The question of woman today cannot be separated from theology, ethics, hermeneutics[1], social assumptions, or attitudes toward woman as an authority, toward her character, thoughts, and activity. Elizabeth Clark and Herbert Richardson write in their book “Women and Religion” that patriarchy was, in one form or another, the most oppressive and most destructive manifestation of inhumanity in the history of humankind. The author of Gen 3, describing Yahweh’s punishment of Eve for her sin — her disobedience to Adam — has given grounds for regarding God as a supporter of patriarchy. As social structures took shape, religious symbols were assigned along with them, and so a critical analysis of Christianity is necessary. The emancipation of woman[2] demands a new understanding of God[3], the authors write.
Today patriarchy, as a model for governing and controlling society and religious institutions, is inappropriate and outdated, because the modern intellect has outgrown it; therefore religious institutions that maintain this model are harmful and degrading not only to woman, but also to the whole development of humankind.
Religion tends to be patriarchal — governed by men, after the model of the Father. The world’s major religions were created by men, and men continue to dominate within them. Religion arose along with social systems in which men dominated from the very beginning. Any Buddhist nun ranks lower in status than any junior Buddhist monk. In Islam, prayer is always led by a man. In Christianity, some denominations have women bishops and pastors, but they are still under the control of men’s higher authority. Religious institutions perfectly reflect the existing model of social control, in which the man controls, or rules over, the woman. There is a view that woman is by nature spiritually unequal. There are women who accept this, resign themselves to it, and believe that this is how it must be. Others fight against it, taking up leading religious positions in order to be heard. But the facts prove that for the most part it is men who dictate what a woman may and may not do in religious institutions. To say nothing of how women of another skin color are perceived: they are immediately classified by their origin, their social class, and their culture — for example, the view that a woman with dark skin who comes from a less developed country cannot say anything sensible compared with a man who has light skin and comes from a highly developed country.[4]
[1] Hermeneutics addresses the nature of understanding, the object to be interpreted within its historical and social-cultural context. It emphasizes the significance of historical tradition in contemporary culture. Traditional hermeneutics is concerned with the interpretation of a written text, especially in the fields of literature, religion, and jurisprudence. Laimdota Velde. Hermeneutic Theory. Department of Information and Library Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia [viewed 28.10.2017]. Available online: doingresearch.pbworks.com/f/Velde.doc
[2] Liberation from subjugation, dependence, or guardianship. The women’s emancipation movement. To fight for emancipation. Vārdnīca.lv. [viewed 28.10.2017]. Available online: https://www.vardnica.lv/svesvardu–vardnica/e/emancipacija
[3] Elizabeth Clark and Richardson Herbert, Women and Religion, A feminist Sourcebook of Christian Thought, (USA, New York: Harper&Row, 1977), preface.
[4] Mary Pat Fisher, Women in Religion (Upper Saddle River.New Jersy: Person Longman, 2007), p. 13.
WOMAN AND RELIGION
The topic of woman in the world’s religions is endlessly broad, fascinating, and at the same time complex and full of remarkable figures. Religions are not isolated, uniform vacuums; they differ from one another not only outwardly but also inwardly — across times, places, and functions.[1]
Woman in the Western religious tradition, which is unmistakably patriarchal, can be both developed and undesirably destructive. The early identification of woman solely with the functions of the physical body, and the elevation of man above her as a symbol of spirituality, contradicts the deepest meaning of Christianity; there was a lack of a feminine image of God and of emphasis on it. This emphasis was placed on the masculine Messiah, which was later corrected by the modern religious movements, which not only conceived of God as feminine but also recognized women’s religious leadership, including a feminine Messiah.[2] The later period brings more clarification about the place of woman in religion, but this happens very slowly and with much tension. The question still remains: did matriarchy[3] ever exist at all; did woman ever rule over man? There is no convincing evidence of the existence of matriarchy, and so we can look at the view of woman’s place in society only through the patriarchal scale of values of the early writers. The ideas of matriarchy gained their popularity with the anthropologists, social evolutionists, and feminist theories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[4]
In theology, the concept of the masculine was first subjected to analysis mainly under the influence of feminist theology. Early feminism rightly illuminated such aspects as sexism[5] and patriarchy, seeing the problem of the male/masculine mostly as a problem of power, domination, and violence.[6] Only gradually did the conviction take hold in Christianity that God is not a man and is not a woman either. God has no sex, but in him there is both a feminine and a masculine aspect. Theologically, God can be called both father and mother,[7] that is, by choice, whichever better characterizes, for each person, all-embracing love.
[1] Mary Pat Fisher, Women in Religion, preface.
[2] Ibid., 1.
[3] Matriarchy (from Ancient Greek μήτηρ, μάτηρ, māter – “mother” and ἀρχή, arché – “power”), gynecocracy (from Ancient Greek γυναικοκρατία, Engl. gynecocracy), or the era of the mother-clan. Matriarchy is characterized by the dominant role of woman in society. With group marriage in place, only the mother was known for certain. In women’s hands lay the entire economic and social life of the clan. Only with the development of animal husbandry did the role of woman gradually diminish and men begin to dominate (the so-called patriarchy). Proponents of the theory believed that matriarchy was found among “all peoples without exception”. [viewed 8.11.2017]. Available online: http://vesture.eu/index.php/Matriarh%C4%81ts
[4] Wiki Dot, anthropology terms in Latvian –M, [viewed 8.11.2017]. Available online: http://antropologubiedriba.wikidot.com/antropologijas–termini–latviesu–valoda–m
[5] Origin – English sexism, by analogy with racism ‘rasisms’. An attitude that promotes the stereotyping of social roles according to a person’s sex. The view that one’s own sex is superior to the other sex. Sex discrimination. Dictionary of Terms and Foreign Words, Sexism, Apgāds “Jumava”, 1999; Tilde, 2009 [viewed 8.11.2017]. Available online: https://www.letonika.lv/groups/default.aspx?r=1107&q=seksisms&id=1004589&g=1
[6] Mann Siegfried R. Dunde. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie 22 (1992), p. 51–56.
[7] Juris Rubenis. She and He. Love. Relationships. Sex (Riga: Zvaigzne ABC, 2016), p. 111.
WOMAN AND THEOLOGY
In the traditional Jewish faith, women were regarded as second-class people. This applies especially to religious life, where they were pushed aside — for example, in the Temple of Jerusalem, where they were not allowed to go further than the court of women. Women were not permitted to touch the Bible, lest they make it unclean, and one of men’s daily prayers was a thanksgiving to God that one had not been born a woman. Outside the home, a Jewish rabbi would not even speak with his own wife. Yet in contrast to this, Jesus Christ regarded women as equal to men[1] — for example, Jn 4:5, where Jesus begins a conversation with a local woman while the disciples have gone into the town for food, and the conversation moves from questions of everyday life to the theological question of salvation. Such conduct stands in sharp contradiction to the situation of the time. Christianity, which teaches that we are all one in Jesus Christ, made possible the association between man and woman that the Judaism of the time considered improper.[2]
Jewish communities in biblical times are recorded as patriarchal. In private life, the word “patriarchal” usually means that the real people are men, whereas women stand one step lower or are not regarded as persons at all — they have no public identity. Men make the laws, establish the values, and control the lives of those subject to them — not only the lives of women, but also of children and of men excluded from the ruling group. A woman’s opportunities are limited to the household,[3] which in the understanding of ancient times was far broader than the modern Western understanding of a household. Friendship between woman and man was impossible, and likewise women could not obtain an equal education; they had to make do with a different kind of instruction.
Great attention was paid to what a woman did with her body when she used her mind, because woman’s sexuality was perceived as dangerous, something that needed to be controlled and restrained. The notion of woman as a temptress who lures an innocent man into sexual excess was the prevailing view in patriarchy.[4] In Jewish texts we can read that women were excluded from positions of religious leadership and from cultic functions, and likewise the time of menstruation and the birth of a child made a woman unclean. Women were excluded from the spheres of power and influence, they were degraded, but in contrast a woman’s sexual, maternal, and household value was exalted.[5] Spiritual equality of the sexes, and mutual care for one another, later came to mean, in the development of Christianity, that friendship between man and woman was now conceivable, or an entirely normal phenomenon. The early Christian era is a testimony to a mutually unconnected coexistence of man and woman. In the 4th century, the writings of the Church Father Eusebius Hieronymus (Jerome) attest that he gathered women around him and explained the scriptures to them, and also taught them Hebrew.[6] The New Testament attests that women preachers and deaconesses had acquired knowledge and education in early Christianity, while in the 3rd and 4th centuries in Eastern Christianity women were ordained by the laying on of hands, and this had a sacramental character.[7]
In the writings of the Church Fathers there is a tendency to draw a parallel between Gnosticism as a heresy and woman as the embodiment of heresy. They write that woman is a lower creature, because so it is written in the Bible (Gen 1, 1 Cor, 1 Tim). For example, Tertullian considered woman a never-failing source of sin; Irenaeus thought that because of the first woman all creation is doomed to death; Augustine considered woman responsible for original sin and a lower creature than man; while the Golden-Mouthed (Chrysostom) thought that woman was not even created in the likeness of God, and Origen was opposed to women prophesying.[8] For woman in the ancient world, the household was the only occupation or kind of career. Marriage clearly showed woman’s subjugation and lack of rights — the observance of the principle “Hold your tongue!” — for the man in the family was the one who determined and regulated the number of pregnancies, contraception, and abortions. A chaste way of life and the acceptance of celibacy were the only way not to be subject to a man, and this gave woman the chance for yet another career in life — the career of a nun. By this, women not only escaped male domination and the bearing of many children, but also gained the opportunity for self-development, experiencing a richer spiritual life.[9] If the emancipation of woman is linked to the expansion of opportunities, then this is an essential aspect.
In the early Middle Ages, in the era of patriarchy, the principle of women’s celibacy was formally implemented in institutions (monasticism); that is, a woman could realize her wish to live in celibacy in an institutional way. From the 9th century, women began to gather in convents. The women who chose the role of nun were the originators of sisterly bonds of kinship (sisterhood). This word was later secularized and regarded as a modern expression of feminism. The medieval convents thus established, which continued to develop, often became an influential force in Christian society. A second step away from classical patriarchy began in the Middle Ages and continued into the Puritan era. In this period the idea of romantic love was highly exalted. Erotic ideals shifted their focus from Greek homosexuality to heterosexual relationships. The romantics of the time, in their love poems, described women as bearers of virtue who serve as inspirers of men’s courage and prowess in battle. The phenomenon of courtly love drew parallels with another notable development of a cult, namely the cult of Mary.[10]
Notable is the erotic mysticism in medieval pietism as God’s ardent love for the Bride – meaning the Christian community. The relationship between the transcendent Creator and the mortal creation, with concepts derived from a series of love poems regarded as erotic poetry in the Song of Songs of Solomon. In this way the Christian community, and also men individually, can put themselves in the role of the Bride. There also existed a view that woman was perceived as God’s caressing love, which testifies to a feminization of piety (devotion).[11]
Because of a change in the concept of marriage, the Protestant Reformation brought changes to woman’s social life. Luther understood marriage as a partnership which a couple freely enters into for the enrichment of their lives, which also applies to the bearing of children and to sexual expression. Luther’s theory was that every Christian woman, regardless of whether she is a farmer or a housewife, has a calling, or a time, in which she can prove her Christian worth — that her life has exactly the same holy significance as the life of a Catholic nun.[12]
A third step further from classical patriarchy was the impulse from spiritualism and social perfectionism, which arose in the period between the 17th and 19th centuries. A heightened sense of individuality led to involvement in the sects that formed in this period; these were especially favorable to women, because they called for activities that had not been possible in early Christianity. These sects promoted the view that women, as bearers of the spirit, are equal to men and are to be called leaders of religion, and that the traditional role of women and the relationship in marriage must be replaced with a God-given equality between the sexes. And the final stage of progress that brought equality of the sexes is the idea of the androgynous human being — a union of the masculine and the feminine. In Hellenism, too, there circulated the myth of the primordial androgynous human being, which was widely used in traditional Jewish interpretations of the creation story, while in Greek medical literature women were simply ‘inverted’ men.[13] The concept of the androgynous human being was affirmed in the French Romantic era and revived in the 20th century with a fresh perspective as modern feminism.[14] Already in the 19th century, movements appeared that considerably broadened the social freedom of women and made possible women’s participation in elections and their education — the first women lawyers, scientists, doctors, and ministers appeared, who received the same intellectual training as men. It was the feminists who advocated the call for Christians to review the biblical texts with a new, fresh perspective. A notable event was also in the second half of the 19th century, when contraception underwent its greatest breakthrough; for the first time in world history this gave woman the chance to regulate the number of her children.[15]
[1] Egīls Grīslis. Women and the Early Christian Church. Yearbook for 1993, joint publication of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia, the LELB Consistory, and the governing body of the LELBĀL.
[2] Elizabeth Clark and Richardson Herbert, Women and Religion, A feminist Sourcebook of Christian Thought, (USA, New York: Harper&Row, 1977), p. 5.
[3] Elizabeth Clark and Richardson Herbert, p. 3.
[4] Ibid., 3.
[5] Ibid., 5.
[6] Ibid., 6.
[7] John Wijngaards, The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church, Unmasking a Cuckoo’s Egg Tradition, (NewYork:Continuum, 2001), p. 26.
[8] J. Kevin Coyle, “The Fathers on Women and Women’s Ordination” in Studies in Early Christianity, Vol. XIV, Women in Early Christianity, ed. David M. Scholer (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993), p. 43–45.
[9] Elizabeth Clark and Richardson Herbert, Women and Religion, A feminist Sourcebook of Christian Thought, (USA, New York: Harper&Row, 1977), p. 8.
[10] Ibid., 8.
[11] Ibid., 9.
[12] Ibid., 10.
[13] Moisés Mayordomo Marín, transl. from English by Anta Filipsone, The Construction of Masculinity in Antiquity and Early Christianity, University of Latvia Faculty of Theology theological and cultural-historical journal, No. 58 Ceļš, (Riga; University of Latvia Academic Press, 2008), 33.
[14] Ibid., 11.
[15] Ibid., 12.
WOMAN AND THE CHURCH
Control and restriction of the expression of woman’s spirituality and of her participation in the community have always existed. For the most part, women have always been excluded from authoritative roles, although in some religions a woman may fill such a role. Around the world we can see that women usually tidy the holy places, light the ritual candles, prepare the feasts, serve people at daily masses, teach children, and visit the shrine to pray for their family. Women may also be secretaries and office managers in the buildings of religious communities, but they are usually not allowed to instruct or to lead the community’s rituals. Women are permitted to practice religious rituals at home, where their authority is unquestionable, yet home rituals are regarded by society as less significant than those in church, where the leader is a religious authority.[1] The role of Christian women in the institutional churches is complicated. The Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church do not ordain women; women have the opportunity to become nuns, collectors of donations, to receive a medical education, to live in prayer and submission. Yet in many Catholic churches the situation is changing — ever fewer men are preparing for the office of priest, and ever more often women appear who carry out pastoral work, performing the function previously fulfilled by the priest. As is well known, most Protestant denominations currently recognize women’s full-time ministry, and a woman also has the opportunity to become an archbishop. In Protestant seminary programmes, a third or even half of the students are currently women. There are women who serve in more modest ways, teaching children in Bible classes, helping in social work and charitable work in the churches.[2]
The initiative that brought woman into ministry dates to 1666, when Margaret Askew Fell Fox, with the Quaker (Quakers) movement, advocated woman’s spiritual equality and participation in ministry, on the grounds that the Holy Spirit has equally endowed both man and woman with the appropriate abilities for prophetic ministry. At the end of the 19th century, Christian women missionaries spread the gospel in society both at home and abroad and fought for voting rights throughout North America, and some women in particular denominations won the right to training for ministry. Protestant women’s ministry in reality began to spread in the 1870s, placing emphasis on contextual, historical, and literary study of the Bible, and also on feminist hermeneutics, which helped to strengthen the significance of woman in the Bible and grounded the Protestant principles of the priesthood of all believers.[3]
[1] Mary Pat Fisher, Women in Religion (Upper Saddle River. New Jersey: Person Longman, 2007), p. 13–14.
[2] Mary Pat Fisher, Women in Religion, p. 210.
[3] Ibid., 211.
CONCLUSIONS
Although patriarchy has brought great ruin and the concept is almost always used in a pejorative sense, it would not be right to regard it so one-sidedly. K. Wilber emphasizes that men and women jointly created their forms of communal life. Patriarchy developed into a form of social organization that helped people survive. At present such a form is no longer necessary, because we have begun to build another form, in which there is equality between man and woman.[1] The problem with patriarchy is that this view is very persistent and so deeply rooted, because it has a long history, and so it is postulated as something divine, as a governance ordained by God. Juris Rubenis says:
“We do not need a leveling of the sexes, but a balancing.”[2]
All the aspects mentioned in this work contributed to the status of the modern woman, when a woman can choose both a partner for her sexual relationships and how often to engage in them, as well as whether and how many children to bear; she can choose a profession and be spiritually equal with a man. Secular society is far more progressive on these questions than the prevailing churches, which carry with them the early stereotypes and prejudices. Even now, thousands of women across the world face discrimination and violence in their lives from an early age, which testifies to the influence and consequences of patriarchy. Yet it must be remembered that opportunities such as a woman has today have never before existed in world history. In Latvia, too, there is no shortage of men who defend the idea of patriarchy, such as, for example, Viesturs Rudzītis, who says in an interview:
“Human rights and women’s rights are less important than the rights of the nation and of children. Wherever a man and a woman are together, there is stress. Abnormal stress! Happiness is only in the honeymoon. All the rest of the time, one has to think about how to reduce this hatred between the sexes, this stress that exists between man and woman.”[3]
Women who have chosen to represent the church by serving in a leading office often have to contend with the stereotypes of the institutional structures of patriarchy. Congregations are usually the ones that give preference to the traditional family model, and because of these views it is difficult for women to secure full-time ministry. Women pastors often receive lower pay than men pastors; this trend of wage inequality is, of course, observed in other professions as well. There is a centuries-long, painful, and slowly traveled road in the search for woman’s place in religion, theology, the church, and society as a whole. But an equally long road still lies ahead, because what is happening now is a good beginning of what human intelligence is capable of developing into — to break the frames, and to look at woman with modern eyes in the modern world, no longer relying on outdated systems, models, and events.
[1] Juris Rubenis. She and He. Love. Relationship. Sex. (Riga: Zvaigzne ABC, 2016), p. 103.
[2] Ibid., 103.
[3] Viesturs Rudzītis. What Has Gone Wrong in the Relationships of Latvian Men and Women. “Kas Jauns”, No. 44 (615) 31 October–6 November, 2017, 24–25.
SOURCES USED
1. Clark, Elizabeth and Richardson, Herbert. Women and Religion. A feminist Sourcebook of Christian Thought. USA. New York: Harper&Row. 1977.
2. Coyle, J. Kevin Coyle. “The Fathers on Women and Women’s Ordination” in Studies in Early Christianity. Vol. XIV. Women in Early Christianity. ed. David M. Scholer. New York & London: Garland Publishing. Inc. 1993.
3. Dunde, Siegfried R. Mann. In: Theologische Realenzyklopädie 22. 1992.
4. Fisher, Pat. Mary. Women in Religion. Upper Saddle River. New Jersy: Person Longman. 2007.
5. France, R. T. Women in the Church’s Ministry. A test – case for the biblical interpretation. USA. Michigan: Grand Rapids. 1995.
6. Grīslis, Egīls. Women and the Early Christian Church, Yearbook for 1993, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia, joint publication of the LELB Consistory and the governing body of the LELBĀL.
7. 7. Marín, Moisés Mayordomo. Transl. from English by Anta Filipsone. The Construction of Masculinity in Antiquity and Early Christianity. University of Latvia Faculty of Theology theological and cultural-historical journal, No. 58 Ceļš. Riga: University of Latvia Academic Press. 2008.
8. Rubenis, Juris. She and He. Love. Relationships. Sex. Riga: Zvaigzne ABC. 2016.
9. 9. Rudzītis, Viesturs. What Has Gone Wrong in the Relationships of Latvian Men and Women. The magazine “Kas Jauns”. No. 44 (615) 31 October – 6 November. 2017.
10.10. Dictionary of Terms and Foreign Words. Sexism. Apgāds “Jumava”. 1999; Tilde. 2009. [viewed 8.11.2017]. Available online: https://www.letonika.lv.
11. Vēsture.eu. Matriarchy. [viewed 8.11.2017]. Available online: http://vesture.eu
12. Vārdnīca.lv. [viewed 28.10.2017]. Available online: https://www.vardnica.lv
13.13. Velde, Laimdota. Hermeneutic Theory, Department of Information and Library Science. Faculty of Social Sciences. University of Latvia. Riga. Latvia [viewed 28.10.2017]. Available online: doingresearch.pbworks.com
14.14. Wijngaards, John. The Ordination of Women in the Catholic Church. Unmasking a Cuckoo’s Egg Traditio. NewYork:Continuum, 2001.
15.15. Wiki dot. [viewed 8.11.2017]. Available online: http://antropologubiedriba.wikidot.com
16. Witherington III, Ben. Women in the Earliest Churches. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1988.