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Woman
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11-05-2012 2:33pm#1Motivated by the gay marriage thread I thought we might as well continue the theme of discussing the oppressed & shift our attention to the problem of woman...
Basically you could claim women's oppression in historical & contemporary cultures around the world are inextricably linked to religion as these foul creatures are literally the cause of all of life's problems to some:
But would you be right in claiming so? You might be able to argue that gay people's oppression at the hands of Christians is nothing but pure ignorance since they apparently used to sanction it but I don't see how the same kind of revolutionary argument could ever be made with regards to women.- “No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman…..Sin began with a woman and thanks to her we all must die” (Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24).
- “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I don’t permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner” (I Timothy 2:11-14).
- “The birth of a daughter is a loss” (Ecclesiasticus 22:3).
- “Keep a headstrong daughter under firm control, or she will abuse any indulgence she receives. Keep a strict watch on her shameless eye, do not be surprised if she disgraces you” (Ecclesiasticus 26:10-11).
- “As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.” (I Corinthians 14:34-35)
I thought it would be interesting to find out if people think religion is inextricably linked to women's oppression or basically just to discuss what they know on this topic in general, for instance why women would support Christianity or Islam or whatever religion you want.
I think most of us remember a certain elevator incident that led to a discussion on a lot of the issues women face & it was the first I'd heard of anything like that having unconsciously been led to believe women could turn to rationalist culture as some sort of breath of fresh air so I think this old chestnut needs to be factored into the discussion :cool:
For those really interested in the topic, here are two [long] quotes from books I've been trying to find out more about & would love some input on what you think of them, whether you've come across anything similar etc... :cool:
From Durant:
From Engels:Since it was the mother who fulfilled most of the parental functions, the family was at first (so far as we can pierce the mists of history) organized on the assumption that the position of the man in the family was superficial and incidental, while that of the woman was fundamental and supreme. In some existing tribes, and probably in the earliest human groups the physiological role of the male in reproduction appears to have escaped notice quite as completely as among animals, who rut and mate and breed with happy unconsciousness of cause and effect. The Trobriand Islanders attribute pregnancy not to any commerce of the sexes, but to the entrance of a baloma, or ghost, into the woman. Usually the ghost enters while the woman is bathing; "a fish has bitten me," the girl reports. "When,"says Malinowski, "I asked who was the father of an illegitimate child, there was only one answer- that there was no father, since the girl was unmarried. If, then, I asked, in quite plain terms, who was the physiological father, the question was not understood.... The answer would be: 'It is a baloma who gave her this child.'" These islanders had a strange belief that the baloma would more readily enter a girl given to loose relations with men; nevertheless, in choosing precautions against pregnancy, the girls preferred to avoid bathing at high tide rather than to forego relations with men. It is a
delightful story, which must have proved a great convenience in the embarrassing aftermath of generosity; it would be still more delightful if it had been invented for anthropologists as well as for husbands.
In Melanesia intercourse was recognized as the cause of pregnancy, but unmarried girls insisted on blaming some article in their diet. Even where the function of the male was understood, sex relationships were so irregular that it was never a simple matter to determine the father. Consequently the quite primitive mother seldom bothered to inquire into the paternity of her child; it belonged to her, and she belonged not to a husband but to her father- or her brother- and the clan; it was with these that she remained, and these were the only male relatives whom her child would know. The bonds of affection between brother and
sister were usually stronger than between husband and wife. The husband, in many cases, remained in the family and clan of his mother, and saw his wife only as a clandestine visitor. Even in classical civilization the brother was dearer than the husband: it was her brother, not her husband, that the wife of Intaphernes saved from the wrath of Darius; it was for her brother, not for her husband, that Antigone sacrificed herself. "The notion that a man's wife is the nearest person in the world to him is a relatively modern notion, and one which is restricted to a comparatively small part of the human race."
So slight is the relation between father and children in primitive society that in a great number of tribes the sexes live apart. In Australia and British New Guinea, in Africa and Micronesia, in Assam and Burma, among the Aleuts, Eskimos and Samoyeds, and here and there over the earth, tribes may still be found in which there is no visible family life; the men live apart from the women, and visit them only now and then; even the meals are taken separately. In northern Papua it is not considered right for a man to be seen associating socially with a woman, even if she is the mother of his children. In Tahiti "family life is quite unknown." Out of this segregation of the sexes come those secret fraternities- usually of males- which appear everywhere among primitive races, and serve most often as a refuge against women. They resemble our modern fraternities in another point- their hierarchical organization.
The simplest form of the family, then, was the woman and her children, living with her mother or her brother in the clan; such an arrangement was a natural outgrowth of the animal family of the mother and her litter, and of the biological ignorance of primitive man. An alternative early form was "matrilocal marriage": the husband left his clan and went to live with the clan and family of his wife, laboring for her or with her in the service of her parents. Descent, in such cases, was traced through the female line, and inheritance was through the mother; sometimes even the kingship passed down through her rather than through the male. This "mother-right" was not a "matriarchate"- it did not imply the rule of women over men.
Even when property was transmitted through the woman she had little power over it; she was used as a means of tracing relationships which, through primitive laxity or freedom, were otherwise obscure. It is true that in any system of society the woman exercises a certain authority, rising naturally out of her importance in the home, out of her function as the dispenser of food, and out of the need that the male has of her, and her power to refuse him. It is also true that there have been, occasionally, women rulers among some South African tribes; that in the Pelew Islands the chief did nothing of consequence without the advice of a council of elder women; that among the Iroquois the squaws had an equal right, with the men, of speaking and voting in the tribal council; and that among the Seneca Indians women held great power, even to the selection of the chief.
But these are rare and exceptional cases. All in all the position of woman in early societies was one of subjection verging upon slavery. Her periodic disability, her unfamiliarity with weapons, the biological absorption of her strength in carrying, nursing and rearing children, handicapped her in the war of the sexes, and doomed her to a subordinate status in all but the very lowest and the very highest societies. Nor was her position necessarily to rise with the development of civilization; it was destined to be lower in Periclean Greece than among the North American Indians; it was to rise and fall with her strategic importance rather than with the culture and morals of men.
In the hunting stage she did almost all the work except the actual capture of the game. In return for exposing himself to the hardships and risks of the chase, the male rested magnificently for the greater part of the year. The woman bore her children abundantly, reared them, kept the hut or home in repair, gathered food in woods and fields, cooked, cleaned, and made the clothing and the boots. Because the men, when the tribe moved, had to be ready at any moment to fight off attack, they carried nothing but their weapons; the women carried all the rest. Bushwomen were used as servants and beasts of burden; if they proved too weak to keep up with the march, they were abandoned. When the natives of the Lower Murray saw pack oxen they thought that these were the wives of the whites. The differences in strength which now divide the sexes hardly existed in those days, and are now environmental rather than innate: woman, apart from her biological disabilities, was almost the equal of man in stature, endurance, resourcefulness and courage; she was not yet an ornament, a thing of beauty, or a sexual toy; she was a robust animal, able to perform arduous work for long hours, and, if necessary, to fight to the death for her children or her clan. "Women," said a chieftain of the Chippewas, "are created for work. One of them can draw or carry as much as two men. They also pitch our tents, make our clothes, mend them, and keep us warm at night.... We absolutely cannot get along without them on a journey. They do everything and cost only a little; for since they must be forever cooking, they can be satisfied in lean times by licking their fingers."
Most economic advances, in early society, were made by the woman rather than the man. While for centuries he clung to his ancient ways of hunting and herding, she developed agriculture near the camp, and those busy arts of the home which were to become the most important industries of later days. From the "wool-bearing tree," as the Greeks called the cotton plant, the primitive woman rolled thread and made cotton cloth. It was she, apparently, who developed sewing, weaving, basketry, pottery, woodworking, and building; and in many cases it was she who carried on primitive trade. It was she who developed the home, slowly adding man to the list of her domesticated animals, and training him in those social dispositions and amenities which are the psychological basis and cement of civilization.
But as agriculture became more complex and brought larger rewards, the stronger sex took more and more of it into its own hands. The growth of cattle-breeding gave the man a new source of wealth, stability and power; even agriculture, which must have seemed so prosaic to the mighty Nimrods of antiquity, was at last accepted by the wandering male, and the economic leadership which tillage had for a time given to women was wrested from them by the men. The application to agriculture of those very animals that woman had first domesticated led to her replacement by the male in the control of the fields; the advance from the hoe to the plough put a premium upon physical strength, and enabled the man to assert his supremacy. The growth of transmissible property in cattle and in the products of the soil led to the sexual subordination of woman, for the male now demanded from her that fidelity which he thought would enable him to pass on his accumulations to children presumably his own.
Gradually the man had his way: fatherhood became recognized, and property began to descend through the male; mother-right yielded to father-right; and the patriarchal family, with the oldest male at its head, became the economic, legal, political and moral unit of society. The gods, who had been mostly feminine, became great bearded patriarchs, with such harems as ambitious men dreamed of in their solitude.
This passage to the patriarchal- father-ruled- family was fatal to the position of woman. In all essential aspects she and her children became the property first of her father or oldest brother, then of her husband. She was bought in marriage precisely as a slave was bought in the market. She was bequeathed as property when her husband died; and in some places (New Guinea, the New Hebrides, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, India, etc.) she was strangled and buried with her dead husband, or was expected to commit suicide, in order to attend upon him in the other world. `The father had now the right to treat, give, sell or lend his wives and daughters very much as he pleased, subject only to the social condemnation of other fathers exercising the same rights. While the male reserved the privilege of extending his sexual favors beyond his home, the woman- under patriarchal institutions- was vowed to complete chastity before marriage, and complete fidelity after it. The double standard was born.
The general subjection of woman which had existed in the hunting stage, and had persisted, in diminished form, through the period of mother-right, became now more pronounced and merciless than before. In ancient Russia, on the marriage of a daughter, the father struck her gently with a whip, and then presented the whip to the bridegroom, as a sign that her beatings were now to come from a rejuvenated hand. Even the American Indians, among whom mother-right survived indefinitely, treated their women harshly, consigned to them all drudgery, and often called them dogs. Everywhere the life of a woman was considered cheaper than that of a man; and when girls were born there was none of the rejoicing that marked the coming of a male. Mothers sometimes destroyed their female children to keep them from misery. In Fiji wives might be sold at pleasure, and the usual price was a musket. `010347 Among some tribes man and wife did not sleep together, lest the breath of the woman should enfeeble the man; in Fiji it was not thought proper for a man to sleep regularly at home; in New Caledonia the wife slept in a shed, while the man slept in the house. In Fiji dogs were allowed in some of the temples, but women were excluded from all; such exclusion of women from religious services survives in Islam to this day. Doubtless woman enjoyed at all times the mastery that comes of long-continued speech; the men might be rebuffed, harangued, even- now and then- beaten. But all in all the man was lord, the woman was servant. The Kaffir bought women like slaves, as a form of life-income insurance; when he had a sufficient number of wives he could rest for the remainder of his days; they would do all the work for him. Some tribes of ancient India reckoned the women of a family as part of the property inheritance, along with the domestic animals; nor did the last commandment of Moses distinguish very clearly in this matter. Throughout negro Africa women hardly differed from slaves, except that they were expected to provide sexual as well as economic satisfaction. Marriage began as a form of the law of property, as a part of the institution of slavery. ""Thus when monogamous marriage first makes its appearance in history, it is not as the reconciliation of man and woman, still less as the highest form of such a reconciliation. Quite the contrary. Monogamous marriage comes on the scene as the subjugation of the one sex by the other; it announces a struggle between the sexes unknown throughout the whole previous prehistoric period."0
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