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Butler declared her intention to offer "a motherly, a womanly reading" of this biblical narrative. Exemplary evangelical though she was, she insisted that God's perspective on this passage was not limited to apostolic allegorizing: "St. Paul was not a father, nor was the human heart of the man stirring in him at the moment when he wrote to the Galatians in the direction of pity for the outcast woman."
She then proceeds to an illuminating close reading. For example, Genesis 21:11–12 says: "And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son. And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman." Butler comments that Abraham is concerned about only his child, not Hagar: "But God, more just, more tender, more 'mindful of his own' than the best and holiest of men can be, supplies the omission."
Repeatedly, commentators observe that Hagar has the honor of being the first woman directly addressed by God. Sarah Elizabeth Turnock drove the point home, her own namesake connection with Sarah notwithstanding: "It was not with Sarah the princess, or any other woman, but with Hagar, the poor slave, the typical outcast."
Polygamy is a persistent concern. This aspect of the narratives is not just a little puzzle of progressive revelation and morality—as it is so often for male writers—but rather an engulfing reality of suffering. In a passage undoubtedly informed by the plight of women she knew, Mary Witter considered the risk Rebekah was running in marrying: "A woman depends vastly more for happiness on her husband than does a man on his wife. Indeed it may be said that she is happy or miserable as is his will. Not so with a man. Many sources of enjoyment are open to him, even though his home be not a happy one."
Leigh Norval, on the other hand, noticed a discontinuity with her world: "Rachel proved so agreeable that the seven years 'seemed unto Jacob but a few days for the love he had to her.' Somehow girls do not make themselves quite that charming now." Moreover, as she well knew, time does not fly for a woman living in a patriarchal society: "Seven years is a long time in a maiden's life. To Jacob they did not seem long. His work in the fields kept his hands and mind busy during the day, and he could see his Rachel morning and evening. But it is harder for the girl to sit and wait at home while her lover is working for her sake."
Grace Aguilar argued that Jacob's years of service revealed that Rachel had more going for her than a pretty face: "Beauty may attract and win if the time of courtship be too brief to require no other charm, but it is not sufficient of itself to retain affection." Moreover, women commentators had the imagination to sympathize with men as well. Stowe commented dryly on Jacob's honeymoon: "Not the last man was he who awakened, after the bridal, to find his wife was not the woman he had taken her to be."
Much in this anthology reflects the writers' location in the 19th century. Many of these authors linger on the lost Eden in a way that betrays a very Victorian obsession with gardens. Besides the "flowerly lawns, verdant walks, and embowering shades of Eden", we have also lost the Victorian level of biblical literacy. Perhaps what is most amazing about Witter's work is that, back then, one could publish a book for juvenile readers on The Edomites: Their History as Gathered from the Holy Scriptures.
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