[continued from previous message]   
      
   Why is it that not one of Jesus' twelve apostles was a woman? Why is it that   
   women were not accepted as priests, either by Judaism or by Christianity? Why   
   is it that women were not permitted even to open their mouths in church, and   
   why were women    
   purposely kept untutored by direct order from Paul, who specifically enjoined   
   women from seeking clarification for any religious questions, except only from   
   their husbands? [281] Finally, why is it that women were told time and again   
   to be subject to    
   their husbands in every respect, as if each and every man were God incarnate?   
   [282] Did Peter and Paul really believe the humbug that they propounded was   
   firmly based on that wholly preposterous story of Adam and Eve? “Let the woman   
   learn in silence with    
   all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over   
   the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam   
   was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”   
   [283] If we accept the    
   testimony of Paul, not only would we have to believe the entire story of   
   creation as recorded in Genesis, but we would have also to compound the   
   imaginary sin of Eve while completely exonerating Adam, despite the verdict of   
   God and Adam's clear-cut    
   complicity in the so-called crime. Ultimately, the words of Paul reveal the   
   accelerating trend in women's suppression, as it evolved from Judaism into   
   Christianity. Judaism set the basic pattern in black and white; Christianity   
   filled it out with    
   Technicolor.   
      
   Priests and Prostitutes   
   Let us examine in more detail the systematic degradation of woman recorded in   
   the Old Testament. And let us also have a look at the effect of that   
   ill-treatment. Imagine the simple story: man desires woman; man marries woman;   
   man doubts the premarital    
   chastity of his wife; man fears he may have been cuckolded; man loses interest   
   in his wife altogether.   
      
   First, as regards a man's desire for a particular woman, rape was not a   
   problem provided the woman was an unbetrothed virgin. If this rape was   
   concluded cleverly, and no other person was aware of it, that was the end to   
   the matter. But, if by chance or    
   by intent, the man and woman were found in the act, the man was then obliged   
   to pay the woman's father fifty silver shekels and to marry the woman without   
   any right of divorce. [284] Whether the woman wanted to marry this man or not   
   mattered little,    
   because she really had no choice. So, for the man marriage was relatively easy   
   to arrange; for the woman who was raped into marriage, she could count her   
   blessings that she was married at all – her husband may be a confirmed   
   blackguard, but for a woman    
   who had lost her virginity to marry any kind of man, good or bad, was almost   
   impossible. According to the laws of Moses, if a man should discover or simply   
   believe that his new wife was not a virgin when they married, and if she be   
   unable to prove her    
   innocence, her punishment was specified as death by stoning. [285]   
      
   And what of that poor deflowered damsel who was the victim of an undetected   
   rape? Her future was very black. According to Mosaic law, a woman could not   
   usually inherit wealth from her deceased husband or parents, [286] and so she   
   became totally dependent    
   upon members of her family to maintain her livelihood throughout her days.   
   Should her parents discover that their daughter was an unmarriageable spinster   
   (as was likely to happen sooner or later in the case of the victim of   
   undetected or unreported rape),   
    then all too frequently the parents abandoned her to the unmerciful madness   
   of a man's world. Hungry, shelterless and completely demoralized, the only   
   avenue open to such a woman was the life of a harlot for, at least then, she   
   could barter her body for    
   a handout from some profligate man with money to spare. And if, under these   
   circumstances, some women tried to hide their shame and avert their fate by   
   resorting to abortion, despite the danger this posed to their own health (as   
   well as the murder of the    
   fetus) – who could really dare to blame them? But, in that society dominated   
   by males created “in the image of God”, those wretched women were not only   
   blamed but were damned for leading a life of indecency – condemned by the very   
   same men who brought    
   them down. [287] Had the woman been economically independent, she need not   
   have taken up prostitution, but no alternative was available to a non-virgin   
   with no means of support for herself or, when abortion was rejected, for her   
   bastard (fatherless)    
   child. [288] So it happened that this lewd and shabby profession came into   
   being, along with a high incidence of abortion and infanticide, in consequence   
   of the loss of feminine prestige, environmental conditions and outright   
   economic necessity.   
      
   One might have thought that the Jewish rabbis would feel compassion, seeing   
   the pitiful plight of women in their society; but they thought first for   
   themselves, offering a prayer of thanksgiving to God that they were not born   
   as women. If we search    
   through the pages of history today for the root cause of prostitution and   
   abortion, surely we must lay the major burden of blame on the gravestones of   
   those selfish and self-seeking standard-bearers of popular religion. True,   
   some amount of    
   licentiousness and dissoluteness may be possible in both women and men due to   
   individual depravity, but in no way is it possible for an entire community of   
   fallen women to emerge therefrom. One has only to compare the relative   
   mountain of male-oriented    
   pornography to the molehill of the female-oriented variety – both produced and   
   sold mostly for profit in some man's pocket – in order to realize that men are   
   more at fault here than women. One finds many men who publicly denounce the   
   institutions of    
   prostitution, abortion and pornography, but very few of these righteous   
   do-gooders are prepared to reform the lopsided social code which allows men   
   almost unrestrained sexual freedom and, at the same time, offloads the guilt   
   and unwanted consequences    
   onto the shoulders of women. In one way or another, it all comes down to the   
   same old lie – “Eve made me do it.”   
      
   No doubt marriage was far better than a woman's other options, though the word   
   “option” is a bit of a misnomer, considering that women really had little   
   choice about what happened to them. However, married life for women was by no   
   means a bed of roses.    
   If by chance a baby girl was born instead of a boy, then the woman was   
   prohibited entry into the sanctuary for twice as long as if the baby had been   
   a boy. [289] If by chance, or if by reason, her husband should suspect that   
   she had been unfaithful to    
   him, then he was at full liberty to bring her before the local priest who   
   would impose upon her a loathsome trial by ordeal, allegedly to determine the   
   truth of the matter. [290] Needless to say, the question of a woman growing   
   jealous of her husband did    
   not arise. And finally, as mentioned earlier, should the man grow tired of his   
   wife at any stage, divorce was a mere moment's headache – “let him write her a   
   bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.”   
   [291] As per the    
   dictates of traditional Judaism, there was no question of communal property;   
   when the woman left the “man's house”, she walked out empty-handed, or with   
   whatever her ex-husband permitted her to take, and that included the children.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)