21st Century: Query 185 (Isadora Duncan)
“Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it,
deserves all the consequences.”
~ Isadora Duncan was an American and
French dancer who performed to acclaim throughout Europe. In both professional
and private life, Duncan flouted traditional mores and morality. She was bisexual
and an atheist, and alluded to her communism
during her last United States tour, in 1922–23: she waved a red scarf and bared
her breast on stage in Boston, proclaiming, “This is red! So am I!” Her two out-of-wedlock
children drowned in the care of their nanny in 1913 when their runaway car went
into the Seine.
Born in California, she lived in Western
Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death in
1927 at age 50, when her scarf became entangled in the wheels and axle of the car in which she was riding.
Duncan lived
in an era when premarital sex and bearing children out of wedlock was
considered to be taboo. Given her era, what does her attitude toward marriage
reveal about her, and how does it differ from the average woman of her time?
Would such a
viewpoint about marriage be shocking in 2020? Why or why not?
How is her manner
of death a metaphor for her life in general?