ABSTRACT
By way of conclusion to this history, I want to give a different history—that of seclusion in the West. I need to answer the question of why it doesn’t exist here and what this means for Western women today—indeed, for all women as our culture spreads like a plague. I can point to three main reasons why seclusion in any form failed to get a foothold in Northern Europe and therefore in North America. These are, in chronological order (the order in which we will consider them): (1) the development of Christian monasticism, in which men claimed the benefits of seclusion for themselves; (2) the development of the cult of romance; and (3) the witch hunts of the early modern period. It is by these means that linear religion made an end run around the defense seclusion had set up and finally became able to set up the unrestrained tyranny we suffer under today.
