yesican32's Blog

...but they do show how far we've come as women

"The Catholic Encyclopedia declares, 'The female sex is in some respects inferior to the male sex, both as regards body and soul.'  This is a somewhat modified version of the opinion of St. Thomas Aquinas, who insisted that every woman is birth-defective, an imperfect male begotten because her father happened to be ill, weakened, or in a state  of sin at the time of her conception."

"Christianity was the first religion to announce that it was sinful just to be alive, on account of having been sexually conceived and born of a woman."

"Martin Luther claimed the physical differences between me and women demonstrated God's plan for sexism.  'Men have broad and large chests and small, narrow hips and more understanding than women who have but small, narrow chests and broad hips, to the end that they should remain at home, sit still, keep house and bear and bring up children.  If women get tired and die of bearing, there is no harm in that; let them die as long as they bear; they were made for that."

"A self-perpetuating belief in woman's inferior intellect was fostered by the almost universal custom of keeping women out of schools, all but a few aristocratic ladies who could receive an expensive private education.  Queen Elizabeth I of England was unsexed by several historians who thought she was too clever to be female.  They claimed she died in infancy, and a boy was secretly raised in her place.  The small minority of educated women were seldom accepted as such.  On one occasion a learned lady was presented as a curiousity to King James I, and he was told she was fluent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.  He only inquired, 'but can she spin?'"

"St. Columkille made a rule that no woman could even be buried in the vicinity of a Christian church, alleging that this was the custom from Chrisianity's beginnings."

"IN 1855, a Mrs. Caroline Norton left her husband after he repeatedly subjected her to beatings, mental abuse, and infidelity.  He kept his mistress in the same house with her.  A court ruled that the wife need not return to the house, but the husband was given their three children because the wife had 'condoned his actions' by staying with him through the cruelties.  In 1839, the Infants' Custody Act introduced a slight modification.  At his own discretion, a judge in equity could allow separated mothers to keep children under seven years of age, or to have visiting rights to older children, provided the mother was not guilty of adultery.  Fathers suffered no such restriction, of course."

"In the Christian view, woman brought death into the world and sex perpetuated it.  It was claimed that Adam was made to be immortal, but he lost both his innocence and his immortality when Even taught him about sex.  All women were copies of Eve, her very existence bringing destruction to God's image, man.  Women were dangerous even when dead.  An early church edict ordered that a male corpse must not be buried next to a female corpse until the latter was safely decomposed."

"The 20th century was not much more enlightened than the 19th.  Stall's marriage manual, the ultimate authority at the turn of the century, blamed women themselves for the seuxal ignorance society imposed on them.  If a wife failed to understand her husband's sexual needs, she was to blame 'for her lack of knowledge and consideration.'  But men's lack of knowledge and consideration was part of the culture."

"Male 'delicacy' even dictated that books of male and female authors must be kept on separate bookshelves unless the authors 'happen to be married.'"

"A standard Christian work on sex dedicated to Cardinal d'Este, Sinibaldi's 17th-century Geneanthropeia, said no woman could conceive if she enjoyed sex.  Before the turn of the last century, it was expected that 'good' women would know nothing of sexual pleasure.  If they showed an inclination to learn, they might be cruelly teased.  Thomas Branagan's advice to young men  was to test the virtue of a fiancee by trying to seduce her, to make sure she would react with 'becoming abhorrence.' If she seemed too compliant, she must be jilted."

"Syrian churches ruled that no person could become Christian except celibate men, and no man who had ever been married could be baptized.  Saturninus said God made only two kinds of people, good men and evil women.  Marriage perpetuated the deviltry of women, who dominated men through the magic of sex.  Centuries later, St. Bernard still proclaimed that it was easier for a man to bring the dead back to life than to live with a woman without endangering his soul."

"There was no Christina sacrament of marraige until the 16th century.  Catholic scholars say the wedding ceremony was 'imposed on' a reluctant church, and 'nothing is more remarkable than the tardiness with which liturgical forms for the marriage ceremony were evolved.'  It is perhaps not remarkable to find that htese liturgical forms were not evolved by the church at all, but borrowed from pagans' common law."

"Aristotle taught that a husband should be more than twice his bride's age -he 37, she 18 - so he could dominate her."

"Medieval folk tales convey a distinct impression that the Christian God opposed marrage.  One story said a pure youth and maiden agreed never to marry, 'for the love of God.'  But their heathen parents forced them into a wedding.  By God's grace, the ground opened under their feet and swallowed them before they could spoil their virginity.  A priest who dared officate at the wedding was found dead the next day.  Another young couple eloped, being forced to defy God, who 'did not sanction earthly marriages.' Gebhard, archbishop of Cologne, was said to have blessed married couples illegally, adn even took a wife himself.  He was exommunicated, besieged by Catholic forces in Godesberg Castle, caught, and killed.  The ruins of hsi castle are still shown today."

"When Christian authorities revised pagan marriage laws, they were primarily concerned with placing a wife's property in her husband's control and keeping it there.  Women owned the land under the pagan system, and their husbands could acquire an interest in it only through matrimony.  This system was reversed in husbands' favor.  Common-law  and Morganatic marriages were provisionally accepted by christian churches only after many restrictions had been imposed on the wife's rights of ownership and inheritance.  Christian marital morality amounted to taking the means of independenc from women and turning it over to men."

"Wife-beating was a by-product fo the Christian view of woman as man's property.  Napoleon remarked, 'Woman is given to us to bear children.  She is our property....She is our possession, as the fruit tree is that of the gardener.'  St. Thomas Aquinas said a wife is lower than a slave, because a slave may be freed, but 'Woman is in subjection according to the law of nature, but a slave is not.'"

---all passages taken out of The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, written by Barbara Walker