Christianity and Women...

I have been reading two books by Rodney Stark (The Rise of Christianity and Cities of God). He writes that most writers recognize that Christianity was unusually appealing for women because within the Christian subculture women enjoyed far higher status than did women in the Greco-Roman world at large.

But why?

In Athens, women were in short supply owing to female infanticide, praticed by all classes, and to additional deaths caused by abortion. (Both Plato and Aristotle recommended infanticide as legitimate state policy.) The status of Athenian women was very low. Girls received little or no education. Typically, Athenians females were married at puberty and often before. Under Athenian law a woman was classified as a child, regardless of age, and therefore was the legal property of some man.

Christian doctrines prohibited infanticide and abortion leading to more baby girls (who were particularly prone to be killed) and more women surviving (abortion as very risky at the time killing many women). They were married at a substantially older age and had more choice about whom they married. The more favorable Christian view of women is also demonstrated in their condemnation of divorce, incest, marital infidelity, and polygamy. All of which would leave women particularly vulnerable.

In a Greco-Roman world where women had virtually no rights Christianity was good news!

So, what happened after that?

Comments

[lisa]

Good question. I don't know if the ruckus in the blogsphere here (regarding Mark Driscoll's comments) made it to you but Rose Swetman wrote an open letter in response to his comments about women. Her letter on her blog is a long read but well done. If you care to read it you'll find it at http://rosemswetman.blogspot.com/2006/11/open-letter-to-mark-driscoll_14.html

[lammert]

Hi Lisa! Yes, I did follow that. I think men start attacking the position of women when they don't think they have what it takes...

[Wouter Rijneveld]

Rise of Christianity is a great book indeed.
You should certainly try to read his 'For the glory of God' as well. See here some points from this book (in Dutch, sorry): http://www.rijneveld.eu/2006/06/slavernij.html
and
http://www.rijneveld.eu/2006/06/heksenjacht.html

[Alan Hirsch]

What happened? Christendom. Once the 'deal' was made between state and cburch the Romans had to deal with the ancient Roman practice of 'paterfamilias' which stated that the male was the only legal head of any famly. The rest of the family existed at his behest. Once Christendom was formed, they had to mirror this phenomenon in the church. In other words it was part of the institutionalization of the church.