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 The link between religion/myth and the value/treatment of women is unmistakable. And, because such myths/creeds are considered "sacred," such beliefs are often difficult (if not impossible) to countermand. The quotes listed below come from research I did about 8 years ago and recently came across. Although there's a great deal more information available (especially if interested in how monks were responsible for witch hunts that killed thousands of women in Europe), this information should be viewed as just a teaser.
Babylon
"There is a custom amongst these people which is wholly shameful; every women who is a native of the country must once in her life go and sit in the temple of Aphrodite and there give herself to a strange man. Many of the rich women, who are too proud to mix with the rest, drive to the temple in covered carriages with a whole host of servants following behind, and there wait; most, however, sit in the precinct of the temple with a band of plaited string around their heads -- and a great crowd they are, what with some sitting there, others arriving, others going away -- and through them all gangways are marked off running in every direction for the men to pass along and make their choice. Once a woman has taken her seat she is not allowed to go home until a man has thrown a silver coin in her lap and taken her outside to lie with her. As he throws the coin, the man has to say, 'In the name of the goddess Mylitta' -- that being the Assyrian name for Aphrodite. The value of the coin is of no consequence; once thrown it become sacred and the law forbids that it should ever be refused. The woman has no privilege of choice -- she must go with the first man who throws her the money. When she has lain with him, her duty to the goddess is discharged and she may go home, after which it will be impossible to seduce her by any offer, however large. Tall, handsome women soon manage to get home again, but the ugly ones stay a long time before they can fulfill the condition which the law demands, some of them, indeed, as much as three or four years. There is a custom similar to this in parts of Cyprus." -- Herodotus, The Histories. Book One, Section 199.
Judaism
“It would be better to burn the words of Torah than entrust them to a woman” (Sotah 3).
“Whoever teaches his daughter the Torah is like one who teaches her obscenity” (Sotah 4).
“Pay no heed to the beauty of women . . . for evil are women, my children; and since they have no power or strength over man, they use wiles by outward attractions…. Women are overcome by the spirit of fornication more than men, and in their hearts they plot against men. … For a woman cannot force a man openly, but only by a harlot’s bearing she beguiles him” (4:1, 5:1-4). "The Testament of Reuben" (from The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, BCE 109-106).
"No Essene takes a wife, because a wife is a selfish creature, excessively jealous and an adept in beguiling the morals of her husband and seducing him by her continued impostures. For by the fawning talk which she practices and the other ways in which she plays her part like an actress on the stage, she first ensnares the sight and hearing and then, when these victims have, as it were, been duped, she cajoles the sovereign mind. . . . For he who is either fast bound in the love-lures of his wife, or under the stress of nature makes his children his first care, ceases to be the same to others and unconsciously has become a different man and has passed from freedom to slavery.” Philo, Judaeus. “Hypothetica,” 11.14-17, in F.H. Colson and Gh.H. Whitaker, trans., Philo, v. 10 (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1929).
“From a woman was sin’s beginning, and because of her, we all die” (Sirach 25:24)
“I [created] for him [Adam] a wife, so that death might come [to him] by his wife” (2 Enoch 30:17).
Christianity
"But I do not permit a woman to teach, or to usurp a man's authority, but to silent," 1 Timothy 2:12
“All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable . . . Wherefore for the sake of fulfilling their lusts they consort even with devils.” Malleus Maleficarum, (originally published in 1486 CE). Kramer and Sprenger, p. 43. (This book was directly responsible for the torture and death of thousands of women.). Section 1.6 entitled, “Why it is that Women are Chiefly Addicted to Evil Superstition.” – “[Woman] is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations.” She has a “slippery tongue,” and is “a liar by nature.” She is “quicker to waver in her faith, and consequently quicker to abjure the faith, which is the root of all witchcraft.” They are “feebler both in mind and body.” They are “Beautiful to look upon, contaminating to the touch, and deadly to keep,”; “a wheedling and secret enemy.” Pp.43-44; 46-47.
“By every garb of penitence [woman] might the more fully expiate that which she derives from Eve – the ignominy, I mean, of the first sin, and the odium [attaching to her as the cause] of human perdition…. And do you not know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of your lives in this age: the guilt of necessity must live too. You are the devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that forbidden tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law; you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert – that is, death – even the Son of God had to die.” Tertullian, “On the Apparel of Women,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, V. 4. (Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans Press, 1956), p. 14.
“I am Eve, the wife of noble Adam; it was I who violated Jesus in the past; it was I who robbed my children of heaven; it is I by right who should have been crucified. I had heaven at my command; evil the bad choice that shame me; evil the punishment for my crime has aged me; alas, my hand is not pure. It was I who plucked the apple; it went past the narrow of my gullet; as long as they live in daylight women will not cease from folly on account of that. There would be no ice in any place; there would be no bright windy winter; there would be no hell, there would be no grief, there would be no terror but for me.” David Greene and Frank Connor, Eds., and translators. A Golden Treasury of Irish Poetry, 600-1200 (London: Macmillan, 1967), 158.
As for Martin Luther's teachings?
“Now there is added to these sorrows of gestation and birth that Eve has been placed under the power of the husband . . .
"This punishment, too, springs from original sin; and the woman bears it just as unwillingly as she bears those pains and inconveniences that have been placed upon her flesh. The rule remains with the husband, and the wife is compelled to obey him by God’s command. He rules the home and the state, wages wars, defends his possessions, tills, the soil, builds, plants, etc. The woman, on the other hand, is like a nail driven into the wall. She sits at home . . . Just as the snail carries its household with it, so the wife should stay at home and look after the affairs of the household, as one who has been deprived of the ability of administering those affairs that are outside and concern the state. She does not go beyond her most personal duties….
"Women are generally disinclined to put up with this burden, and they naturally seek to gain what they have lost through sin. If they are unable to do more, they at least indicate their impatience through grumbling. However, they cannot perform the functions of men: teach, rule, etc. In procreation and in feeding and in nourishing their offspring they are masters. In this way Eve is punished; but, as I said at the beginning, it is a gladsome punishment if you consider the hope of eternal life and the honor of motherhood which have been left to her.” Martin Luther. “Lectures on Genesis,” J. Pelikan, Ed., Luther’s Works, Vol. 1 (St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1958), 116, 202-203.
“Leaving God out of the discussion, as is seemly, we ask: What kind of a part does Eve play? If we can believe the story, she is the seducer. Without her that primal sin would never have been committed. Everything for Eve! Adam’s fault was that he yielded to her. It seems that there is nothing left to his descendents but to regret his complacency.” Theodore Reik, Myth and Guilt (NY: G. Braziller, 1970), p. 110.
Other Examples:
One author (Schwartz, Die Neue Eva; Goppingen, West Germany: Kummerle, 1973, p.17) noted that many cultures blame women for bringing death to the world. Evidently, men in a Hanya tribe in Africa used to beat their women whenever someone would die because, “You are the ones who brought death.” In South America , natives stated, “The woman with her curiosity spoiled everything.” In New Guinea , “Women are seen to be responsible for the death sentence of mankind.” Lastly, in China “woman is the well-spring and root of all evil.” |
