Women in the Church

The thing I find much more interesting than Margaret Fell's writing is this episode from her life:

The meeting between Margaret Fell and George Fox occurred while Thomas Fell was away on business. When he returned, he found that George Fox had converted his wife, daughters, and many members of the household to Quakerism. Although he never converted to Quakerism, Thomas Fell was supportive of her wife--who promptly stopped attending services at St. Mary's and became one of the key figures in the dissenting religious group.

Now I know about the sort of post-Reformation blooming of Protestant sects, but I never knew before that confessional diversities split up families. It seems to me that this can be taken as reassurance that the difference in beliefs -- for example the role of women speaking in church, as Margaret Fell writes about -- is not the earth-shaking thing we can make it out to be. Most sects agreed on the "important points" -- Jesus is the Saviour etc -- and could therefore get along. I don't think we should believe that tolerant Thomas Fell is what Sam Harris (well, class interpretation of Sam Harris) would call a 'half-assed' believer, soft on doctrine.