CARNAL NATION

An autumnal chill is in the air, and many store displays now boast Halloween costumes and decorations. I often dress up as a witch—it's easy (although every year I vow to put more thought into my costume!), it's sexy and slipping on that pointy hat makes me feel magical and powerful.

People's ideas and beliefs about witches, and the myths that surrounded them, weren't always as innocent as an easy Halloween costume, though. This week, I have been reading a fascinating, albeit disturbing, booklet on the subject, entitled Burning Women: The European Witch Hunts, Enclosure and the Rise of Capitalism.

The witch hunts and executions occurred across Europe throughout the late 15th, 16th, and even into the 17th centuries. Malleus Maleficarum, the first witch-hunter's manual was written by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, two Dominican monks and inquisitors for the Catholic Church in Germany, and published in 1487. Exact numbers are difficult to come by, but some estimate that anywhere between 60,000 to hundreds of thousands of women (and a few men) were accused of witchcraft and killed during this period.

Burning Women makes an interesting argument: that the witch hunts—that is,the organized, systematic massacre of women—were used by the Church, State and other members of the upper class to control women, our bodies and help move society from a feudalist system to a capitalist one.

The booklet touches upon many fascinating issues, but of particular interest to me were its arguments about how the witch trials were designed, in part, to control women's sexuality, to weaken us and force us into "traditional" family roles.

"One of the outcomes of the witch trials was a change in the view of women's sexuality and gender characteristics, from powerful to powerless," the author, who goes by the name of Lady Stardust, writes. "In more than half of the trials, women were accused of some sexual crime such as sex outside marriage, sex with the Devil, sex with animals, etc. The demonizing of women's independent or non-procreative sexuality provided the construct for the development of the nuclear family, and the woman as the property of her husband."

So just how many of our attitudes about women and female sexuality, about the relationships between women and those between men and women can be traced back to the fear and suspicion that ruled and ruined lives throughout the witch trials? Of course, there are many other social, economic and political factors which have occurred throughout the centuries, but perhaps the ideas which the witch hunts and executions enforced are still alive today (or perhaps they are just undead!).

Take, for example, our idea of the nuclear family unit—the one we all place (or try to place) firmly in the 1950s. An economically, morally sound unit which includes the bread-winning (and much more respected) man, the stay-at-home mom (who likes nothing more than to find a new recipe that is nutritious, delicious and saves money) and two children.

Thankfully, most people define family much more broadly these days (and part of me always wonders if anyone ever actually lived that Donna Reed stereotype). But, of course, many people still cling to that stereotype, as is evidenced by those opposing same-sex marriage. Does the traditional, conservative idea of family stem from the witch trials? The idea certainly amuses me, if nothing else. (Cue witch cackle.)