I just finished reading "Feminine Threads - Women in the Tapestry of Christian History" by Diana Severance. This is a fascinating book that goes through the history of the Christian church and show cases various women who did extraordinary things. The reason it was written was to show that modern feminism has pretty much made up large portion of history concerning women and how they were treated in Christian churches and Christian influenced societies.
Some interesting highlights...
While I knew that marrying young was common in ye-old-ancient-times I never quite realized *how* young. It was common for women to marry at 12 or 13 years old. When you think about Mary, the Mother of Jesus, you often think of her as an older woman, at least 16... but it seems likely to me she was closer to 12. This makes her willingness to follow God at the risk of being ostracized or possibly killed for getting pregnant out of wedlock even *more amazing*.
It was also disheartening to see how many of these girls were widowed before the age 18 years old. Not only did they have many miscarriages and lose their birthed babies to sickness frequently, it seemed like a husband staying alive until his 10 year wedding anniversary was rare. Can you imagine being 16 and suffering that kind of lose?
Another interesting thing is that authority does not equal influence. Up until recently, only fringe groups in Christianity dared say woman had equal authority within the church as men did. Despite women historically never having positions of power (like being a pastor), history shows again and again that women had more influence over people then men did, both in their own communities and on national levels.
In fact, it's flat out amazing how influential women were despite the social (not Christian) confines of their day. Christian women often learned how to read, write, and (the ambitious) learned several different languages. There were some women who were so well versed in scripture and theology that the contemporary male leadership of their day went to them for advice. They formed societies to help the poor, sick, orphaned, and widowed. They were huge financiers of missionaries and theologians and the afore mentioned societies. In Roman Times (and some other times in history too) wealthy women opened up their homes to be used as churches. Queens (especially early on in Europe) would often lead their Kingly husbands to Christ (sometimes marrying them specifically for that reason!) and there by bring Christ to the whole nation. And then there's all those schools, orphanages, and hospitals specifically started by women too.
You will be hard pressed to find one single great theologian, pastor, missionary, or great evangelical movement that was not directly influenced and propelled by women. In some sense, if men were the head of the church, women were it's hands and feet. But even this is not a perfect analogy, as it implies only men made decisions, when women often took the initiative when they saw a need not being met (to the praise, by the way, of the men).
In Christian marriages, historically, women were treated with respect and valued as people. You will be hard pressed to find a religious text from antiquity that commands men to respect their wives and love them sacrificially, to the death. Yet that is exactly what Apostles told early Christians, and that's exactly what the Christian men of their day did.
Even Jesus, when speaking on divorce and lust, was actually advocating *for* women. It wasn't uncommon for men to divorce their wives over anything (even a slight offense), so that they could remarry younger women. (Leaving their ex-wife destitute and with a social stigma.) Basically, Jesus was cutting this practice at the head and the feet by saying lusting after a woman when you are already married is as bad as adultery and divorcing your wife for anything but specific offenses and then remarrying was also adultery.
Speaking of Jesus, he was very pro-women. We have a hard time seeing this now, because of the cultural divide, but he very much treated women as intelligent and honorable. He taught women directly, something unheard of for his day. He talked to them in public, directly, which was shocking. He healed them and raised them from the dead. Before he died, Jesus remembered his mother, and made sure someone was there to provide for her once he was gone. Women had the privilege of being the first to see the empty tomb and the first to see a resurrected Jesus. All this he did in a society were sometimes just touching a woman made you dirty.
In closing, it is unfortunate that we live in a society that demonizes motherhood, particularly mothers who choose raising their children as their vocation in life. Marriage and motherhood are extremely important, and only the prideful, spiteful, modern feminists of today have the foolishness to think otherwise. A stable and healthy society is always built on a stable and healthy home, and lets not kid ourselves: the greatest influence of a home is the mother. (Something history proves again and again.)
That being said, the push from conservatives to try and bring motherhood and marriage back to it's rightful place of honor will likely end in failure. The problem is they're placing too much trust in a political system and the idea of changing society from the outside. That won't work, and you won't be able to talk people into it when all they can hear you saying is "Women should stay in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant."
I think there is also a tendency to lift up motherhood and marriage to the neglect of other legitimate vocations for women. It's important to remember that women don't have to get married to have value within the Christian community. It's also important to realize that motherhood is not the end-all be-all to a woman's life too. It's also quite possible to be a good mother and have a job--whether it's a ministry position or "for profit". None of these things have to be mutually exclusive, nor does one thing have to be better than the other. All of these vocations and paths can be--and have been--glorifying to God.
If conservatives want to make Christian femininity (including motherhood and marriage) to be honorable in our society again, it's time to stop talking and start doing. You can't make someone change their minds by arguing with them, but you can live your life in such a way that shuts them up. And we have plenty of women from the past and the present who live their lives in a way that would shut all those skeptics up if we put more effort into showing them off.
And that's all I have to say about it. Or at least that all I'm gonna write about it. Phew. ;)
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