Violence against women in Molotschna

Violence against women in Molotschna is not confined to the assaults that precipitate the women’s meeting. It reaches into family life, religious authority, and the colony’s rules for belonging, leaving women to weigh the safety of themselves and their children against the threat of exile. Their arguments over pacifism, scripture, and departure make the violence visible as a continuing structure of power, not an isolated crisis.

A crisis reinforced by male authority

The women face the return of imprisoned assailants while the colony’s remaining men travel to the city to post bail for them. The men hope the accused will return to Molotschna while awaiting trial. Peters tells the women that, once the perpetrators return, they will have the opportunity to forgive them, a requirement presented as necessary to secure everyone’s place in heaven. If the women refuse, he says, they must leave for an outside world they know nothing about. They have only two days to decide how to respond. The ultimatum makes forgiveness inseparable from the threat of losing home and community.

That pressure operates alongside restrictions on women’s access to religious knowledge. Salome Friesen points out that the women cannot read the Bible and therefore cannot independently verify the claim that it requires them to submit to their husbands. In her account, that requirement reaches them through their husbands’ interpretations. The women’s vulnerability is thus sustained not only by direct violence but also by their limited ability to test the authority used to justify submission.

Unequal exposure and the family sphere

Ona Friesen’s pregnancy makes the consequences of the assaults an immediate part of the meeting. She keeps an empty feed pail beside her because of nausea. When the pregnancy became apparent, several women hurriedly tried to arrange a marriage between her and Julius Penner, but Ona refused: she considered him deserving of a better match and believed that marrying while marked by Narfa and not a virgin would taint him with sin. The elders judge her Narfa to have made her incapable of reasoning, a verdict the narrator identifies as deeply ironic. They also say she has not sinned willfully and will be exempt from eternal damnation; the child, described by the elders through a euphemism for the assailants, is to be given to another. The proposed solution places the social consequences on Ona and her child rather than on the men who caused the pregnancy.

The women do not face danger in identical circumstances. Asked whether boys of thirteen and fourteen could threaten women and girls, August Epp answers that anyone may pose a threat, while emphasizing that boys of that age can cause harm without fully understanding the consequences. He compares their awkwardness and power to yearlings, but insists that they are children who can be taught. The distinction matters to the departure debate: protecting women and girls must be weighed alongside the possibility of guiding the boys who might otherwise remain behind.

The meeting also reveals that the danger extends across generations. Mariche Loewen notes that Neitje Friesen and Autje Loewen had suffered sexual violence years earlier. Later, she explains that when Klaas Loewen discovered Ruth and Cheryl missing, he demanded to know where the horses were. Mariche told him they had escaped while he was unconscious during a tooth extraction; he rejected her explanation and struck her, then struck her again. When Autje tried to intervene, he slapped her. The missing horses had become part of the women’s effort to leave, and the response to their disappearance brought domestic violence directly into the debate. Mariche uses the incident to challenge Salome Friesen’s insistence on virtue and to argue that the younger women had used what was available to protect the horses from being sold.

Faith, protection, and the decision to leave

Agata Friesen argues that remaining in Molotschna would put the women in a direct course of violence and risk turning the colony into a battlefield. In her view, staying would betray Mennonite pacifism; leaving better upholds the obligations of peace, love, and forgiveness. She adds that forgiveness given while the women remain exposed to their attackers would be coerced rather than genuine. Leaving, by contrast, would protect the women and their children and teach the children to pursue their values even when those values differ from what their fathers expect.

Agata Friesen grounds the decision in maternal responsibility as well as doctrine. She says the women have collectively decided what is best for their children according to their faith and their understanding of love and peace. She joins instinct to intellect and spiritual conviction, rejecting the idea that acting on those combined grounds is inherently revolutionary. Her argument makes protection an ethical choice the women themselves can reason through, rather than a duty defined for them by male authority.

Salome Friesen’s embrace with Mejal Loewen gives the meeting’s disputes a counterpoint: although the two often disagree, they come together during crises. The women’s position is not uniform, but the possibility of solidarity matters as they decide what safety requires. When the group asks whether there are any disadvantages to leaving, Salome Friesen answers that there are none. The conversation then turns from principle to a specific plan: leave after dark so the women will not be seen passing Chortiza Colony and Hiakjeke Colony.

The preparations make clear that departure is a practical response to danger, not an abstract declaration. August Epp wraps a map around a large block of cheese and covers it with brown paper. He places the safe beneath the back seat of Greta Loewen’s buggy and packs onions, soap, and pieces of wood for traction if the wheels become mired in mud or for kindling. Yet the plan cannot include everyone. When Greta Loewen asks whether Cornelius is ready and his wheelchair packed, Melvin says that Cornelius will stay because his mother belongs to the Do Nothing group and he has no choice. The women’s departure offers a route away from the immediate threat, but the colony’s divisions and family ties leave some people behind.