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Month: November 2024

Saint Monday—Rights of Passage (Part 1 of 3)

Saint Monday—Rights of Passage (Part 1 of 3)

Saint Monday celebrations.

Saint Monday was often associated with drunkards. By Giuseppe Lacedelli – Robert Waissenberger (Hrsg.): Wien 1815-1848. Bürgersinn und Aufbegehren. Die Zeit des Biedermeier und Vormärz. Office du Livre und Verlag Carl Ueberreuter (1986), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=45737585I

If we cast our minds back to the eighteenth century in places like Britain and the dawning of the Industrial Revolution. In the years that preceded the industrial revolution, the daily and weekly round followed a particular path. Men and women ploughed, sowed and cultivated their fields working when and for as long as was required to wrest a living from the land.

Others made their living from trades; blacksmiths, tailors and cobblers skilfully worked their iron, cloth and leather. To the men and women who worked in agriculture or the assorted trades, the concept of a fixed work week was virtually unknown. Time was their own—a freedom of sorts.

As the Industrial Revolution found its feet and gathered steam, technological change was on the move with the inevitable social, cultural and economic ramifications in hot pursuit. In Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism, historian E.P. Thompson illustrated how people working in factories and workshops were increasingly under the tyranny of the clock.

He explained how as the centuries of industrialisation progressed, in the skilled hands of the capitalistic wizards of the day, time was transformed into money. Considerable change characterised this period and willing or otherwise, people were drawn into a new and different understanding their world.

Change is nothing new to the human condition. From the moment we make our entry into this world, we are beset by life-altering changes. Still, our lives are replete with the rituals and events needed to ease our paths into a new and different and perhaps better way of being.

Early in the twentieth century, Arnold van Gennep proposed three stages in his Rites of Passage: separation, transition and finally re-incorporation. These stages and their accompanying rites are readily recognisable in our lives. Births, marriages and deaths are merely three of the multitude of events that we mark in our internal calendars. With some form of rite, we ease ourselves, our families and communities through these periods of change.

By Hogarth – The Industrious and the Lazy Apprentice, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9430178

In a similar way, the changes that characterised the industrialisation of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, can be understood as a societal rite of passage: from one socio-cultural and economic system into another. In this passage, custom played an integral role. Our customs are a reflection of who we are and how we choose to make our way through our lives. As Ruth Benedict explained in 1929, the social function of custom enables our acts to be intelligible to our neighbours, binding us together with commonalities of symbolism, religion, and a set of values to pursue (188).

Our customs exist in and reflect the social contexts in which they are performed (Smith 80). Being integral part of culture and therefore, they’re pivotal in periods of change. For at these times, they provide the comfort we instinctively seek in our belonging to a group and a way of life. They’re intuitive and provide a natural place to establish a resistance. Such was the case a few centuries ago when the weekly and monthly round came to be punctuated by homage to a rather interesting individual—Saint Monday.

Thoroughly secular in nature and possessed of no hagiographic authenticity, according to the Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Saint Monday was customarily observed by groups such as journeyman shoemakers and other inferior mechanics in addition to well-to-do merchants (Brewer 1092). It simply involved extending the leisure time beyond Sunday to also include Monday. While the observance of Saint Monday was a customary practice that symbolised a work rhythm of old, it featured prominently in the progression into a decidedly new era.

In an attempt to come to terms with the developments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the role of Saint Monday, we can erect the framework provided by Arnold van Gennep. Characterised by the tripartite separation, transformation and re-incorporation, the rites of passage can be applied at the scale of society at a time when the world was shifting into a different way of conceiving of work and livelihood.

Our task is to examine how a custom such as Saint Monday featured in this transition—how it resulted from, thrived and symbolised an initial separation; how it functioned in the transformation; and eventually changed and ebbed with a re-incorporation into the new socio-economic system.

In so doing, we will come to better understand how customary practices such as Saint Monday helped to usher in the way of life we have come to know and recognise now three centuries hence. In a sense, Saint Monday was the rite that yielded a passage between one socio-economic system into another.

What will hopefully become apparent is how Saint Monday symbolised the attainment of rights for the men and women who worked in the factories and workshops. It was the gradual procurement of rights that marked the passage through separation, transformation and reincorporation.

When we think of rites of passage, it is the initial separation that begins the journey of transformation. In this way, what people experienced with industrialisation was nothing less than a jarring separation from the practices that previously lent structure and security to their society. This structure and security was attributable to a distinct culture, the various forms of human expression that emanated from a need to contend with the multitude of emotions that richly and intricately imbue our lives.

As one of the frontline heralds of culture, customs responded to these changes and manifested in a nigh infinite number of ways. Culture never dies or ebbs. Reciprocal in its nature, a cultural expression such as custom merely changes and re-moulds itself around the evolving needs and experiences of a community.

By Jeff Kubina from Columbia, Maryland – [1], CC BY-SA 2.0,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7860357

People of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries increasingly found themselves in discord with the economic and social system that had previously ruled their lives, those of their parents and grandparents before them. For instance, early non-commercial agriculture and tradesmen such as blacksmiths or tailors functioned in a world where the conception of work would have been unrecognisable to their descendants. Work and leisure alike, were equally enjoyed and disliked, embedded in life and classified together rather than apart. The inherent customs that distinguished the daily, weekly and yearly round harmonised with what we can only conceive of as a work-leisure hybrid1.

The daily, monthly and yearly round of work did not proceed without periodic respite. As tradition decreed, numerous festivals and celebrations in honour of various Saints or other important times of the year punctuated the lives of men, women and their families. Around the world, the year was filled with festivals and customs celebrating certain saints or past events.

These days imposed structure and provided a time when families and communities could cement their place and position. For members of the community, while the main goal of these celebrations would’ve been a light-hearted enjoyment, a deeper set goal was to create a communal society in which the efforts of every individual centred on the general well-being of all (Bushaway 147).

Very reluctantly do we relinquish the comfort and familiarity of our customary practices. Their tenacity and strength are deeply embedded in our lives and feature prominently in how we get on in the world. When the world was changing and undergoing re-structuring at the hands of industrialisation, the maintenance of these former work rhythms took on a decidedly different tenor for people.

As part of a rite of passage, the separation people experienced was from a previous way of life and the satisfaction engendered when life proceeded along a known and expected path. Saint Monday functioned to sooth the jagged edges of this rupture.

The separation connoted by this custom was present in the resistance of the working classes to the strictures being imposed on them by the changing society. In this view, customs were the ramparts erected to defend a previous way of life. The people simply resisted efforts of those in charge to control and enforce their time, unquestionably a deeply personal element of a person.

Saint Monday resonated with the sentiments associated with a way of life characterised by a different understanding of the work-leisure relationship prior to widespread industrialisation. In a way, Saint Monday served as a metaphor for all the customs that served to bind the community. The words uttered by William Loveless in 1847 capture the sentiment when he explained how we must seek to “. . . enjoy the fruits of our toil, without being subject to a tyrant master” (Brown v). Conflated into the one day, Saint Monday not only stood for previous work rhythms, and as such a different socio-cultural and economic system, but the contentedness and satisfaction one placed in the world. This was something that had to be maintained.

In symbolising a previous way of life, some broadside ballads referred to Saint Monday as “Fuddling Day” meaning washing day. Here, Saint Monday was not an attempt to evade work per se. Rather, the work week did not adhere to the regulations factory owners sought to impose. The observance of Saint Monday hearkened to a different daily and weekly rhythm, one not governed by anyone or anything outside the family and community spectrum.

In former times and in certain occupations such as the cottage industries during industrialisation2, activities such as heavy drinking that took place during holidays, was more acceptable. It didn’t detract from the ability of men to make a living. The work hours were not fixed and hence, men and women were in control of their own production output.

Factory owners frowned upon festivities such as Saint Monday with the onset of industrialisation and more set work hours. To them, Monday was no different from any other day. As far as the factory owners were concerned, observing Saint Monday impinged upon the profit margin. Even the cottage industries, also a part of a commercial enterprise, concurred—supply must meet demand.

And there was no question, the observance of Saint Monday remained a powerful symbol of separation. While the cottage industries may have lagged behind, eventually they, too, were brought within the fold of the new socio-economic system.

Taking a day off work embodied a pre-industrial way of understanding work. It was not solely a matter of embodying a different work schedule. Each time people did not appear for work on Mondays was a vehement statement of the separation that had formed between the different and emerging tiers of society—the working class and the industry owners. The observance of Saint Monday stated quite clearly that the working class and the industry owners were not part of the same socio-economic system.

Endnotes

1Such a conception of “work” exists even for us. Some of us seek and find that “job” in which we are bewildered that someone is actually willing to pay us for our “trouble.” No trouble at all we insist. Our work feels as intuitive to our lives as breathing, eating, laughing and crying. To a greater extent than it is now, this was perhaps the standard condition for our forebears of the pre-industrial period. It simply was life.

2This is a reminder that the ramifications of industrialisation did not manifest in a uniform way over time and space. There was variation and as noted earlier, cottage industries were in a better position to stave off the changes to socio-cultural realm wrought by that of the economic one.

Bibliography

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No Regrets (Part Two)

No Regrets (Part Two)

Photo by Samuel Ramos on Unsplash

I shifted a little to the side to relieve an ache I was feeling in my ribs. Just lying there, the last night of my life was emblazoned in my mind. He’d punched me hard there, just before I must’ve lost consciousness. Opening my one eye, I scanned around my room. My other eye had been covered with a heavy bandage.

My mind returned to what had happened on the day before they’d attacked me. Things had been peaceful, not very many people wandering about. I think it was Sunday, so there was a relaxed air about the place. I’d just been playing a favourite piece on my guitar when they’d arrived. I’d always been aware of what was going on around me, those whom I knew meant me no good. It was always a matter of keeping out of their way. Still, I knew it would only be a matter of time with that lot. No worries I’d thought.

I’d been out on the street, now, for a about a year. Hannah, my sister had joked with me, professing how surely that was long enough for me to have paid for the ‘crime’ I’d committed. She’d used those words intentionally, suspecting how I felt.

But she’d been wrong. I couldn’t say I felt I’d committed a crime, per se. Although, when I thought about it, my decision to distance myself from the world in which I’d existed for so long was an attempt to somehow rectify certain unforgivable actions. I’d played too significant a role in those actions. It was merely a wish to somehow right an horrific wrong.

My mind immediately returned to the final day of the court case in which I’d been defending the father against charges he’d killed his wife. There was no assurance how the court would decide. I’d actually been preparing for a guilty verdict. Although, when we’d learned my client was deemed ‘not guilty,’ the court erupted in a jubilant roar. I looked over to the father and smiled. His four children, there with their grandmother ran to the front to hug their father. All smiles and tears of unabated delight.

I confess throughout the whole business, I’d been guided by a feeling of the rightness of my actions. And on that day I’d never felt more right about my role in pleading for this man’s innocence.

“How’re you feeling today?” the nurse said as she checked my bandages. The wound was still somewhat sensitive, although largely endurable. I looked at the nurse and managed a slight smile. “Not to worry. You’re on the mend, so you should be getting outta here pretty soon.” With that, she left.

When I closed my eyes, an all encompassing emptiness filled my entire body, flashes of the case piercing into my mind. At the time, a close friend, a police officer, had contacted me on the day they’d found the bodies. “You gotta get down here. You won’t believe it, man. Christ, I tell ya. This is inhumane.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at your man’s family home. You won’t believe this, man.” With those words, my heart sank. What on earth had happened? I expected the worst, but it didn’t come close to what had actually happened.

I quickly slid into my jacket and drove over. By the time I got there, the medical examiner must’ve already finished. I’d spotted them placing what I surmised was a body bag into the ambulance. My innards tightened at the sight of it. I spotted my friend and jogged over.

“What’s going on?” I said, as I scanned around the front yard. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Slowly, my comfortable world of understood rights and wrongs was crumbling.

“It’s unbelievable, man. We got a call. It was actually his sister who found them.” As my friend spoke, he led me into the house. “They were all in here,” he said. The crime investigators were still working.

“Who was all in there?” I said, although I already knew.

“His kids. And him. He must’ve shot ‘em and then did the honours to himself. That’s from my cursory look. But we’ve gotta wait to hear from the medical examiner. Still, that’s my hunch.” His voice was fading in my ear as my heart and mind were desperately trying to take in what’d happened.

Driving home, I was bludgeoned by my role in the horror I’d seen. I’d defended that man, foolishly believing what he’d said. How could I have been so stupid? All along he must’ve truly been responsible for the death of his wife. There I was, masterful in the courtroom, proving a guilty man innocent. I thought I’d had a hand in reuniting a man with his children, regaining his freedom. But what had I done?

“Matt,” I heard, a slight melody added to my name. “Mattie.” My eyes shifted to the door. It was my sister and someone else in behind. “Hey, how’re you doing? Hope you don’t mind, but I found someone hanging around your little spot on the street. She told me the two of you were friends and so, I thought you wouldn’t mind. At that moment, Dandie poked her head out from behind Hannah. We stared at one another, somehow conveying the pleasure in seeing one another.

“Hey, Matt,” Dandie said. I managed a smile and I could see she was a little surprised, but pleased. “You can’t know how glad I am to see you. It was just by accident your sister came to your spot when I was there looking for you. You hadn’t shown up for our usual meal, so I came looking,” she said, stoking my arm. Dandie smiled when the tension in my face relaxed.

I listened to them chatting, their gentle voices eventually lulling me to sleep. When I opened my eyes, they were gone. They’d left brownies which I began to eat.

“Here’s your supper. Those look good,” the nurse said as she raised the top of my bed, looking at what I was eating. “Enjoy.” I smiled, pecking away at the food. My mind wandered back into the past. I remember trying to coming to terms with what I’d actually done. Increasingly, it was impossible for me to reconcile it in my mind. I hadn’t been able to focus on any of the cases coming across my desk. So, heeding the suggestion of a colleague, I decided to take time off work.

What I’d done defending that man was to me heinous and unforgivable, the blood of his beautiful children on my hands. So, in response, I’d somehow wanted to turn my back on the comforts of my world. I began to wander along the streets, sitting down every now and then to play my guitar. I just wanted to be close the door on the world.

In time, I found myself spending more and more time on the street. I placed the ring my parents had given me when I’d graduated from law school into a pillow on which I’d sit. Perhaps all I wanted to do was right a grievous wrong. I’d been living that life for a while when Dandie entered my world.

I remembered her from the time she’d worked in our law office. I was always a little too hyper focussed on my work, so, I often came across as aloof. It was unintentional, just the approach I took to my work. I gave everything to my cases. Her image fluttered into my mind and just then the door opened.

“Hey there, soldier,” she said, poking her head in the door. I smiled. The person with whom I was sharing the room was fast asleep still. “How’re you doing? Here’s the usual grapes. I’m never sure why everyone gives grapes as a gift when folks are in the hospital. But you know, I have a feeling it’s got something to do with keeping you regular,” she said, laughing. “No kidding.”

She pulled the chair over to my bed and sat down. “Well, if your ears were itching, it was likely because your sister and I were talking about you. All good things, I assure you,” she said, holding her hands up in defence. “Hannah was just explaining what had happened with the case you’d worked on. I hope you don’t mind.” I shook my head trying to indicate it wasn’t a problem.

“I’m sorry all that happened,” she said. “I really am. I’d heard about it at the time in the news. Sounded hideous what Hannah explained. I confess, I could see how you needed to distance yourself from it.” She looked at me, her face heartfelt and genuine. “Still, you know, I think you’ve paid the price. You know, the price you felt you needed to exact from your soul. It’s done, I think.” Her words calmly rippled over me, penetrating my very essence.

Dandie stayed for about an hour. But after a little while, I grew tired, finding it difficult to resist the pull to sleep. She took the cue, promising to be back tomorrow.

Over the months I’d known her, Dandie had become a comforting panacaea for me. It had just happened. Every week, I’d meet with her at the restaurant and after getting settled and ordering our food, she’d rabbit on about this or that, wholeheartedly sharing her views on any number of concerns. I’d just listen, increasingly finding her words and phrasing gratifying to the ear.

She’d sometimes ask a question hoping to secure a comment from me. Although, I hadn’t spoken with anyone for several months, by then. To my mind, speaking was simply a signal I was a part of the world again. I still didn’t want that.

I was only lightly sleeping and woke up when the Doctor came in. “Well, we think it’d be okay to discharge you tomorrow. We spoke with your sister and she should be here to pick you up.” He looked at the papers at the end of my bed, appearing satisfied with what he saw. “I believe you’ll be staying with her for the next little while,” he said, his eyes shifting upwards, expecting a response. I just smiled.

On the next day, I was actually sitting in the chair, my mind largely absent and focussed on the water dripping from the roof. There’d been a heavy rainfall in the early afternoon. “Hiya,” I heard, recognising the voice. Dandie smiled broadly. “Isn’t it exciting? You’ll soon be free of this sad ol’ place. Well, it’s not always sad, I suppose. A lot of happy things happen here, too, I guess. Like you soon getting outta here.” She clapped her hands, giving me a hug to which I tentatively responded—something she noticed. I’d never done that before, yet it felt right.

“Hannah’s going to be here in an hour or so,” she said looking curiously at me. “I thought I’d pop around a little earlier. It’s so wonderful you’ll be staying with Hannah for a bit. Give you a chance to maybe get back on your feet.” Her words couldn’t disguise the smile that was impossible to remove from her face. “I’m not sure if you’ll be returning to your little spot on the street. Although, why bother, now? You’re well on your way, I think. There’d be no reason for …”

“Thank you,” I said quietly. Dandie stared at me, her mouth slightly open.

“What did you say?” she said.

“Thank you,” I said again, a little louder, touching her hand. She put her hand over her mouth in surprise.

“Matt,” she said. “I haven’t heard you speak, in ages, it seems.” I smiled, not really wanting to make another comment. Although, it seemed like that was enough to say I was ready to return to my life. It was at least a start.