Margaret Fell

Life

Margaret Fell was born in 1614 into the Askew family, landed gentry in Lancashire, England. She married Judge Thomas Fell and became mistress of Swarthmoor Hall; she bore nine children, eight of whom she raised to adulthood.

In 1652 the itinerant preacher George Fox came to Swarthmoor Hall. After hearing his teaching, Fell was "convinced" and joined the Quaker movement. Most of her children and many of the household servants are said to have joined as well. Her husband, Thomas Fell, never became a Quaker, but he offered the movement a measure of protection. After his death in 1658, Fell took a more prominent role in the movement's affairs.

After the monarchy was restored with the accession of Charles II in 1660, Fox was arrested at Swarthmoor. Fell traveled to London, met with the king, and petitioned for Fox's release. In 1664 Fell herself was arrested for refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the king and for holding Quaker meetings in her home. She was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment and the forfeiture of her property. She was released in 1668 by order of the king and the Privy Council. In 1669 she married George Fox in Bristol and was thereafter known as "Margaret Fox." On returning to Lancashire after the marriage, she was imprisoned again for about a year for violating the Conventicle Act, which prohibited Nonconformist gatherings. She died in 1702.

Ministry and Achievements

• Providing a base for the movement: Swarthmoor Hall became the principal base of the early Quaker movement. Fell carried on an extensive correspondence with believers in many places, organizing and supporting the movement.
• Advocate for the persecuted: Fell was one of the few leaders from the gentry (the landowning class), and she therefore frequently took on the task of petitioning the authorities on behalf of believers who had been persecuted or arrested. In 1660 and 1662 she appealed to the king and Parliament for religious liberty (liberty of conscience).
• Women's Speaking Justified: During her imprisonment she wrote a number of pamphlets and letters. The best known of these is this work, in which she defended women's ministry on scriptural grounds. Fell argued that because God created both men and women, women too can receive the "Inner Light" and may even be prophets. The Inner Light is the light that Quakers believe God shines directly within each person. The work is regarded as a major text on women's religious leadership in the seventeenth century.
• Organizing women's meetings: After her release in 1668, she began establishing separate women's meetings within the Quaker community.

Influence on the Korean Church

Because Quakers form a very small denomination in Korea, Fell's direct influence on the Korean church has been limited. In Korea, however, Quakerism is known as the faith embraced by Ham Sok-hon. In addition, Fell's writings are sometimes cited in discussions of women's ordination as an early example of women's ministry in church history.

Assessment

Those within the Quaker tradition and supporters of women's ministry honor Fell as the "mother" of the movement, regarding her as one who preserved a community of faith amid persecution and who was an early advocate of women's spiritual equality. By contrast, traditions that emphasize the final authority of Scripture, such as Korea's Presbyterian and Reformed denominations, are critical of Quaker theology as a whole. These denominations regard its emphasis on the Inner Light and its practice of not observing the sacraments as at odds with their own theology. Judgments of Fell's case for women's ministry also vary among denominations, depending on how they interpret passages such as 1 Corinthians 14:34 and 1 Timothy 2:12.