‘In the entire history of Israel, women have never enjoyed much freedom’, writes Mr Jean-Marie Aubert. To be more specific, women’s social devaluation has always been part of a certain religious structure there.
What is significant is that in the Scriptures, Eve was the second to be created: Yahweh ‘built’ her (when taken literally, yiben means ‘construct’) using one of Adam’s ribs or his side (the Hebrew word tsela has both these meanings). ‘Eve is the very first creature to have been made using living matter, without resorting to the breath of God. As a result, the very essence of women happens to be closer to nature’ (Le statut de la femme dans la Bible,622 in Les Nouveaux cahiers, autumn 1976). Eve thus intervenes as the separation of man and God, shattering the direct relationship that once connected Adam to Yahweh. ‘It is in this regard that the appearance of womankind would allow history to commence. Following this logic, it is hardly surprising that it was consequently Eve who, by picking the apple, flung mankind towards the earth below, far from Gan-Eden’ (ibid.).
The biblical society is both a patriarchal and a polygamous one. The husband is the owner — the Baal — of all his wives. Women are a property listed in an enumeration that comprises slaves and cattle (Exodus 20:17). Should he choose to do so, a man may sell his daughter into slavery (Exodus 20:7 and 21:7). Having arrived to Egypt and fearing that he would be put to death due to his wife Sarah’s beauty, Abraham passes her off as his sister and sells her to the Pharaoh. (Likewise, it was Isaac who, in the next generation, proceeded to pass his wife Rebecca off as his sister once he had settled among the Philistines.)
Legally speaking, women belong to the ‘incapables’, along with slaves, idiots, and the infirm. Their testimony can only be accepted in certain very specific cases. They are not allowed to divorce their spouse, but may themselves be repudiated, upon which they become impure (Leviticus 21:7). According to the House of Hillel,623 such repudiation may be pronounced by the husband for any reason whatsoever, beginning with his discovery of a woman that is more to his liking.
Among both the Hebrews and the Assyrians, one encounters the practice of Levirate marriage: a childless widow whose husband dies must ‘pass’ to his brother, thus allowing familial ‘goods’ to remain within the clan (Deuteronomy 25:5–6).
The notion of a goddess such the Roman Diana or Minerva, a city protector or a huntress, is unthinkable from the perspective established by the Bible. Only man is in direct contact with God. He alone undergoes circumcision, a mutilation that is conducted as a sign of his alliance with Yahweh. Women are thus marginalised among believers. When married, they are sometimes perceived as an obstacle to prayer, and synagogues implement a rigorous separation of men and women. As pointed out by Mr Aubert, ‘women are of no importance in the synagogue’: The Minyan, a quorum of ten people required for the celebration of any religious service, must remain exclusively masculine.
In Die Frau in der antiken Welt und im Urchristentum (Leipzig, 1954), J. Leipoldt624 highlights the fact that the Hebrew language lacks a female version for the words ‘just’, ‘pious’ and ‘saint’. In the Akkadian dialect, the feminine inflection is applicable to all that is inferior.
In the Bible, the harlot always plays a significant yet ambivalent role (the topic of the repenting woman-sinner). The importance placed upon virginity turns her into a necessary evil. Punished less severely than the adulterous woman (since she does not disrupt social order as much), she sometimes renders outstanding service. At times, she symbolises the fall of the Israeli people into idolatry. Jephthah the Gileadite, one of the judges over Israel, was the son of a prostitute. On her part, Rahab proceeded to hide the spies sent by Joshua. As for Hosea, he was ordered by Yahweh to marry a prostitute. In the ancient temple of Jerusalem, one encountered, just like in Babylon, sacred prostitutes known as the Qedesha.
Sexual relations are codified with the most extraordinary care. The punishments are detailed and the prohibitions numerous (and, oftentimes, connected to dietary prescriptions). Women are subject to innumerable rules of ‘purity’ and ‘impurity’ (Niddah), probably in connection with blood symbolism (‘The soul of the flesh is in the blood’, as written in Leviticus 17:10). The Talmud of Babylon dedicates an entire volume to the jurisprudence of ‘impurity’ issues relating to menstruation.
One can also read in the Leviticus: ‘If a woman has conceived seed, and borne a man child, then she shall be unclean for seven days. But if she bears a maid child, then she shall be unclean for two weeks’ (Leviticus 12:5–12).625
In Against Apion, Flavius Josephus626 writes the following: ‘A woman, states the Law, is inferior in all matters. Thus must she obey, not so as to be humiliated, but so as to be guided, for it is upon man that God has bestowed power’.
In the Middle-Ages, it was customary for the pious Jew to utter three daily blessings: ‘Praise be upon Thee, oh Lord, for not having made me a pagan! Praise be upon Thee for not having made me a woman! Praise be upon Thee for not having made me ignorant!’ (Menachot 43 b).
Marriage as a ‘Last Resort’
Despite the fact that, in the beginning, it primarily seduced women and slaves (during the 3rd century, in fact, the numerical significance of Christian women compared to male converts caused such problems that Pope Callixtus allowed patrician women to marry slaves rather than men that were equal to them in rank but had remained true to the faith of their fathers), Christianity was destined to re-adopt the antifeminist tradition that went hand in hand with its own origins. By establishing the principle of a specific Chosen People, however, Judaism turned the latter’s perpetuation into the most holy of duties. It therefore placed emphasis on the importance of the family, perceived marriage as a religious obligation and defined sterility as a curse (it was only during the rabbinic period that sexual desire was considered to be connected to the instinct of evil). A universalistic religion by definition, Christianity is the very opposite: it accentuates the process of devaluing both the body and human sexuality, stressing the gift of chastity to God. (In return, it grants women mysticism, which Judaism prohibits them from practicing.)
Establishing the ‘Christian family’ (while simultaneously considering marriage as a ‘last resort’), it proceeded to adopt the European tradition of monogamy as its own (having become Roman citizens in 212, the Jews were forbidden from practicing polygamy; but in Western communities, it was only in the 10th century that the latter would be prohibited once and for all, thanks to Rabbi Gershom of Mainz).627
The Christian hostility to women, which stems from Judaism, is thus combined with a more general hostility towards all matters of the flesh, one that is probably of Gnostic essence. (On many levels, in fact, Christianity comes across as a successively re-Judaised and de-Judaised sort of Gnosticism.)
Paul acknowledged women’s right to both pray publicly and prophesy. He even recognised their right to be involved in religious ministry. He did, however, recommend that husbands separate themselves from their wives during prayer (1 Cor. 7:5) and that women keep silent during assemblies (1 Cor. 34–35). With regard to marriage, he displays unambiguous hostility: ‘He who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage does even better’. (1 Cor. 7:38). In his eyes, ‘to set the mind on the flesh is death’. Believing that the distinction between the sexes must be overcome (Gal. 3:28: ‘There is neither male, nor female’), he advocates virginity as a genuine form of ‘liberation’.
He declares: ‘A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, and Eve next. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was woman who, having been seduced, became a sinner’ (1 Tim. 2:11–14).
As written by Mr Cheverny, ‘Christian tradition renders woman inferior to man, making her his mere auxiliary, a subordinate and a traitress. Alternatively, it turns woman into the Virgin Mary who bore the man-God, into the one who, having been visited by the Archangel, w
illingly submits to the will of the Holy Spirit. Never will it define woman as man’s equal in the framework of the couple formed by both sexes’.
Diversity Is an Enrichment
Ancient Europe offers us an entirely different picture. In all Indo-European societies, which lie at the source of current European cultures, women enjoyed a privileged position. Although these societies were founded upon a patriarchal type of system (in which the bonds enabled and transmitted identifications following a line of masculine kinship; the family submitted to the father’s authority; and the principal position in the pantheon itself belonged to a father-god), the latter generated a complete sort of society, one where women were not only ‘allowed access’, but also honoured, because the worldview it expressed established the relation between the sexes in accordance with a principle of complementarity.
It is because an inegalitarian conception of the world is necessarily founded on the acknowledgement of diversity that the other sex has always been considered an enrichment in Europe, and not regarded as a curse that allegedly stems from some ‘original sin’. Polytheism acts as a reflection of this human diversity, just as monotheism mirrors a regressive aspiration for the unique. Whereas Yahweh is a ‘masculine’ and jealous God, the goddesses and heroines whose names have never been forgotten by European history and tradition are beyond count, mentioned in various sources ranging from Vedic texts and Homeric epics to Roman tales and Scandinavian sagas.
Whether in Sparta, Athens or Rome, or among the Indo-Aryans, Celts or Germanic tribes, women were fully integrated into the socio-economic, cultural and political structures, participating in the public life. Regardless of the circumstances, a woman never left her husband’s side. She exercised her rights through judicial procedures. Each had her own place during stadium games, which exalted bodily health and vigour, as well as in front of the altar, where gods were honoured. In Ireland, women held religious, political and even military functions. Among the Cimbri628 and the Goths, it was not uncommon for women to take part in combat.
Whereas Assyrian women were compelled to undergo ritualised prostitution at least once in their lifetime, the Greeks honoured the beautiful Helen, the tumultuous Phaedra, and the faithful Penelope, not to mention Sappho the poetess, Aspasia the courtesan and even saturnine Xanthippe. Homeric texts sing the praise of both Iphigenia and Briseis. They depict Helen and Andromache wandering freely in the Trojan streets, accompanied by their escorts; with Queen Arete and Penelope speaking on numerous occasions before the assemblies. A dialogue takes place between heroes and goddesses, as well as between heroines and gods. It is even Andromache herself that offers Hector advice in matters of military strategy (the Iliad VI, 490–93). ‘There is hardly a trace of misogyny in the Greek epic texts’, remarks Sarah B. Pomeroy629 (in Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves. Women in Classical Antiquity, Robert Hale and Co., London, 1975).
Plato, who describes women as ‘weaker than men’, simultaneously states that they are destined to play the highest philosophical and war-related roles (Republic V, 455–56). The tragedians, and especially Euripides630 (Medea), offer us a description of feminine psychology that is fraught with both finesse and respect.
In Rome, women were not confined to a gynaecium631 either and were often seen in temples and shows. They dined in the city at will and were allowed to own both land and goods. They were entitled to inheritance and had, in the process, an equal share compared to that of boys: just like her brothers, a woman was the co-owner of the familial patrimony. Upon the birth of the Republic, women were already entitled to take legal action and testify. There was even a women’s assembly (Conventus Matronarum) responsible for monitoring city matters.
Historians and chroniclers have bequeathed to us the memory of Cornelia, wife of Pompey, as well as that of Portia (wife of Cato),632 Calpurnia (Plutarch’s wife), and many other feminine models of intelligence and grace. Cato the Ancient633 declared: ‘The man who beats his wife raises an impious hand against what is most holy and sacred in this world’. Louis Bridel634 writes: ‘Already in Roman times, mothers were genuinely well-regarded, but it was among the ancient Germanic peoples that women were honoured; and one might say that it was indeed through them that the very notion of femininity (Weiblichkeit) was born into the world’ (La femme et le droit. Etude historique sur la condition feminine,635 Paris-Lausanne, 1884).
In his Germania, Tacitus writes: ‘Inesse quin etiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant, nec aut consilia earum aspernantur, aut responsa neglegunt’: ‘They [the Germanic tribes] even believe that there is a certain sanctity and prescience in them [in women], and they do not despise their counsels nor ignore their responses’.
Among the Germanic tribes, adult daughters also enjoyed the right to dispose freely of their own goods. When married, they could, without the authorisation of their husbands, commit themselves and enter contracts within the limits of the household requirements. And in the event that the union was dissolved, they reclaimed all the goods that were duly theirs. The same was true among the Franks: whenever the marital communion was terminated, the wife regained the full extent of her dowry. Among the Vikings, women were not only entitled to inherit from their husbands, but also from their children, and even from their sons-in-law.
In most cases, boys and girls chose each other willingly, in accordance with local laws and traditions. A widow returned to her initial family and remarried as she pleased. Since the marital union was subject to free consent, mutual faithfulness embodied its very cornerstone. Prior to marriage, a large amount of sexual or moral liberty was tolerated, for matrimony was to be entered most judiciously. Thereafter, however, faithfulness was the rule. At times, adultery bore the punishment of death. It was not the fact of engaging in a sexual act with another that one was reproached for, but rather the fact of having broken one’s promise and not kept one’s word.
The remits were divided. The father was granted civic and military functions, as well as the responsibility to conduct domestic worship; the wife was granted authority over the family and household administration, a considerable responsibility whenever the ‘household’ in question included a large number of domestic staff members, in addition to the presence of distant relatives.
In Greece, the mistress of the house would, on her wedding day, be given a bunch of keys, a sign of both her power and authority. This custom is also found among Irish Celts — as confirmed by The Exile of the Sons of Uisliú636 — and in Scandinavia. Among Germanic tribes, Tacitus says, ‘the family only exists and subsists through the woman’; she is the mother, the financier, the guardian, and the associate: vitae laborumque socia.
By establishing itself in Europe, Christendom instilled a profound transformation into all ancient structures. Wherever noticeable differences between men were apparent, it affirmed the essential equality of all beings; wherever, on the other hand, a factual equality between people of equal status reigned, it lowered the wife in relation to her husband, turning the ‘mistress’ (domina) into a ‘servant’ (ancilla).
The ‘Key of Sin’ and the ‘Devil’s Door’
In time, this attitude did, of course, undergo a certain evolution — if only, as written by Mr Jean-Marie Aubert, because ‘at a time when it was spreading across the Graeco-Roman world’, Christianity ‘found itself in a cultural environment where the status of women was more favourable than in the Jewish world’. It is from this syncretism of primitive Christian values and European ones that the ‘Christian Occident’ was born, lasting for a few centuries. Nevertheless, a scornful approach to women did remain constant within the Judeo-Christian tradition up until the early post-medieval period, especially among the Church Fathers.
Ever faithful to the Scriptures, the Church basically reproached womankind for having been the source of original sin. Whatever they do, women remain ‘the daughters of Eve’: the descendants of the one that caused man’s fall. Women are described as being, by their very nature, incapable of resisting
temptation, as a ‘threat’ to the men they live with; in short, as a creature whose freedom one would be wise to restrict, a creature that should be placed under men’s guardianship and be treated as eternally inferior.
Considered to be the archetypal source and symbol of sexuality, womankind thus became the focus of a scornful hatred, one that sometimes concealed a certain psychological panic in the face of the second sex (see Wolfgang Lederer’s Gynophobia ou la peur des femmes,637 Payot, 1970). The old notion of ‘ritual purity’ still survived: certain medieval penitentiaries banned all women who had their period from entering their church or taking communion. In parallel to this, marriage was still depicted as a mere remedy that helped one avoid ‘burning’. For centuries on end, theologians and confessors would only recognise the validity of the sexual act when accompanied by one’s firm intention to procreate, even within a legal marital union. Last by not least, the cult of Mary took at times over from the worship of Isis (see the ‘black virgins’ of the Gallic tradition), idealising an unreal woman and laying the foundations for the virgin-martyr alternative (a watered-down version of the mother-saint principle) or the harlot temptress.
The Church Fathers espouse a watchword: tota mulier in utero.638 For Augustine, a woman is a ‘cloaca’; in Origen’s639 eyes, women are the ‘key of sin’; for Saint Jerome,640 a woman represents ‘the path of iniquity’. As for Clement of Alexandria,641 he states: ‘All women should die of shame at the very thought of being women’.
In his treatise on The Apparel of Women (De cultu feminarum), which was probably written in 202 CE, Tertullian strives to demonstrate the satanic origin of both jewels and make-up and labels ‘prideful and luxurious’ all that relates to cultus (parure) and ornatus (embellishment). He does not hesitate to blame womankind for having ‘brought about mankind’s downfall’. He writes: ‘And still thou livest the sentence passed by God upon thy sex in this world. Live thou shalt, therefore, as an accused; for so thou must do. Thou art the devil’s door; thou art the one that hath broken the seal of the Tree; thou art the first to have relinquished God’s law; thou art the one that hath circumvented Him that the devil failed to attack; thou art the one that hath so easily mastered man, the Lord’s own image. Death shall thus be thy recompense, oh thou that brought death even upon the Son of God. And still thou thinkest of covering thy skin garments with ornaments!’ (I, 2).
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