This is an assignment that I had to do for my "Introduction to Religious Studies" class. I received a grade of 96%. Professor's comments are included at the end.
In the history of monotheistic religions, we see that no matter how much freedom women are given, there always comes a trend toward restricting women to roles of caretakers of the home, and producers of male offspring. This seems to be a common trend that occurs in patriarchal societies no matter where they occur in the world, or what individual shape these monotheistic religions take. To further examine this idea, we look at the roles of women in the Abrahamic traditions up to 1000 C.E.
The first tradition that we examine is Judaism and the development of women’s roles in this faith. Throughout the history of the faith women have been treated as an afterthought in the Jewish tradition. Women in the Jewish tradition have been revered in their limited roles as wives and mothers. There are many examples in the Jewish literature of extraordinary women, fulfilling roles from heroines and intellectuals, to devoted wives and leaders. There are even two books of the Hebrew Scriptures which are named after the women whose lives are recorded in them. In opposition to this though is the containment of “profound suspicion of women and their sexuality” which may have been the source of writings that contained “restrictive rules and disparaging pronouncements” against them (pg. 275). Because men had traditionally been keepers and defenders of the faith, leading to a masculine perspective dominating the Jewish faith. In the majority of the tradition women have primarily only been mentioned in the aspect of where they come in contact with men- in marriage customs, sexual practices, and procreation. Other than these limited references to women, they are greatly overlooked as a subject in the texts of the Jewish faith.
Women are an ambiguous subject when mentioned in the Jewish texts, and there is much debate about what makes an idealized woman. While attempts have been made to define the ideal woman, there are also accounts of women who have helped in the development of the Jewish faith in many different ways. The Book of Judges, for example, contains the story of Deborah, who along with being a wife was also a great leader who was instrumental in a significant battle for the ancient Jewish people.
The Jewish faith places more importance on the woman in her natural role of wife and mother. A woman’s ability to produce offspring was her most important characteristic according to the Jewish tradition. It placed a great importance upon her fertility, and if a woman was found to be infertile it was grounds for divorce as the woman was seen to be punished by God.
While the role of the mother and wife in the Jewish tradition was of the highest importance, women were not restricted to being simple caretakers of the home. In fact, the traditional Jewish wife is expected to be “industrious in obtaining provisions for the home, strong and capable, and involved in buying and selling in the marketplace in addition to more generally recognized vocations for a wife, such as weaving, sewing, and providing food for the family” (pg. 276). In effect a woman was expected to be her husband’s equal in the fulfillment of her role as a wife.
While masculinity has been highly revered in the Jewish tradition from ancient times, femininity has not been given such an equal and lofty status. While a great deal of importance has been placed on the male child, the birth of a daughter is not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, and is even “lamented” in the Talmud, one of the most important and authorative books of the Hebrew Canon. (pg. 276)
Other aspects of Judaism mirror this lowly position of females as well. In different parts of the Hebrew Canon, women are seen as property of men, who have very little rights of their own. In typical Jewish tradition of marriage, the husband is given control over his wife, who had up until then, been the possession of her father. The Talmud contains “suspicions and superstitions regarding females”, an example of this is that women are “prone to sorcery”. One is lead to believe that women are “dangerous”, and “holy and sanctified” in marriage, “impure” when they are not married. (pg 276)
Purity of the woman is also referred to in niddah, or the rules concerning menstruation. Like other religions, men are forbidden to touch the “blood of menstruation and childbirth”. Some of these prohibitions exist today in Orthodox Judaism. (pg 277)
The Talmud contains 613 “obligations” for men, “including the obligation to appear at temple and to study the Torah. These obligations give the male a closer position to God and man’s inclusion into the Hebrew tradition, while women are only given three obligations which are perfunctory, the “lighting of candles for the Sabbath celebration, breaking the Sabbath bread, and observing niddah”. (pg 277). Women are given so few “obligations” to the Jewish faith because they are expected to “fulfill her duties as wife” above all else. (pg. 277). Therefore women have been excluded and discouraged from more active participations in the Jewish faith.
While women may have been considered as mere property, “marriage is a pivotal event for the immediate family, as well as the entire community, as the family is the basic component of the Jewish social structure”. (pg 277) Marriage between man and woman is a “contractual arrangement” called the ketubah, which has profound religious as well as legal significance as well. Sexuality is seen as a “gift from God”, to only be enjoyed in marital union as God intended.
While women may have been seen as having few rights, her consent was necessary for marriage, and in cases of divorce where the husband broke some rule concerning the marriage. (pg. 277) Even in these cases though, the woman had to persuade her husband for the divorce, if she had good reasons such as his impotence, illness, or refusing sex. In some of these instances the rabbi, or the spiritual leader of the congregation, or the Jewish courts would become involved. If the woman was successful in obtaining the divorce, she would be paid a settlement that had been agreed upon in the marriage contract. In the case of divorce, men had an easier time of obtaining it, and the process was much easier if the man wanted it.
The second faith that we analyze, Christianity, originally saw an increased role of women that were later diminished.
In the beginning of the “Jesus movement” women were offered a much broader participation than what they had seen in the Greek and Roman society of the time. (pg. 343) The New Testament contained many references to women, who at this time, were relegated to being simple caretakers of the home. Various women are prominent figures in the stories of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and His mother Mary as well are two of the most famous examples. Jesus also used a woman as a metaphor for God in one of his parables, and women played an important role in the resurrection of Jesus.
Women are also mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible as equal participants in the study of the teachings of Jesus when they had previously been excluded in the study of religion. Women are also mentioned as being in positions of leadership in this “newly emerging movement”, who were apostles “who were respected members of this early community”. (pg 343)
While there have been positive images of women in Christianity, there is also a darker side as well. The New Testament has passages that say, in effect, that women should be subordinate to men. One example is First Corinthians 14:34 where the author “admonishes women to be silent in church and remain subordinate to their husbands”. (pg. 344)
Even though Christianity contains some negative perspectives of women, it is still a religion that is “expressly open to everyone, including women”. (pg 344). An example of this is Galatians 3:28, “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”. While the same patriarchal hierarchy as Judaism and Islam(?) exists in the Christian faith, women are allowed to “pray and prophesy in the church”, undermining the view of First Corinthians were women were expected to remain silent. (pg. 344)
There is much confusion on the part of Biblical scholars concerning these inconsistencies concerning women in Christianity. One theory is that some of the writings concerning women were written by someone else under the name of someone else which was common practice of the time, asserting their words as the word of one of the more famous followers of Christ. Another theory is that men of later eras interpreted these writings to conform to the cultural practices of the time, and therefore this emerging faith could be more readily accepted by the majority of people living at the time. (pg. 344)
Whatever trends were made toward women’s liberation in the Christian faith came to an end in around the second century. Women were disparaged due to the church leaders attaching them to a negative view of sexuality. This began a misogynic trend that would last for several centuries. One of the first theologians, Tertullian, remarked that women were “the devil’s gateway” and blamed them for “the sin of humanity that necessitated the death of the savior” (pg 344). Because of this negative attitude toward women, celibacy became a higher virtue over marriage in the eye of the church leaders. Women were seen as a hindrance to the spiritual progression of men.
Around the fourth century, after the church had become an institution that was validated by the Roman Empire, women’s roles became just as limited as they were in other religions. Now women were relegated to being mere caretakers of the home, as proper wives to submit to the rule of her husband, and whose main purpose was to produce male heirs for her husband.
The third faith that we consider, the one of Islam, saw conditions for women that were more progressive than other faiths of the time.
When the Islamic faith first emerged in the seventh century, women enjoyed a loftier status than what was capable in other faiths at the time. The prophet Muhammad himself stated that “all people are equal, as equal as the teeth of a comb. There is no claim of merit of an Arab over a non-Arab, or of a white over a black person, or of a male over a female”. (pg. 410). There were many stories of women who enjoyed a great deal of “independence, education, and wealth” in Middle Eastern society before and around the time of Muhammad’s prophecy (pg. 411).
Whatever Muhammad’s intent was for increasing the status of women in his new faith, the “patriarchal patterns” of the other monotheistic religions quickly reduced women’s roles to the same status they were limited to in other faiths (pg. 410). Where there had previously been a tradition of matrilineal families, of women remaining with her birth relatives, whose husband came to visit her with her tribe, now this trend soon
came to be replaced by a patriarchal structure. Like other monotheistic religions, women were now subordinate to the man, the woman was reduced to being a caretaker of the home, and producer of offspring.
Yet women of the Muslim faith enjoyed a status unlike other women who lived in that era. Some of these rights were being able to negotiate the terms of marriage, and a woman could not be married without her own consent. The “bride price” or the amount of money that the groom customarily had to pay for his bride, was paid to the bride, rather than her father as had been the previous tradition. The bride was allowed to keep this money, even after a divorce. Women were allowed to control their own finances, and the husband had to support his wife “in accordance with his mean’s regardless of his wife’s own wealth” (pg. 411). Divorced women and widowers were allowed to remarry and women retained rights to their children. Women could also “own and inherit property”, although not as much as a man because “she was not expected to provide for a family” as he was (pg. 412). Women also had the same obligations to the faith as the men’s due to the teaching of the Qur’an.
The same restrictive attitudes toward menstruation and childbirth that were found in the other monotheistic traditions were not found in Islam. There was no stigmatism toward sex in the marriage, and was even seen as the ideal over celibacy unlike the other monotheistic traditions. The prophet Muhammad himself, even taught that the tradition of women as “property” was wrong (pg. 412). Polygyny, or the marrying of many wives as was the custom of the time, also began to become curtailed in this new faith. Men were encouraged to limit themselves to only one wife, as “it is unlikely that wives can be treated equally” (pg. 412).
Many developments that women had previously enjoyed “greatly diminished as Islam developed” (pg. 413). Despite the rights given them in the Qur’an, the customs and traditions of the localities dominated. “The father or other male head of household arranged the marriages of the daughters” and the property of the wife was taken over by the husband (pg. 412). Despite the teachings of the Qur’an, male offspring were preferred over females due to the son “being perceived as more able to add to the wealth of the family” (pg. 412). The practice of divorce, which was always more easy for the male to get than the woman, became more easy to obtain. All a husband had to do was “proclaim three times” to the wife that he had divorced her and this was as binding as law. The equalities in religious obligations were also diminished as well. Women were now discouraged from attending prayer at the mosque, and if they did they were forced to remain in the back.
The practice of polygyny that had been previously been discouraged now became more sanctioned, resulting in the development of the harem system that was seen as “abusive and restrictive” (pg. 413)
Islam also began to adopt more restrictive practices toward women from other cultures that were assimilated into the faith. An example of this is the wearing of the burqa, or veil that covers an Islamic woman from head to toe. It is believed that this practice was taken from the Persian people who were later conquered by Muslims (pg. 413).
Another significant part that played in the determination of women’s roles was the interpretation of the Qur’an was done primarily by men. Many restrictive customs towards women were initiated by the male dominated power structure of the time even though the justifications for these customs had no or very little grounds in the Qur’an (pg. 413).
Women now had to submit to the same restrictive roles as were seen in the other monotheistic faiths. They were now only submissive caretakers of the home, to live solely for her husband and her children. If a woman could not produce male heirs then she could be divorced, or another woman could be married to serve this purpose (pg. 414).
Women were also seen as ignorant, “unfit for high learning”, considered in many ways to be “inferior to men”, and control of them was now seen as “justified” (pg. 414).
It is seen to be a predominant trend of patriarchal societies to limit the roles of women using faith as their justification. Many of these faiths reflect the attitudes found in the restrictive and misogynic codes of Hammurabi who lived some two thousand years before Christ. Perhaps it is a trait of males to want to subjugate women in the restrictive roles that they have been subjugated to throughout history, rather than allowing the freedoms and rights that they allow themselves. Perhaps this is the true nature of men.
Works Cited:
Ellwood, Robert S., McGraw, Barbara A. Many Peoples, Many Faiths Pearson Education, 2009
Professor's Comments:
"Detailed, good tone, examples supporting points. Bring Hammurabi in more clearly to tie in with these other faiths. Also, do keep an eye on the length - while I don't generally count against for longer essays, twice the expected essay length is more than needs to be done - you can say more with less, even capping it around 2000 words".
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