Isadora Duncan

Millett (1970) blames the patriarchal bias of society for the subordination of women, the family unit serving as the foundation of such beliefs. In her estimation, "Serving as an agent of the larger society, the family not only encourages its own members to adjust and conform, but acts as a unit in the government of the patriarchal state which rules its citizens through its family heads" (Millett, 1970, p. 33). Isadora Duncan's rebellion against traditional female roles perhaps stemmed from the fact that her own family had no patriarchal head. Duncan's mother was a devout Irish Catholic with four children. She divorced Duncan's father, opting to raise the children on her own. Duncan rarely saw her father, but was deeply impressed by the injustices of marital relations. At the age of 12, she decided, " . . . to fight against marriage and for the emancipation of women and for the right for every woman to have a child or children as it pleased her, and to uphold her right and her virtue" (Duncan, 1927, p. 17).

Although subjected to an early life of financial hardship, Duncan advocated that both men and women equally benefitted from accepting

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description of women's tendency to lead cloistered lives. Millett (1970) cites the following quote from a Congressman, whose remarks appear outdated even for the late 1960s: "It seems to me as if the God of our race has stamped upon [the woman] a milder gentler nature which not only makes them shrink from but disqualifies them from the turmoil and battle of public life" (p. 71). Not only was a woman's place in the home, it was expected to be her mission. In contrast, Duncan's great mission was her art, embodied not only in performance, but also in her efforts to establish schools of dance. Duncan travelled widely, with and without her young children. Duncan did not dedicate her life to her children, as many women have. For one thing, she showed little compunction about raising her children out of wedlock, whereas the typical woman of Duncan's era would have married "for the sake of the children." Duncan saw things entirely differently. She expressed outrage about the injustices of marital contracts, which, during her era, deprived women of their civil rights. As Millett (1970) explains, "As head of the proprietary family, the husband was the sole 'owner' of wife and children, empowered to deprive the mother of her offspr
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Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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