SOC 250 Lecture 7
Assyrian Law on Rape
o If married man rapes a virgin, the father of the virgin shall take the wife of the rapist and giver
her to be dishonoured and shall take her
o Raped virgin will be given to rapist as spouse
Law on Veiling
o Neither wives nor widows nor daughters shall have their heads uncovered
o A harlot must not veil herself, her head must be uncovered if she violates this law, they shall flog
her fifty times and pour pitch on her head
Feminists emphasize two major points
o The major religious traditions of today emerged, historically and culturally, within patriarchal
societies. They are thus both complicit with and integral to the maintenance and reproduction of
Patriarchy
All traditional religious variously establish an preach the „inferiority‟ of the female
All call for the necessary subjugation/subordination of women to men
o As a consequence of Patriarchal arrangements, women are systematically discriminated against
in religious life
Female ritual functions are typically domestic rather than public
Females are often physically segregated (time and place) within sites of worship
Females are commonly required to undergo special purifications following menstruation
and childbirth
They are typically excluded from official roles and authority positions or consigned to
subordinate roles within a religious order or tradition
The primary or dominant deities are typically masculine
Sacred myths and scriptures commonly denigrate or blame females for humanity‟s
troubles
A central point on patriarchy is historical
o The Mother Goddess thesis: “when god was a woman”
The historic decline of female metaphysical power: from the paleolithic-neolithic
“Mother Goddesses” to polytheistic pantheons that elevated male war and storm gods and
marginalized female deities
The rise militaristic states and empires c. 3 000 BCE and the growing ascendancy of
war/storm gods
But claims of a widespread Mother Goddess period or that “matriarchy” prevailed are
now widely rejected by archaeologists and historians
o Laws of Manu st
Codified in the 1 century CE=the First King and Sage who saved humanity from the
great flood=a sacred law code
It is the very nature of women to corrupt men here on earth
A girl, a young women, or even an old women should not do anything
independently, even in the house
In childhood a woman should be under her father‟s control, in youth under her
husband, and when her husband is dead, under her son‟s control. She must never
seek to live independently
A virtuous woman should constantly serve her husband and submit to all his wills
and desires, even if he is bad
o Jain scriptures
The world is greatly troubled by women
For men do say :these are the vessels fo happiness”
But this leads to pain, to delusion, to death, to hell And to birth as hell-beings or as brute beasts
o Bible
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and they conception in sorrow
thou shalt bring fort children, and they desire shall be to they husband, and he shall rule
over thee
o Simone de Beauvoir
Man enjoys the great advantage of having a god endorse the code he writes, and since
man exercises a sovereign authority over women it is especially fortunate that this
authority has been vested in him and the Supreme Beings.
o Men write the texts
Input patriarchal beliefs into the texts
MalleusHexenhammerhammer against witches
o A practical manual to combat heresy and witchcraft
Written by two German Dominican monks who served as inquisitors of the Catholic
Church, received papal approval, but eventually the Church condemned the book in 1667
Went through numerous editions between 1487 and 1669 and spread widely throughout
Europe played a conscious role in the so-called “witch Craze” of this era and the deaths
of thousands of women who were burned or drowned or tortured to death
Scholarly estimates 100 000 trials, roughly 15 000 documented executions, with
extrapolations ranging from 40 to 100 00 total dead
80% of the accused were female
The Malleus draws
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