Religious Duty Research Articles

Duty and healing: foundations of a Jewish bioethic

Duty and Healing positions ethical issues commonly encountered in clinical situations within Jewish law. The concept of duty is significant in exploring bioethical issues, and this book presents an authentic and non-parochial Jewish approach to bioethics, while it includes critiques of both current secular and Jewish literatures. Among the issues the book explores are the role of family in medical decision-making, the question of informed consent as a personal religious duty, and the responsibilities of caretakers. The exploration of contemporary ethical problems in healthcare through the lens of traditional sources in Jewish law is an indispensable guide of moral knowledge.

Is there any change of stroke incidence during Ramadan?

Ramadan is a special month for Muslims, as fasting during Ramadan is a religious duty. In this study we investigated whether stroke incidence differs during Ramadan compared to other months. All patients with stroke admitted to any hospital in the Isparta Province between 1991-1995 were included in this study. Patients were divided into 2 groups according to the month of onset of stroke. The first group included patients with strokes that occurred in Ramadan and the second group strokes with onset in other months. The stroke incidence of Isparta has been found to be 137 per 100,000 for people older than 25 years. There were no statistically significant differences between the age and sex distribution of patients and the incidences of strokes in both groups. We concluded that fasting during Ramadan has no affect on stroke occurrence in the Isparta Province.

Religion, Social Cohesion and Subjective Well-Being

A positive correlation between religious participation and subjective well-being has been demonstrated frequently in empirical research among Christian believers. In this article, we demonstrate that this relationship also exists in a Muslim religious context. Data are presented, collected from a sample of Muslim youngsters of Turkish and Moroccan origin, now living in The Netherlands. Analysis of variance showed that young Muslim migrants who carry out religious duties, have a better subjective well-being than those who are less religiously involved, although this is more the case with men than with women. A qualitative analysis of the interview protocols revealed that female migrants suffer more from the restrictions laid upon them by religious obligations. It revealed also that the underlying factor of the relationship between religion and subjective well-being is group cohesion. Religious observance strengthens a feeling of togetherness and collective identity.

The English Levellers (review)

277 fonts used in the edition are attractive and the proof-reading flawless throughout. Graham Tulloch, as editor, David Hewitt, as editor-in-chief, Edinburgh University Press, as publishers, and the others in their team can only be congratulated on this splendid outcome of their efforts. Russell Poole School ofEnglish and Media Studies Massey University Sharp, Andrew, ed., The English Levellers (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998; paper; pp. xxxv, 223; 1 table; R.R.P. AUS$31.95. This substantial and well edited book belongs to that small group of anomalous collections in the excellent Cambridge series of texts of political thought. Andrew Sharp presents in a very accessible form to students not the thought of an individual but of a group that is n o w identified by a name coined by their contemporary opponents and which they vehemently rejected. However, leaving aside for the m o m e n t the question whether the Levellers, like the 'Ranters' or the 'Puritans', are a reined concept, the virtues of this edition need to be emphasised. Thirteen important texts by John Lilburne, William Walwyn, Richard Overton, and by two or more of these writing together, dating from the crucial period between August 1645 and August 1649, are carefully but lightly edited, together with crucial extracts from the Putney debates. Sharp also includes a useful chronological table giving parallel attention to major political events and the experiences of leading Levellers, and a brief but serviceable bibliography divided into intelligent sections for further reading (although on p. xxxii 'C. J. Davis' needs to be J. C. Davis). H e also provides useful brief biographies of the major Levellers, the lesser lights (a distinction which is itself an interesting c o m m e n t on the individualism that thwarted their aims) and their chief opponents. Sharp's succinct introduction situates the Levellers in the political and religious turmoil of the 1640s. The various interests jockeying for power, security and the achievements of their ends in an uncertain situation—the King and his advisers, the Parliament, the officers of the N e w Model Army, 278 Reviews its rank andfile,the Levellers and other similar groups—entered into opportunistic alliances and espoused or abandoned political platforms as circumstances required. In these conditions the fact that individuals within these groups displayed major differences in personality, approach and programme should not surprise us. Sharp tellingly contrasts the Levellers' arguments with the explicit subordination inculcated by contemporary social and political relationships and the claims that this subordination demonstrated obedience to the divine will. However, at this point he might have made more of the real threat posed by Leveller doctrines by emphasising the equally firm religious base of their arguments, which undoubtedly explains whatever popular appeal they had. Starting from the premise that God required social equality, the Levellers frightened their opponents by their demand for a social revolution. The specific political, economic and religious reforms they advocated might have resembled those of the more radical amongst the officers, but only the Levellers saw them as necessary steps towards fundamentally restructuring society. The details of those policies were less important than the end towards which they tended, which m a y explain Leveller opportunism in adapting those policies to contingent political circumstances. Sharp's discussion of the historiographical traditions through which the Levellers have been variously labelled, and in which he concludes that they were 'liberal democrats', might have been more convincing i f he had given due weight to the sense of religious duty which enlivened their democratic arguments, for that would also have helped to explain w h y these zealots for equality did not dream of extending the same arguments to women. N o modern democratic arguments, even, or especially, those of liberal democrats, depend upon religious sanction, which is w h y they can be easily extended to feminine emancipation. This fundamental belief in the divine commandment of social equality becomes more important as a distinguishing mark of the group when w e reflect that Sharp's biographies, like his discussion of Leveller opportunism, tend to emphasise the individual differences within the group...

In Praise of the Caliphs: Re-Creating History from theManāqibLiterature

Roughly around the end of the 7th century, a distinct genre of Islamic literature began to develop under the rubricfadāʾil(“virtues” or “excellences”) that praised the merits, for example, of reciting the Qurʾan, of the Companions of the Prophet, of performing religious duties such as hajj and jihad, and of sacred cities such as Jerusalem. Thefadāʾilliterature initially was a part of the burgeoning hadith corpus, and thefadāʾ-Qurʾan traditions appear to be the oldest strand. A variant term for this type of tradition, especially with regard to the Companions of the Prophet, ismanāqib(and less frequently,khasāʾ is). A survey of this kind of “praise” literature indicates that the termsmanāqibandfadaāʾilcould be used fairly interchangeably.

Combining Martha and Mary: Gender and Work in Seventeenth-Century English Cloisters

In the post-Reformation Church, strict monastic enclosure compounded the traditional religious and social ideologies limiting nuns' opportunities to support themselves. The English cloisters, established in France and the Low Countries, were further frustrated by their isolation from England which provided novices, alms, and much of their regular income. To survive the nuns transformed their everyday tasks into revenue-raising activities. A combination of prayer, needlework, hospitality, education, and housework generated sufficient income for most convents to withstand the economic and political hardships of the seventeenth century. These strategies can best be understood as a reworking of the centuries-old Martha/Mary metaphor, in which Martha stood for the active apostolate and Mary represented the contemplative life. Monastic archives show that the nuns reinterpreted the metaphor in such a way that they could not only gain commercial benefit from religious duties, but they could also inject different meanings into prayer and domestic chores.

From Moral Duty to Cultural Rights: A Case Study of Political Framing in Education

How does an old social cause like religion in public education get revived and reinvented ? How do small and politically insignificant interest groups mount a viable campaign that flows against the main political tide ? This article addresses these questions by examining two multifaith religious coalitions in Ontario, Canada, that are lobbying the provincial government to fund separate religious schools. Drawing on theories of framing strategies and using material from interviews and public documents, it examines how the coalitions have adjusted their claims to suit Ontario's evolving political culture. The coalitions are gaining political ground by avoiding traditional arguments for religious schooling that stressed the moral impact of faith and religious duty and by couching their claims in the idioms of multiculturalism and choice. This strategy involves reframing religion as a form of culture that needs protection, stressing minority rights, and supporting school choice

Mate selection and its impact on female marriage age, pregnancy wastages, and first child survival in Tamil Nadu, India.

Marriage in Indian society is a religious duty. Consanguineous marriage is common, where individuals prefer to marry within their clan (a unilateral kin group based on either matrilineal or patrilineal descent). Keeping in mind that this form of marriage has certain disadvantages for social and biological as well as demographic aspects of individuals and families, the present study examines the influence of mate selection (i.e., close relatives, distant relatives, not related) on female age at marriage, pregnancy wastages, and survival status of the first child. The study was designed based on the information collected on a sample size of 3,948 married women aged 13-49 in Tamil Nadu, India, by the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), 1992. Results suggest that 48 per cent of women in Tamil Nadu marry their relatives. This practice of marrying relatives is high in rural areas, among Hindus, Scheduled Castes/tribes, and illiterate women as compared to urban areas, among non-Hindus, non-SC/ST, and educated women, respectively. The bivariate analysis reveals that women marrying their close relatives had low age at marriage and experienced a higher per cent of pregnancy wastage and child loss (first child) as compared to those women marrying their distant relatives or nonrelatives. The result is found to be consistent even after controlling for selected background variables through multivariate techniques (applied separately for age at marriage, pregnancy wastages, and the survival status of first child). Hence, this study suggests that steps should be taken to inform people about the problems of marrying close relatives through appropriate IEC programs in Tamil Nadu.

The Role of Godly Magistrates in the Church: Melanchthon as Luther's Interpreter and Collaborator

Our knowledge of Melanchthon's thought on the role of godly magistrates in the church is surprisingly incomplete, despite the generally acknowledged importance of that thought. Most Reformation scholars are familiar with Melanchthon's argument that the Christian magistrate is, as custodian of both tables of the Law and as foremost member of the church, the incumbent of an office established for the sake of the church and thus burdened with responsibility for the establishment and maintenance of true religion. Most know too that this argument became the standard Lutheran justification for what is called the cura religionis of the magistrate. Few, however, are aware that it took Melanchthon a good decade to arrive at that doctrine, that he spent a further decade or so refining and developing it, and that during all that time there was an intimate connection between the content of his thought and the course of public events. The reason for this gap in our knowledge is that the history of the development of Melanchthon's thought on the religious duties of secular rulers has not yet been written.

Women Writers of the English Renaissance (review)

Reviews 207 appearance, and speculates on the nature of Harold's private life, from his long-term de facto union with Edith 'Swanneck' to his supposed concern for the unity of his family. The reader is left with an attractive, but hollow and somewhat predictable, image of a handsome and loyal hero; of a man skilled with the sword and statecraft, yet desirous of peace and mindful of his religious duty; and of a king possessed equally of a passion for hunting and a great love of his kingdom and people. Indeed, Walker's choice of subheading to the chapter title, a quotation from the Vita Edwardi Regis, is indicative of the way in which he shapes his description of Harold: 'a true friend ofhis race and country.' Although this chapter is immensely readable, must be relegated to the realms of conjecture: there is little or no evidence upon which to base a critical study of Harold's personality. One might be inclined to feel, moreover, that the author is too eager to subvert the traditional, unfavourable view of Harold at the cost of the some of the impartiality crucial to so shadowy an historical figure. At times he gives too much credence to the 'English' version of an event, dismissing the 'Norman' except where it corroborates the more positive view, and occasionally resorts to conjecture to serve his purpose. Perhaps, too, he ought to have given greater consideration to the many later sources of the Conquest, particularly to the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman historians William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon and Orderic Vitalis, who made their own vital contribution to the historiography of the Norman Conquest. It is from these later sources that much of the modern interpretation of Harold Godwineson derives. Nevertheless, Walker has dealt admirably with a difficult task. Harold is essential reading for all historians of the Norman Conquest, and does indeed demonstrate that Harold Godwineson deserves a 'rightful place among the eleventh-century kings of England and a central role in the events of 1066' (p. xxix). Emma Cavell Department of History University of Tasmania Walker, Kim, Women Writers of the English Renaissance (Twayne's English Authors Series 521), N e w York, Twayne Publishers, 1996; cloth; pp. xv, 260; 10 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$28.95. Kim Walker's book for the Twayne English Authors series is a model of its kind—suggestive and informative, lucid and scholarly. In a field somewhat overcrowded with introductory discussions it is notable for its acuity and incisiveness. Noting that 'in the not too distant future w e will see the publication of Twayne texts on individual w o m e n writers of the 208 Reviews period' (p. ix), Walker focuses here on a broadly defined survey of the literary writings of English w o m e n 1560-1640, including print and manuscript sources, tombstone engraving and calligraphy. Indeed, one of the strengths of Walker's materialist and contextual analysis is the confidence with which she engages the contingent status and pedagogical implications of what can be claimed as 'literary'. She is alert to the technological complexity of Renaissance practices of reading, writing and representing, bringing a sophisticated attention to bear on the text as object, the book as commodity and the overlap between them. Walker's book is organised around historicised questions of gender and genre, ideology and agency as they interact with the pedagogical constitution of Early Modern women's writing as a field of study. She discusses the 'productive contradictions' and 'potential loopholes for the w o m a n writer' in the always gendered but not univocal discourses of humanist education and conduct. She argues that the figure of the silent woman, 'a signifier of male sovereignty in a secular world' (p. 12), could be turned to promote the textual agency of w o m e n as 'wise virgins', both marking and 'marked by the problematic relationship between wisdom, sex, and sexuality' (p. 1). Walker is a skilful compiler and careful reader of both well-known and less familiar citations. Of Vives' injunction, 'A w o m a n shulde be kepte close ... for hit is a token...

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of the Modern Family

When Max Weber propounded his famous Protestant Ethic thesis, he curiously did not examine the impact of Calvinist ethics on the rise of the modern family. The argument developed herein proposes that the same religio-cultural forces which precipitated the takeoff of modern rational capitalism also laid the foundations for the emergence of the modern family by making love between spouses a religious duty and a means for glorifying God. In juxtaposition to Shorter's well-known thesis crediting industrialization as the formative force for the making of the modern family, this paper demonstrates that - prior to the industrial revolution - Calvinist-Puritan movements institutionalized such hallmarks of the modern family as mate selection based on romantic attachment, companionate relations between husband and wife, child-centered nuclear families, and greater equality for women in the familial institution.

Iran Under New Management

Iran Under New Management Jahangir Amuzegar (bio) The stunning upset victory of Mohammad Khatami, a little-known former culture minister, over Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, the powerful speaker of the Majles (parliament), in Iran’s 1997 presidential election was called a turning point in the country’s post-1979 revolution. 1 The triumph of a reputed “moderate, liberal, and reform-minded” candidate over his “hard-liner, fundamentalist, and conservative” rival raised high expectations about the dawn of a new era for Iran. Khatami himself described his victory as a new phase in Iran’s history. Some called it a “second revolution.” 2 Many aspects of this watershed election are worth scrutinizing from different angles and will undoubtedly be taken up by other analysts in the months to come. This review intends to discuss some of the salient features of the election itself, and its likely impact on three crucial areas: domestic politics, the economy, and relations with the West. The Election’s Significance To many observers, the May election was fairer and freer than any held since 1979. Unlike some recent, well-publicized cases in Latin America’s new democracies—notably Peru, Argentina, Brazil—where incumbent presidents changed the constitutional limit on [End Page 73] tenure in order to hold onto power, President Rafsanjani agreed to hand over the presidency to the “people’s choice.” The presidential election also took place in a relatively peaceful atmosphere. In marked contrast to many third world countries, no incidence of major violence or bloodshed was reported by the local or foreign press. The orderly election process proved that domestic political stability could rely on an effective framework for peaceful change and did not require a strong dictatorial hand. More significantly, while the core clerical establishment had near total control over all means of directing, influencing, and even rigging the election, its candidate came out a poor second. Equally noteworthy was the fact that although various opposition groups at home and abroad urged eligible voters to boycott the election and stay away from the polls, the rejectionists’ pleas were largely ignored by the newly energized electorate. Finally, showing true sportsmanship and political maturity, the major defeated candidate, Nateq-Nouri, followed the Western electoral custom of conceding defeat and congratulating the winner instead of employing the traditional non-democratic technique of denouncing the results as rigged, or refusing to address his opponent. Though relatively fair and free, the election process was not strictly democratic in either substance or form. Khatami was pre-selected along with only three other “qualified” candidates by the Council of Guardians from among 238 presidential aspirants. People had no freedom to nominate candidates, and political parties could not organize and compete. Neutral observers were not allowed to monitor polling stations, and some opposition groups questioned the officially reported total number of votes cast. Opposition groups have also found fault with the somewhat compulsory nature of the participation since voting was declared a “religious duty.” Participation was often treated as a prerequisite for receiving welfare privileges such as food and energy coupons, travel passports, and other necessities. Some official agency circulars even bluntly urged employees to vote for a particular candidate. 3 A still more unorthodox aspect of the election, the president-elect was largely an unknown quantity before his decision to run. The overwhelming majority of those who enthusiastically voted for Khatami, and those who cheerfully welcomed his candidacy abroad, knew very little about him and his politics beyond the fact that [End Page 74] his ten-year tenure as culture and guidance minister was marked by a relatively more flexible attitude toward the censorship of books, films, newspapers, and artistic expression. 4 Khatami’s victory was due to a spontaneous coalition of disparate groups—ivory-tower intellectuals, degraded and disenfranchised women, frustrated and restless youth, discontented ethnic minorities, and the urban poor. These groups were convinced that a Nateq-Nouri victory would promise the status quo or worse, and thus opted for his rival. Khatami’s basic platform focused on promises to rewrite the domestic political rulebook, revive the economy, and improve external relations. His 12-point presidential campaign manifesto was rather short on concrete promises, somewhat scholastic, and largely...

Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (review)

250 Reviews lantern to permit the smoke to escape while keeping the elements out. Thompson convincingly argues that the popularity of the older style was in part a function of archaism; Geoffrey of Monmouth's celebration of King Arthur and the subsequent popularity of the Arthurian cycle, in Thompson's words (p. 101), 'helped to prolong the life of a secular building that was absurdly archaic by Continental standards where it was only retained for bams, farmhouses, and market halls'. Elsewhere (p. 194) Thompson suggests that this might have been 'a triumph of patriotism over common sense'. The hall was the focal point for the large medieval households of kings and of secular and ecclesiastical lords. Of the four functions of these households, 'provision of food, personal service of the members to the lord, religious duties and hospitality' (p. 115), three occurred in the hall. Because of the close association between the household and the hall, the decline of the household meant the decline of the hall. Thompson cites evidence revealing the decline in the size of royal and noble households in the sixteenth century, and he also notes the retreat to smaller rooms within the castle complex. This part of his argument seems sound, but I am not convinced by his claim that both the decline and the retreat were the results of Renaissance individualism a la mode de Burckhardt. This is one of the few blemishes in the book. The illustrations are excellent, and even if he does not always keep his promise (p. x) to avoid measurement and abstruse vocabulary, he does it enough to make this very readable book accessible to a wide audience. A. Lynn Martin Department of History University of Adelaide Walsham, Alexandra, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (The Royal Historical Society, Studies in History 68), Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 1993, cloth, pp. xiii, 142; R.R.P. AUS$53.00. The seventeenth-century Benedictine Augustine Baker noted that after the Elizabethan settlement of 1559 most Catholics 'did not well discern any great fault, novelty or difference . . . easily digested the new religion and accommodated themselves thereto'. Alexandra Walsham's book is a study of these 'Church Papists', English Catholics who continued in their faith but also conformed to the Established Church. From the 1570s, however, a new generation of missionary priests, educated in seminaries on the Continent, Reviews 251 attacked such compromise, insisting in devotional and polemical literature that Catholics must stand firm to their faith and refuse to attend the Church of England. Walsham argues that with seminary priests expounding 'reasons for refusal', and Tridentine R o m e seeking to undermine the stance of conformers, there was built up an idealised and illusory picture of Catholic history after 1559 as one predominantly of heroic Recusant resistance, a story which still obscures the Church Papists. As Walsham observes, 'they were pawns in the ecclesiastical politics of the post-Reformation period' and 'puppets in the politics of confessional historiography'. Although the zealous and often heroic missionary priests pressed the Catholic laity to stand up and be counted as Recusants, many continued to attend the Church of England. Moreover, these Church Papists were supported in their outward conformity by several Catholic secular clergy, such as Dr Alban Langdale and his nephew Thomas, whose 'Comfortable Advertisements' acknowledged that temporal rulers should be obeyed in religious matters. Even some seminary priests were in practice more relaxed about conformity than their own literature suggested. Catholic conformity to the Church of England was a 'pragmatic arrangement which often occasioned considerable conflict of conscience', but nevertheless preserved the prosperity and status of English Catholics—both gentry and the 'middling sort'. Several families made amicable arrangements whereby elder sons conformed in time to succeed to an inheritance, and wives of conforming husbands often remained resolutely recusant, though it is unclear whether this reveals female independence (complicating contemporary rhetoric and modern views of patriarchy); or whether wifely recusancy was arranged by the conforming husband as part of family management of the situation. These Church Papists raise fascinating historical questions about the complexities of relationships and the categories of 'Catholic' and 'Protestant'. 'Heretics they are', wrote the...

The Completion of a Religious Duty: The Background of 2 Cor 8.1–15

There has been a tendency among some exegetes to treat 2 Cor 8.1–15 as ‘merely’ an administrative and financial issue. Often this conclusion is based on Paul's use of ἐπιτελέω which, they argue, draws on the language of business and government. However, the distinction between ‘administrative’ and ‘religious’ is improper; one of the primary ways of demonstrating piety in antiquity was by the giving of money to a god. There is much inscriptional evidence for the use of ἐπιτελέω in contexts of religious duty.1Given the social context of Paul and the Corinthians, these inscriptions provide helpful background for the way in which Paul's injunction to give generously would have been heard and understood.2

Uzależnienie od alkoholu a religijność środowiska społecznego

Uzależnienie od alkoholu a religijność środowiska społecznego

The religious duty of care and the social need for control in early modern Europe

The religious duty of care and the social need for control in early modern Europe

The notion of respect in Asian traditions.

The expression of respect is rooted in an individual's culture. In Asian cultures respect is seen as a religious duty. In Asian cultures respect is centred on the family and formally demonstrated through language and gestures. The Asian concept of respect influences feelings of responsibility within the family and the ways in which Asian patients may set about making decisions.

Work and Meaning

Because work is of central significance in our lives, it is important to ask theologically about its meaning. At its crassest, the Protestant work ethic suggests that to do work well and to amass wealth are religious duties. In reflecting on the meaning of work, one does well to take the sixteenth-century Reformers as a point of departure. Here work is associated with God the Creator, who continually creates. In work, we humans become co-workers with God and stewards of creation. By our work, we serve not only ourselves in necessary ways but also God, our neighbors, and the larger good.

‘A duty of the greatest moment’: Isaac Newton and the writing of biblical criticism

Will Ladislaw's words, which so disillusion the young Dorothea, might also depress the modern interpreter of Newton's theology. Encountering the bulk of Newton's manuscript theology, it is tempting to sympathize with Dorothea's eventual response toThe Key to all Mythologies, and to want nothing of it. The assessment of John Conduitt, Newton's son-in-law and executor, that his ‘relief and amusement was going to some other study, as history, chronology, divinity, and chemistry’ has in the past provided an ample excuse for those who have wished to take such a course, and to ignore Newton's biblical criticism. In the last three decades, however, Newton scholarship has come to terms with its hero's twilight activities, and reclassified them as being at least as important to him as the natural philosophy of thePrincipia, and intimately bound up with the thinking behind that philosophy. But although many modern scholars are now reluctant to see Newton as Stephen Hawking in breeches, historians of science have tended to concentrate on the implications for Newton's philosophy of his religious and alchemical writings, and in the process often have distorted their religious context. Historians of ideas have been beguiled by Newton's disciples, and by the esoteric texts from Newton's library, to ride hobbyhorses of their own which do not always illuminate Newton's reasons for writing theology. There is a danger of ‘knowing what is being done by the rest of the world’ before troubling with what Newton was up to when he worried about religion and theology, channelling his energies into treatise after treatise on the interpretation of prophecy. I want to suggest what some of Newton's concerns may have been, by looking at his ideas of religious duty and of the Church, and to liberate Newton from his disciples for long enough to consider some of his ideas about the relationships of prophetic and natural philosophical explorations of divinity.

Something To Do: Charlotte Yonge, Tractarianism and the Question of Women's Work

The woman who speaks for so many of her prosperous but frustrated sisters is not, as one might suppose, Florence Nightingale in the fury of her wasted youth, but Rachel Curtis, the central character of The Clever Woman of the Family (1865), a contribution to the lively contemporary debate on women and work by the prolific Tractarian novelist, Charlotte Mary Yonge (1823-1901). This novel celebrates the domestic and religious duties of women; but it also explores and vindicates a fierce and frustrated yearning for useful work. It is a conservative novel centred on a vigorous unconventional independent woman, and many of Yonge's novels can be described in these terms. This aspect of her fiction perhaps arose from the double compulsion under which she lived. Yonge needed urgently both the approval of her conservative father and the freedom to write (Showalter 56). She acknowledged frankly her need for paternal approval (Romanes 16), and the strength of her drive to fiction was evidently a large element in her success. She possesses to a high degree the capacity to inspire what A. S. Byatt calls narrative greed (335), the counterpart of her own appetite to tell stories. Yet Yonge's treatment of women and work is not just the result of her personal position as a daughter and a writer. It is an aspect of her Tractarianism, and reflects the thought and actions of the other women and men in the Oxford Movement. The Tractarians, despite their principled traditionalism and hostility to all causes associated with liberalism, took the question of women's work very seriously, largely because of their belief in the spiritual importance of good works as well as faith. The establishment, through the endeavors