This book review examines Agnes Smedley's 1929 autobiographical novel Daughters of Earth and its sharply critical view of marriage as a form of social bondage for women. Drawing on Smedley's working-class upbringing and communist activism, the paper traces how her protagonist Marie reflects the author's lived experiences of female subjugation witnessed in her mother and sister. The review explores Smedley's argument that marriage is a "relic of human slavery" that, regardless of the partners' character, inevitably constrains women and undermines broader worker solidarity and human fellowship. The paper situates these themes within Smedley's wider career as a journalist and activist documenting oppression across nations.
Daughters of Earth by Agnes Smedley (1929; The Feminist Press of CUNY, reissued 1987)
It is interesting to read Agnes Smedley's philosophy of marriage as expressed in the early feminist classic Daughters of Earth in light of the ongoing controversy over marriage rights and equality. The author takes an explicitly deflationary view of marriage's effect upon women, and to a lesser extent, a negative view of the male partner's participation in what she considers a form of social bondage. Rather than seeing personal connections as a source of positive alliance between individuals, she views marriage as a threat to society and to the formation of effective unions of labor and politics.
Smedley calls marriage "a relic of human slavery," rather than a potential right all human beings ought to strive for. Because of the history of marriage and its limiting legal and social constraints upon the female partner, the author believes that a true marriage of equals is impossible, no matter how high the character of the participants involved. It should be noted that Smedley did not make her assertions regarding marriage as slavery out of mere ideological socialist and communist theory — although she was a communist as well as a trade unionist and activist throughout her lifetime. Smedley's transparently fictional book Daughters of Earth is autobiographical in nature, and it does not chronicle the life of a typical, sheltered young woman.
"Smedley's path from teacher to activist writer"
"Smedley extends critique to women across nations"
"Marriage as threat to solidarity and human fellowship"
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