Tradition, Scripture, and the Making of Women’s Chains
The Sacred Justification of Women’s Suffering
A few years ago I was visiting with a young man at a party and the subject of politics and women came up. In no uncertain terms, this man shared his opinion freely and openly with me. He asserted that women were responsible for the state of the world at that time, specifically highlighting AOC as a problem figure. He pointed out that women should not have the right to vote nor should they be in the workplace.
In his view, granting women the right to vote was the beginning of the downfall of society, and a return to those traditional values was necessary. He stated with zero hesitancy that women should remain as stay-at-home moms and be taken care of by their husband, the rightful provider. His belief was that this was what women should want, and a good man would be happy to fill the provider role.
In his mind, this arrangement would fulfill both parties; he couldn’t understand why this would ever not be desirable. In addition to the supposed fulfillment, this was also the proper hierarchical order as God intended so that’s what we should all, of course, be doing.
When I say I was saddened it is an understatement. While I knew many within my culture and the culture at large hold those traditional values as dear — I myself value aspects of it — I had never heard somebody so brazenly promote the reduction of women’s rights. And if that is a requirement for the ‘return to traditional values,’ we need to reconsider whether there was ever any value at all.
In many ways, I was heartsick at this young man’s deeply held beliefs and the distorted lens through which he viewed the world. I understand how he came to this conclusion, but women’s rights were an uphill battle for centuries. Yet many are clinging to the now familiar patriarchal structure, one that requires hierarchy and a certain level of submission and dominance, rather than the hope of a more egalitarian experience, where both genders share equal value.
I’ve mentioned before that we often view history through rose-colored glasses. We adopt the narrative we want and disregard the dirty underbelly. In many ways, we’ve never even seen the dirty underbelly because we were not given the full history; we were given the narrative of one half of humanity and assumed the other half experienced the same.
But I’ve found the other side of history and it is as enlightening as it is minimal. The traditional values that are so often touted as the goal of a utopian society, with the hierarchy firmly in place where men and women slide seamlessly into their appointed roles, is a utopia that has never existed, nor ever will exist. Why? Because women will always question why they are the lesser sex and they will always seek equality.
And they should. Subjugation and suppression are two experiences that violate the very core of one’s soul. It doesn’t matter if this subjugation is written into canon or scripture, it doesn’t matter if it’s screamed from the pulpit or whispered in the ears of children, it doesn’t matter if murder is the result of pushing against it, every oppressed group will continue to push and seek to create for themselves the same rights that exist for the oppressor.
I’d like to explore with you the root of the traditional value system that denotes a clear hierarchy with women placed firmly beneath men. The most obvious place for the beginning of this value system is Genesis, where Eve was quite clearly set aside as the evil seductress and placed beneath Adam, to be his helpmeet, cursed with the desire to serve him. While I personally believe our rendition of this story is incorrect, the translation we have been given of this one story alone creates a division between men and women, teaching men that they cannot and should not trust their wife but to always be wary, and ensure she stays controlled and compliant, lest she rise and deceive him again.
This mentality was promoted many times throughout the ages, both scripturally and otherwise. Women’s subservience was referenced in the Law of Moses over and over as women’s experiences were referred to as ‘unclean.’ It was reiterated by this same law ensuring husbands that if they suspected their wife was being unfaithful, they could take her to the priests who would curse her with infertility. Never mind proof. Suspicion was enough. Women’s role was further entrenched when Jesus’s apostles declared women should be taught at the feet of their husbands and remain silent in the churches.
Aristotle, who we all know as one of the greatest philosophers of recorded history, believed women to be naturally inferior, a mutilated or deformed version of man. Women were, in his view, subordinate. Their emotions were a weakness and their mental capacities insufficient in comparison to men. Aristotle’s views largely impacted the framework of Christianity as it was formed over time, and have had a heavy influence in the shaping of Western culture. (1)
Beyond Aristotle, we have many Christian saints whose opinions on women and their position were quite clear.
Tertullian, 155-240 CE, in regards to women, “Do you not know that you are the devil’s gateway? You are the unsealed of that forbidden tree…on account of your desert — that is, death — even the Son of God had to die.” This links right back to the garden of Eden, where Eve became the first representation of women as the devil’s handmaidens. (2)
St. Augustine in the 15th Century, “even before her sin, woman had been made to be ruled by her husband and to be submissive and subject to him.” He also stated, “woman together with her husband is in the image of God…but when she is referred to separately to her quality of “help-meet,” which regards the woman alone, then she is not the image of God, but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one.” (3)
There are more examples of women being villainized and diminished within the early Christian framework, but these will suffice. These ideals shaped Christianity and continued to shape the world for women as Christianity spread throughout the globe. Christianity is the example I am most familiar with, but it’s far from the only system whose roots rely on women’s subservience. Many, if not all, global cultures share a similar value.
When combing through history, it becomes evident that the subjugation of women had a clear starting point and was carried on through religious and cultural ideals, following a similar vein well into modern day. The gentleman I spoke with was merely the result of a system created thousands of years ago and perpetuated for millennia by those in power.
The traditional values we look back on so fondly are rooted in these beliefs that hold women as inferior beings whose bodies are meant for reproduction and whose minds are incapable of leadership and individuality. Well into the 1900’s, women were kept from education, leadership, and advancement due to these ‘traditional’ values.
In learning this history, I have to ask myself, are these traditional values actually valuable? Or are they simply what’s known and what’s comfortable for those who benefit the most from them?
Now the thing about that young man that I spoke to was that he was very right in his beliefs, very justified. This was the correct order of things and it is correct because it is biblical. He never considered the impact of these ‘traditional values.’
So let’s unpack them.
In the US, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (5) was passed in 1974. This law made it illegal to require a husband or father’s signature when a woman was attempting to open a credit card. It also made it illegal to deny a woman credit based on sex or whether she was married. It made it illegal for the financial institution to ask the woman about pregnancy, birth control, or family planning. Up until this time it was perfectly legal to deny a woman credit for the lack of a male signature or because she may be considering having a family or already having children. Women —- married, single, divorced, widowed, gainfully employed, single moms — were routinely denied access to credit because they did not have a male co-signer.
The impact of this one lack of basic rights kept many women in unhealthy, abusive marriages. It created a barrier to women becoming self-sufficient and forced their reliance on men. Women couldn’t create a business without the help of a man. They paid more for many things because they had no credit history and were considered a ‘higher risk.’ Income disparity was inevitable. With no credit history or accounts, home ownership or rental was often impossible. Buying a car was impossible. Women had no recourse, no power, no options. The system forced women to live at the mercy of men then called it ‘traditional values.’
But let’s go back further. In the 1920’s women were finally given the right to vote. This was the beginning of the end of society as we know it, according to the man I mentioned at the beginning of this piece. And yet, this was simply the first time in history women were represented within the legal system. And the only representation they had was the right to vote. They were not yet holding political office.
Interestingly enough, when male American colonists were required to comply with laws made by a parliament that did not represent them, they rebelled. They started the Revolutionary War. They refused to comply when their voices were not being heard.
Those men were called heroes, courageous, powerful. They are revered for standing against such tyranny. They stood against a giant all for the sake of freedom. And yet, when a woman does it…how dare she! She’s violating God’s natural laws. She’s spitting in the face of the divine.
Well the American colonists stood against a king, a man who was believed to be divinely ordained. So they also went against God’s natural laws and spit in the face of the divine. But instead of being demonized by history, they have been elevated and made to be nearly gods themselves.
Women did nothing more than require equal representation and recognition that they are also a part of the human equation. In fact, without women, there are no humans. Our bodies carry all humans. It is through our blood, our sweat, and our tears that humanity survives.
But let’s go back to the late 1800’s before women had the right to vote. At this point in time, women were owned by their husbands, the church, or science. As I understand it, many didn’t even believe women had souls. They were property, a commodity to be used and, if desired, discarded. Women were frequently institutionalized for ‘hysteria.’ This barbaric practice continued well into the 1900’s. A man could institutionalize his wife for nearly anything. If women presented with symptoms of hysteria, which today has the label of PTSD, they were often put away for months, years, or even the remainder of their life.
Sigmund Freud, one of history’s great philosophers, began studying women with hysteria in the late 1800’s. For ten years he listened, observed, and utilized therapeutic techniques to promote healing (6). He listened as they shared their stories of rape, molestation, and abuse in many forms from childhood on. Story after story, woman after woman. He heard, he listened, he helped. The women began to heal, they improved, the hysteria diminished. But then Freud shut the program down. After ten years of believing women, he retracted his words. He declared they were delusional or lying because he couldn’t deal with the reality that the world he lived in caused mass amounts of trauma for women; he couldn’t face a world that hurt so many women so instead he retreated to his safe world where women were delusional, not abused. And why were they abused? Because they had no right to fight back. Because the cultural narrative surrounding women set them apart as naturally wicked, stupid, and defective. The dehumanization of women began in ancient history and continued for thousands of years, and yet Freud was surprised when abuse occurred within that framework.
For years we have promoted the patriarchal order as God’s order. It must be natural. It’s biblical. At the same time, feminism has been widely demonized. Women who stand up for themselves and others are Feminazis, bitches, violating the natural order, but history doesn’t share that narrative. The ‘natural order’ has been used as a tool to justify ongoing abuses of women.
If this is what it means to ‘return to traditional values,’ I want no part of it. Those are not my values. Nor are they the values of the men I love, respect, and honor for who they are and what they bring to this world.
According to Frederick Engels, it was the development of the state that relegated women to the existence of slave and servant. He states that, “the overthrow of the mother right was the world historical defeat of the female sex. The man took command in the home also; the woman was degraded and reduced to servitude; she became the slave of his lust and a mere instrument for the production of children.” (7) For many women, not much has changed.
The Creation of Patriarchy, Gerda Lerner, pages 206-209
The Creation of Feminist Consciousness, Gerda Lerner, pg 141
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act (https://www.justice.gov/crt/equal-credit-opportunity-act-3)
Trauma and Recovery by Judith Lewis Herman MD
The Creation of Patriarchy, Gerda Lerner, pg 22
