with the Head Master of her new
school…another man that she would grow to despise, not only for his manner of speaking or the way he treated her and all the other girls, but his very existence represented her exit from the freedom of her girlhood and her past — to the present that they all called reality.
Dally Blyth was a humanist and artist. She worked with the Heads of the Wideness to develop the methods of instruction and education that helped keep the Wideness as peaceful as it was. She had, in fact, succeeded in fitting into the Wideness by mixing her need for art with the Wideness’ view of the role of women.
Dally belonged to no one. Dally belonged to destiny and that destiny was change.
Kay King Junior
Kay King Junior was a historian and a diplomat. Her insight on all situations involving discussions and negotiations always gave a unique and clear perspective to anyone who would listen. Kay was raised in what was c
onsidered the normative family in the Wideness. There was nothing to indicate that she would be so influenced by the lack of response to the proclamation, that she herself would feel pressed into action. And action is what she decided, as one of the four chosen by the Daily Deed.
Kay King Junior had her secrets and she suffered with the dark memories of her childhood. She was unable to continue to allow herself to be in the company of those she thought of as ‘good’ or ‘pure’ women. She carried her past deeply hidden in a silence whenever asked about her parents and home as a child. Kate felt unworthy. Kate was always at work. She had an inner need to be busy all the time and she was convinced that if she stayed still too long, her secrets and her past would appear as if written on her face. She was certain that she herself was a fraud with all of her successes being actually the result of the horrors she had experienced as a girl child. Kay King Junior was certain that if word got out of who she really was, she would be disgraced and her life would crumble. When the time came, it was Kay’s secrets that bound her to become one of the strongest women of her time.
*** Kay King wanted to belong to someone. At the time of the Great Split, Kay King belonged to destiny and that destiny was change.
The Women Before the Great Split
The women of the Wideness, in the time before the Great Split, could not have foreseen its coming. Their lives, when compared to the lives of the generations before, were not bad. Not bad being the key and relative term used when they would sit together over coffee or in a pub with their friends, discussing their lives, their families, their jobs and their relationships.
They held jobs, and were often even paid, albeit very little and significantly less than the men; but they weren’t men, so they expected nothing different. There was the generally and rather widely accepted ideology that women, although not as financially worthy as men, possessed a kind of other humane quality. They could work, hold full-time positions and, at the same time, raise a family and run a household. Indeed, according to the law, they could only work and hold full-time positions if they could simultaneously run a household and provide care for their man and any children that would come along. There was never any expectation that they would receive any kind of help or assistance with the work that needed to be done to keep the family’s meals on time, the food supplies stocked, the children clean, fed and well behaved. It did not cross their minds to ask for help from their men. They knew this was not the way. And it hadn’t been their way for so many generations; the women of before the Great Split knew only one thing. They could only rely on themselves to take care of their children, their sisters, their mothers. The men, at any time, were capable of taking it all away or giving them nothing. These were the laws and the traditions that had been in place for as long as they knew and for as long as their mothers could remember.
The main thing the women were lacking could not be found in the auspices of any
organization or organizational effort. The women had no legal standing. The women had no rights of their own. Over the years, changes had taken place. The men, for the most part, seemed to understand that the women did have some value — but that value was owned by their men. The women were living the life they were given, for good or bad, for better or worse, at the mercy of their men. If the men were kind, the women in their lives had a relatively pleasant existence. All they had to do was not resist their men. From time to time, a woman would have an ‘issue’ that they could not solve on their own. Her man would make a demand, or restrain her actions, deny her desires, become jealous of her meager accomplishments. It was these difficulties that gave the Daily Deed experience in negotiation, or the navigation of the women’s lives in the men’s world. The women in the Daily Deed would not only offer a generous ear to the men, but would use this ear to help the women navigate the rough waters. The women of the Daily Deed gained an understanding of the inner workings of the men’s mind — his work and his view of his personal life. It was this
information that saved many a woman from making a decision that would be damaging to the life she had been living. Ironically, at that time, it was the Daily Deed that had facilitated the women’s desire not to resist!
The women were more than grateful to the Daily Deed. They respected and understood the value of the Daily Deed. Indeed, years before the Women’s Forward Movement had gained any real power, the notion of the Daily Deed was already an accepted concept.
At that time, the Daily Deed was at the time a group of women who provided guidance and answers to issues not only involving women-related concerns of home and employ — men who did not have a woman responsible for their home and comfort would also go to the Daily Deed for council and advice and often for some simple attention or a welcoming, nonjudgmental ear. The Daily Deed was for these men a kind of surrogate wife and mother all rolled into one. It was an accepted role — a job that the women were especially raised for. It seemed only natural that the men of the Wideness come to them for the feminine sensitivity and mother wit that they so lacked…Especially if they did not possess a woman of their own.
If, after the Great Split, the Daily Deed was an essential part of daily life, the backbone of the Women’s Forward Movement, the strength, the motion, the heart of all that happened on a daily basis, the Daily Deed before the split was no less crucial for the women. True, the men found comfort and a seemingly sympathetic ear with members of the Daily Deed. Before the Great Split, the Daily Deed provided the true unity and strength for women both at work and at home. They used the knowledge they had gained from all of those years listening to, consoling and counseling the men to know just what they needed to do to be free of the yoke that had been their lives in the Wideness.
The Daily Deed had the knowledge to plan for a time when the men would no longer control the women. They had the knowledge. They had even discussed the possibilities. Some had remembered hearing stories of a life before, many sessions in time before. At that time when women did have some value and voice in the running of their families, their communities and their lives. Those stories seemed like terrifying dreams to some of the women, especially those who could not imagine how they and their children could survive without the men to tell them what had to be done. To others, like Jane, Dally Blyth, Gabrielle and Kay King Junior — and many of the wizened women of the Daily Deed — those stories were the cornerstones of what was to come.
Life Before the Great Split Anna and the Green Shrine
Anna, One-Eyed Ike’s wife, was one of the more vocal members of the Daily Deed. Of course, this was way before Ike was one –eyed and was known quite simply as Ike. Actually, he was well known as Ike, Anna’s man. Anna was a strong woman. She herself was a great believer in the Powers of All Around. She was a believer, a spiritual being. Although Anna was a woman, she was looked to for her guidance, even and especially by the men. During the times of the Wideness, Ike could not quite understand from where her strength of belief was rooted. He observed her and treated her with awe, which was far greater than the respect any man was expected to give a woman, especially if that woman was his possession, his wife.
Every morning Anna would wake hours before her family and long before dawn. She would sit in her Green Shrine of Deep Thought and meditate on the Powers of All Around. Sometimes, as their children stirred in their beds, Ike would creep quietly down the stairs of their tiny, crowded apartment and watch his wife as she sat humming and rocking slowly in the Shrine. The feeling he got during these moments was a combination of envy and admiration. There could be no doubt the strength that Anna possessed as she meditated. Ike could feel her strength and her power. At times he thought he could see a glow of light surrounding his wife, a glow that emanated from her heart.
At the same time, Ike would feel a horrible envy. He knew, with every inch of his being, that his wife was strong and spiritual. He knew that her capabilities far surpassed any that he possessed — capabilities in both her ability to connect with others, as well as his daug
hters, and in her ability to know exactly and without a doubt, what is right and what is not right.
These capabilities led his wife to places that he was neither welcomed nor qualified to enter. For most men, this situation would be completely unacceptable and it would be within his rights to bar her from his home. But these capabilities led his wife into places and near the posts of the advisers and priestnesses of the very highest Echelon. For a woman, this was not only rare but unheard of. As a matter of fact, in all of Wideness history, there was no other incident of a woman being taken into matters of such complexity as those into which Anna was invited and escorted. The men who came to the Daily Deed for a sympathetic ear, should they be so lucky as to come into Anna's chamber, would find more than sympathy and traditional mother wit. They would find a rare understanding and expression that would often lead both their business and their leadership to peak. These men of high status came to rely on Anna. Her words of wisdom became known as a kind of golden key for success in the complex governing of the Wideness. Indeed, her words were wise and her wisdom did deliver.
Anna’s reputation among the Echelon grew but even as her success grew, she felt a failure. In all but one area she was thought to be almost sacred in her thoughts, except the one area that meant the most to her and her daughters. When it came to the place of the women in the Wideness, Anna was at a loss. Her words and wisdom for and to the men were as golden paths to success, but any words or thoughts conveyed to them about the needs or the betterment of their women were lost and forgotten almost as if they had never left her lips. They could not even hear her speak of the women’s needs. They would laugh at her and tell her that speaking about the nonsense of women in such a way proved her limitations as a woman! They could not fathom the possibility that their women would be anything but completely content to have all of their decisions made by the men; that the women would be anything but grateful for the care taken to meet their needs — a home, children and a man! The men would laugh and say to her that as such a smart woman, how could she possibly think that women were equal to men?!
