So, it is obvious I have a lot of past life memories to choose from if I want to write something in my blog. But I have finally chosen “the woman with no name” because, as someone said to me not long ago, if something keeps affecting me so much, there are still wounds that need to be healed. And writing always helps to heal.
The Hitchcock’s movie was Rebecca, but Rebecca is only a ghost whose memory still haunts Mr. de Winter, a wealthy man who lost his wife, drowned in strange circumstances, and now he has met a young girl and asks her to marry him. Curiously, throughout all the movie, we never come to know the name of this young girl. She is always referred to as “that pretty little woman” or similar things. It is as if Rebecca steals her all the limelight. I feel identified with that little woman, because somehow I was also robbed of my name, and today, over a century and a half after my death, I still feel I can’t say it publicly, or I could be executed for my crimes yet again or locked up in an madhouse for being hysterical and besides for believing I have reincarnated.
For the first half hour I couldn’t help shrinking in the sofa and feeling terrified, though the typical suspense in Hitchcock’s movies hadn’t turned up yet anywhere. The scenario was too similar to my own experiences at the beginning of the 19th century, and that made me foreshadow terrible events in the future. Mr. de Winter looks significantly like the image I recall of my first husband, I have to say. But the worst is that stupid young girl was me, getting married at a very early age to a prosperous businessman, a friend of my father’s, only because they have decided so and arranged it. My husband’s house was not as large as mansion Manderley, by no means, though I did have a maid who helped me in my daily tasks. I also had a mare at my disposal, extensive grounds to mount, I didn’t lack beautiful dresses nor occasions to wear them. My double bed had a canopy too. And in an adjacent room I had my dressing table with everything a woman could wish for to be attractive and please her husband.
They start stripping your name away, like they did to the movie’s little girl. Now you are only “Mrs. X”. It doesn’t matter who you were before, now your only task is making your husband happy, and if you are not happy making your husband happy, it is because something is wrong in your head. Now you wear your husband’s name, but you are no one. You have been given a place to dwell in and a work, so you don’t have the right to complain, nor to choose, nor can you have independence. You are just one more of his possessions, a recipient where his children will grow, if you are good enough to breed and give birth until you have no oocytes left in your ovaries.
I was feeling really sick watching that horrible movie. My stomach was aching, and I barely could hold back my tears for the future that was awaiting to the woman with no name. Seriously, do you want to become the perfect wife? How can you say you love him if he is going to beat you anytime? Don’t you see he killed his old wife, Rebecca? Don’t you see he will do the same with you, if you let him?
A woman's gender and marital status were the primary determinants of her legal standing in Indiana and much of America from 1800 to 1850. By custom and law she did not enjoy all of the rights of citizenship. In the legal realm women were decidedly dependent, subservient, and unequal. National and state constitutions included little mention of women. Even though Hoosier women were enumerated in the census which paved the way for statehood and had to share the burden of taxation, they were not allowed to vote or hold office. Rights for which a revolution was fomented were denied women – as they were to slaves, "lunatics," and "idiots."
Further exacerbating the situation, rights normally enjoyed by women were often withdrawn when she married. Indeed, a woman gave up so many civil and property rights upon crossing the threshold that she was said to be entering a state of "civil death." This unhappy circumstance arose partially because American (and Indiana) law was based upon English common law. Predicated on "precedent and fixed principles," common law had dictated a subordinate position for women. Married women generally were not allowed to make contracts, devise wills, take part in other legal transactions, or control any wages they might earn. One of the few legal advantages of marriage for a woman was that her husband was obligated to support her and be responsible for her debts. It is highly doubtful that these latter provisions outweighed the lack of other rights, particularly in the area women faced the most severe restriction, property rights.
https://www.connerprairie.org/education-research/indiana-history-1800-1860/women-and-the-law-in-early-19th-century
Saying that when you get married you become a captive in a prison of gold, falls short. Of course, this is only if you are lucky and your husband has money, because it is even worse when your husband is an alcoholic besides being an abuser, but that was my third husband, if I am keeping good track of the events. Honestly, I think that the best thing that could happen to you was to die young in childbirth. Abortion was a crime and you could end up in prison or in the asylum. Adultery was always the woman’s fault, who didn’t know how to satisfy the husband’s needs. Divorce was totally impossible. Though there was an incipient law in my time, I don’t think it was applicable in my city when all this happened to me, and the reasons for which you could divorce were very restricted. If you left your husband due to mistreatment, the culprit was also you for deserting your home: you became a sinner in the eyes of God and little less than a criminal in the eyes of men.
Yes, sometimes it is hard to understand why we make certain decisions in our past lives. Only research in deep makes you comprehend that we can’t judge ourselves for something we did in the past, among other things because you can’t even imagine the real situation you found yourself in.
I did have a name, not like the little woman in Hitchcock’s movie. It came to me loud and clear in a regression that later allowed me to validate this life, when I knew how I had died. It was my first name, the one I had before getting married. But that name was seized from me along with my freedom, the day I married. They took my life a bit later. It wasn’t when they bought me with a ring and promises of a happy marriage, or when my innocence was destroyed in the wedding night. Maybe, who knows, at that point I could have survived, like so many women survived then, like so many women survive today in many African countries. The day they took my life was when the first slap arrived, and then a black eye, and then the broken ribs with a cane. It was the day they locked me up in a room, as a punishment for something I should have done, or something I refused to do. They broke my soul, and over the years they were surprised I had lost it, an ironic twist of fate.
Whatever you do, don't keep quiet.