Show notes
The word “gossip” started out as something sacred. In Old English it was godsibb, literally “God-sibling,” the name for a godparent or anyone who stood with you at a baptism and became spiritual kin. By the Middle Ages the meaning had loosened to cover any close friend or companion, and in particular the circle of women who gathered in the birthing room to help a mother through labor. Those long hours of waiting were filled with talk, and the “gossips” became known as much for their conversation as for their support.
Men, fearful and suspicious of women in community without men supervising began to demonize women gathering publicly or speaking to each other. Male writers of the 1500s and 1600s sneered at “gossips” as idle, chattering women, and by the 1800s the verb “to gossip” meant exactly what it does today. It was uniquely WOMAN sin and was built to isolate a woman from network. Then... they added it to the Bible.
Sources
Wulfstan, Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, c. 1014 (CCCC MS 419). The Fox and the Wolf, c. 1275 (Bodleian Digby 86). Chaucer, Wife of Bath's Prologue, lines 243–45, 525–51 (Riverside). Shakespeare: Comedy of Errors 5.1; Midsummer Night's Dream 2.1; Romeo and Juliet 3.5; Titus Andronicus 4.2; Henry VIII 5.5. Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755, s.v. "gossip." Etymonline and wordorigins.org for sense dates (c. 1300 friend; 1560s idle talker; 1620s verb; 1791–1811 the talk). Adrian Wilson, "The Ceremony of Childbirth and its Interpretation," in Valerie Fildes, ed., Women as Mothers in Pre-Industrial England, Routledge, 1990; The Making of Man-Midwifery, UCL/Harvard, 1995. Bernard Capp, When Gossips Meet, Oxford, 2003; David Turner's review, H-Albion, January 2004. Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers, Oxford, 1996. Heinrich Kramer, Malleus Maleficarum, 1486, Part I, Questions 6 and 11 (Summers translation, 1928). Edward Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families, 1548 (1809 ed., p. 590); Holinshed, Chronicles, 1587, vol. 3, p. 842. Second Book of Homilies, 1563, "Of the State of Matrimony." David Underdown, "The Taming of the Scold," in Fletcher and Stevenson, eds., Order and Disorder in Early Modern England, Cambridge, 1985, pp. 116–36. Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch, Autonomedia, 2004, chs. 2 and 4; Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women, PM Press, 2018, ch. 5. Lynda Boose, "Scolding Brides and Bridling Scolds," Shakespeare Quarterly 42.2, 1991, pp. 179–213. Blackstone, Commentaries, Book IV, ch. 13, 1769. Ralph Gardiner, England's Grievance Discovered, 1655. Samuel Rowlands, 'Tis Merrie when Gossips meete, 1602; A Crew of kind Gossips, 1613. "Tittle-Tattle; Or, the several Branches of Gossipping," British Museum 1973,U.216. Hans Medick, "Village Spinning Bees," in Medick and Sabean, eds., Interest and Emotion, Cambridge, 1984. State v. Palendrano, 120 N.J. Super. 336 (Law Div. 1972). James v. Commonwealth, 12 Serg. & Rawle 220 (Pa. 1825). Verse comparisons across Wycliffe, Geneva 1599, KJV, Douay-Rheims, Darby 1890, YLT 1898, ASV 1901, Weymouth 1903/1913, RSV 1946/1952, NASB 1971/1995/2020, TLB 1971, NIV 1978/2011, ESV 2001, NRSVue 2021, via Bible Gateway. Lexicon: Strong's H7400 rakil, H5372 nirgan, G5588 psithyristēs, G5587 psithyrismos, G5397 phlyaros, G5396 phlyareō, G1228 diabolos. Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, Doubleday, 1997. Bart D. Ehrman, Forged, HarperOne, 2011. Dolores Hayden, The Grand Domestic Revolution, MIT Press, 1981; "What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like?", Signs 5.3, 1980; Redesigning the American Dream, Norton, 1984. Christine Frederick, The New Housekeeping, 1913; Household Engineering, 1919. FHA Underwriting Manual, 1938, pars. 937, 980. Eric Larrabee, "The Six Thousand Houses That Levitt Built," Harper's, September 1948. John Keats,
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