Imagine that you were born a woman two thousand, three thousand, or even five thousand years ago. Transport yourself through the haze of the millennia, and the experience of the ages, to a life very different from your expectations of the twenty-first century.
Let us pretend that as a girl of marriageable age—thirteen or fourteen—you were given away to a man of thirty or older; to live in his house under his rules with no rights, respect, or consideration from the husband or his family, whom you were expected to serve the rest of your life.
Picture your anxiety as you await the birth of your first child remembering that your childhood friend, also newly married, died early trying to give birth even though her body had not matured enough to release the child. Would her agony be yours as well?
Let us suppose that at sometime in your life you had ideas that another man was kinder or more attractive than your abusive, demanding, and hostile husband. You wonder that there is no recourse to your pain, your servitude, or your humiliation. Yet you fully understood that any action you—or he—might take would justify your husband to scourge you and turn you out to the community for public stoning. You also realize that if anyone thinks you had even touched the man you might face the same end.
Envision that you were born excessively beautiful, that wealthy men, kings, sultans, and emperors vied for your hand in marriage. That after an elaborate wedding ritual, you were added to their collection of other great beauties from far off lands to await your turn for the opportunity to please the Great One whose seed might make you famous. Knowing that your beauty was both a blessing and a curse, you knew that if your husband died in battle you would have the distinction of being a trophy bride for the repugnant, alien victor.
Finally, envision that your husband died. Your choice would be whether to throw yourself upon his funeral pyre, joining him to serve in the afterlife, or to hope that the son of your body would remember your loving guidance and feed and care for you as the guardian that all women must have. Your work never done, you would be expected to serve his household needs, to eat very little, to stay out from underfoot, and be grateful.
If you are a man, and cannot envision such a life, think about the ancient Hebrew Morning Prayer that ends with “I thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast not created me a heathen…a slave…or a woman.”
That women could survive such a past—moving forward with strength of spirit, determination, and hope—to succeed as monarchs, leaders, and warriors in a difficult world, is the basis for modern woman’s morning prayer, “Thank you God that I am a woman, a Power Woman”
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Point to Ponder:
We marvel that in some place in the world today such conditions still exist. How women in uncivilized societies will free themselves from their bonds is yet another story.