Thursday, April 10, 2014

"No priestly pride has ever exceeded that of sacerdotal females."

"'it is safer to run no such risk.  No priestly pride has ever exceeded that of sacerdotal females.  A very lowly curate I might, perhaps, essay to rule; but a curatess would be sure to get the better of me.'"

     Mr. Arabin, in Anthony Trollope, Barchester towers (1857), chap. 21 ("St. Ewold's parsonage").
     The earliest citation for "priest's or clergyman's wife" in the OED is 1709, as compared with 1656 for "female priest".  (This passage is the OED's first citation for "curatess", however.)
     But of course the humor in this lies in the fact that Mr. Arabin later falls for Eleanor.

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