She Spoke

As little girls, we are all taught the importance of silence. We were taught how to stay silent in the company of a man, taught to do whatever it is he asks of us without a word. We were taught at a very young age that women are objects to look at, fall in love with, marry, have children with- but the one thing they are not is to be heard. It was the Law.

Girls were allowed to speak when with a man as a child, but not for too long. At the age of ten, they were required to take what has come to be known as the Oath of Silence, which prohibited them from speaking around men. From that point on, you were only allowed to speak when by yourself or in the company of women. A girl may not even speak if alone with her husband or to any man under any circumstances- not even to her male children. She may speak to her female children, but only if she took her out of the house and far away from the father or her brother.

Of course, this Law was not always in place. In the Tenth Year of our existence, there was a King that was far kinder and far more just than any human around. He was incredibly handsome, but he never seemed fall for any of the women in the Kingdom. One day, however, a beautiful maiden washed up onto the shores of his private beach and he brought her back to the castle. Her beauty stunned him. Her eyes were as golden as the sun, her hair as red as fire, and her skin as white as milk. But none of that mattered to the lovestruck King. It was her voice, a voice as soft as a cloud and as smooth as silk.

The King spent hours on end just listening to the maiden talk and after barely a week went by, he asked her to marry him. Eagerly, the maiden said yes and they prepared to be wed. However, the maiden was keeping a dark secret- she was a siren. On the day of her wedding, when the priest asked if the King really took her to be his wife- she spoke. She commanded not only her love, the King, but all of the men in chapel to jump off the bluff and into the rocks below.

That day, thousands of men took their own lives because of her words, her voice. The men that remanded searched for the siren and eventually slaughtered her. The next King even took more precaution, passing the Law of Silence, making it illegal for women to speak around men. The punishment for breaking such a law was death by beheading. This Law was in effect for over six hundred year and never before broken. For nearly six centuries, women obeyed men and did as they were told, never once spoke to them.

But, on the eve of the Seventh Century, the Law was finally broken. A girl of nearly fifteen years finally did what no other women had the courage too.

She spoke.