Patriarchal Culture in the Bible and History

by Howard Rhys

From Pro and Con on Ordination of Women
Report and Papers from The United States Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation, Cincinnati, June 1975.

While the evidence is limited, and open to some differences of interpretation, it would appear that human beings have inhabited parts of the earth for more than thirty thousand years. The findings of archaeologists in tools, burials or structures would not take us back so far, but there are earlier indications of the use of fire.(1) Information about human social organization during the earliest periods of its existence is even more scarce, and it is certainly unwise to argue that what may be known for historic cultures would have held true for their pre-historic beginnings. Yet it may be said that for some eight thousand years or more, most human societies have followed some form of patriarchal system. The Hebrew Bible, whether one refers to its written form or to legends and songs and stories that came to be included within it, assuredly is the product of a patriarchal culture. Those earlier civilizations that exercised an influence upon the Hebrews, in Mesopotamia and Egypt or in Anatolia or in Canaan itself, were like-wise patriarchal in their organization. If one considers the distinctively Christian Scriptures, they also were produced within the patriarchal structure of the Roman Empire and were affected by the patriarchal pattern of thought which prevailed among the Greeks.

Not all known cultures have been patriarchal. It appears likely that several primitive societies followed a matriarchal pattern, and that Minoan Crete had attained an advanced stage of civilization before it adopted a patriarchal system.(3) Among the Polynesians a successful matriarchal culture endured into the nineteenth century of our era. Yet one must acknowledge that from Japan as far west as Peru for some fifty centuries or more patriarchal organization has prevailed. It has commended itself to societies that seem to have had no opportunity to influence one another. It has certainly been characteristic of all Semitic and Indo-European groups of people. The bulk of what may be considered human progress has taken place in societies that were so organized.

The Hebrew people came to distinguish themselves from other Semitic groups rather more than three thousand years ago. The figure of Abraham, with whom they begin their story, is represented as the classic patriarch. Each tribe, clan and family was headed by a male father-figure throughout the days of their independence, and during the many periods of exile and dispersion; the system is seen in the nineteenth century stetl of Sholem Aleichem.(5) Inevitably, the way in which the people lived affected the way in which they thought. When they appropriated from the more sophisticated culture of Mesopotamia stories about the creation of the world or the great deluge (the latter story seems a strange one, for dwellers in a land where water is scarce, to adopt), their elimination of polytheistic influences as they ascribed all divine action to their one God made the accounts more patriarchal than they had been originally

At least from the time of Moses, the Hebrews rejected every effort to depict or to define their God. His Name, as given at the burning bush, seems most readily translated as “I shall be what : shall be.”(6) The only proper descriptions were seen in terms of what God did, or of how God was experienced. He was referred to as King, Judge, War-leader, Shepherd, sometimes as Father or even as Husband to Israel. Not all of the activities were characteristic men; Hosea speaks of God as he who “taught Ephraim to walk,” which was normally a mother’s task,(7) and Isaiah declares that, though a woman may forget her suckling child, yet God will not forget Israel (8) Yet the vast majority of divine activities mentioned in the Bible analogies of functions proper to men.

The Gospels and Epistles not only reflect the attitudes of these earlier Scriptures, citing them on occasion as valid authority, but also manifest the cultural attitudes of the Mediterranean world in which they were composed. The developing Church organization of the second century, as represented by Irenaeus, reveals substantial influence upon its own polity from Roman governmental structure; to some extent this influence may be seen in the later portions of the New Testament.(9) In short, the Bible is the product of a man’s world from Genesis to Revelation.

Today the question is being raised whether the sharp distinction in roles between male and female that is evident within the Bible is an expression of a divine order, and so of permanent theological significance, or whether it is the accidental consequence of a human social order that has now become outmoded. If we accept the first alternative, the de facto exclusion of women from the presbyterate and episcopate in the history of the Church cannot be open for re-consideration now or in the future. If we adopt the second explanation, there can no longer be any theological reason for such an exclusion once it has been determined that the patriarchal social order is indeed outmoded. There might be a further question, even if the patriarchal system is seen as a human convention, of whether it has become outmoded at the present time, or will necessarily become so in the future.

When Paul wrote that it was “in the fulness of time” that God sent forth His Son,(10) it was clear that the Son had been sent forth into the patriarchal heritage of Judaism and into the patriarchal culture of the Roman Empire. Often Christian thinkers have given emphasis to this statement, and have said that conditions in the world were then suitable for the establishment and spread of Christianity, and that the fact was providential. One must ask whether God’s self-revelation could have been expressed as completely and effectively in any other culture before or since. While we may allow for some development of doctrine through an increasing understanding of the implications of the revelation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, some finality must be seen in the “Christ-event” itself. (11) It is at least possible to believe that this finality includes the cultural pattern in which it found expression. At any rate, we are not free to dismiss the Bible statements and the Church practices that once were thought to be determined by them, as unrelated to the essence of revelation, and still less as manifestations of a human convention that was at best temporary and at worst mistaken.

Thus we must ask what theological importance the cultural system that so influenced the Bible may have. Certainly in Genesis 1:27 and 5:2, Scripture affirms that it is both male and female that God has created man in his own image. The statement is repeated in Mark 10:6-9 and its parallel of Matthew 19:4-6. While the texts do not make the point explicitly, they do imply a necessity of sexual differentiation to manifest the image of God. Clearly the Bible is insisting that there is complete equality between men and women in their capacity to bear the divine image. It is also saying that no one person can totally bear that image. Because we must be either male or female, the fulness of the human race which includes both is required for the image to be truly seen. At the same time, Scripture reveals that the distinction between male and female is as much a part of the divine intention as is their equality. Both roles are essential, and they ought not to be confused; actually Hebrew religion gave no tolerance whatever to the assumption by members of one sex of the functions proper to the other.(12) This attitude has persisted in the New Testament,(13) and through most of Christian history.

This equality before God in distinction probably does have something to say to the issue of ordination for women. The only fully professional ministry to which the Bible gives recognition is the Levitical priesthood, and this was certainly limited to men. As the testimony of Amos makes clear, the prophecy that declared God’s Word to the people was a personal and not a professional vocation, (14) and its exercise by Deborah or other women(15)cannot be proposed as an argument for ordaining women now. Moreover, in the Bible the exercise of professional ministry does not connote any particular closeness to God. The sons of Eli, for example, were flagrant sinners,(16) but they continued to function as priests; other instances could be offered. Nor does Scripture give any indication that in order to represent the people to God a professional ministry must include every element of the population. The priesthood of Judaism was limited to a single tribe, and for practical purposes in later Judaism to a few clans of that tribe. If any analogy can be drawn between this priesthood and the “pastors and teachers” of Paul’s letters or the “presbyters” of the Lucan writings, their capacity to represent their people must depend upon divine choice and recognition of the Christian community and not upon the degree in which particular elements within the community are included in its ministry; it does make clear that there is no requirement that they should be included. If the Bible does contain a word from God regarding the issue of ordination, it speaks in favor of a ministry that is restricted to men.

Yet it is being urged by some that an appeal to the de facto exclusion of women from presbyterate and episcopate, and to the very limited evidence in Scripture that would support this position, as a justification for their continued exclusion, is a circular method of reasoning. Indeed it would be arbitrary simply to decide that because something has not been done therefore it must not be done now or in the future. Instead one must ask whether there were any genuine reasons for the exclusion. There are differences of attitude or temperament between men and women, as well as of physiology, that no program of conditioning is likely to eradicate. In the past it has usually been the practice to emphasize these distinctions rather than to disregard them. The assignment of some tasks to one sex and the exclusion from them of the other has been one method of stressing separate roles for male and female. The educational practice of training boys to become “manly” and girls to become “feminine” has been another. Within the Church the principal example of such separation has been in restricting the pastoral and governmental functions of the Christian community to men, and frequently females have been excluded even from such inconsequential liturgical functions as the lighting and extinguishing of candles.

With ecclesiastical government in the hands of men, and through so much of Christian history in the hands of celibate bishops, women could have no direct voice in determining what the place of women in the Church should be. Yet the differentiation, however stringently maintained, was not designed to oppress women or to deny them respect. It is generally conceded the status of women in those cultures that considered themselves Christian has been more favored than in those which knew no Christian influence. Christianity has nowhere condoned the casual slaughter of girl babies at birth, or their sale for prostitution at puberty. While it has not been successful in eliminating the difference in standards of personal morality between men and women, it has worked in that direction with substantial effect.

On the basis of a supposed divine order that was thought to be discerned in Scripture, the Church set forth what it regarded as absolute rights and obligations. One such absolute was the family. As in prior Jewish and Roman law, Christianity saw a man as the natural head of his household.(17) This held true without regard to the wealth or social status of the family. To him the wife owed obedience and deference. To both parents the children owed unquestioning submission.(18) Yet the family did not exist for the sake of its head; it was a man’s duty to sacrifice himself for wife and children with a self-giving patterned upon Christ’s sacrifice of Himself for the Church.(19) Often there have been abuses, as in any other group of relationships. Nevertheless, where there has been a true approach to this pattern derived from a reading of Scripture, family life has been at least stable and often happy.

Akin to this is the Christian tradition that marriage should be indissoluble. (20) This, too , is an absolute. It does not depend on the circumstances in which the marriage was contracted, whether by family arrangement or by the free choice of the persons directly involved, and it is certainly not a matter of their emotional attitudes. Christian marriage is not a social contract, but a covenant under God. Either party or both may fail to uphold the covenant in any one of a number of ways, but it is not thereby annulled. Not all marriages were happy, and some have suffered total breakdown. Yet as long as Christian influence was effective in Western culture divorce was certainly a rarity, and people tried to work through their problems rather than face the difficulties of ending them by separation. In substance the system worked.

The hierarchical view of family life and its rights and obligations has had a parallel through Christian history in an hierarchical view of the rights and obligations of social and ecclesiastical life. This is not to say that the Christian religion has any affinity for absolute monarchy in preference to representative democracy as a pattern for government; from the time of the ancient Prophets the tradition has favored a government of law rather than of persons. Christianity has been a champion of the value of every human being in the sight of God. It has opposed the irresponsible exercise of authority, by husbands over their wives, by parents over their children, by governments over their citizens, even by Church officials over their laity. At the same time, it has called for obedience to laws that are constitutionally enacted and to administrators who are legitimately established in office.(21) Hierarchical systems, even when subject to the restraint that a sense of responsibility to God as the source of hierarchy would call for, have not been free from abuses. Nevertheless, such systems need not be instruments of oppression, and in historical fact they have proved no more oppressive than other systems. Freedom under law has often been a reality, and an understanding of one’s role in the world which defines both rights and obligations is far more liberating than is uncertainty about what one’s role is.

The rejection of authority by so much of the modern world, both in institutions and in personal relationships, has scarcely advanced human well-being. Whether the disintegration of family life that is today apparent results from technological advance or from the loss of faith in a patriarchal order derived from God, it has not been beneficial in its effects. Whether the statistical breakdown of more than one-third of the marriages contracted in our society is a consequence of economic conditions or of the abandonment of conviction of the absolute responsibility which such a relationship entails, the prevailing instability is a fact to be deplored. Whether the loss of any feeling of personal accountability on the part of employers and workers, of government officials and citizens, of teachers and students has come about because of the unmanageable complexities of modern life or because of a refusal to accept the traditional Christian view of rights and obligations, it is certain that the world is faced with inefficiency, corruption, disorder and incompetance. If human society is to survive, it would seem necessary to consider the moral as well as the environmental price to be paid for further developments in these directions.

The degree to which leaders within the Christian community may expect to influence events in the world at large during the next generation is not great. If they have a hope of influencing anyone, their best prospect will be among the people who already feel some commitment to what they understand as Christianity. One must ask whether the admission of women to pastoral and governmental functions within the Christian community, specifically to presbyterate and episcopate, will make Christianity itself more effective. Professional ministry in these offices is traditionally a male function. There are many whose Christianity is far more than nominal for whom the ordination of women to these functions will compound existing confusion in sex roles, and will further undermine family solidarity and marital stability and acceptance of legitimate authority.(22) To give attention to this view of what constitutes a divine design for human relationships is not to argue in a circle. To disregard it is to show indifference to reality.

The only appropriate way in which to argue that the time has come to end the de facto exclusion of women from presbyterate and episcopate must be to show that this particular concept of a divine design for human relationships is in some way false to Christianity. Some men who aspire to ordination, but who are rejected for what the responsible officials regard as sufficient cause (sometimes no more than inability to employ all who apply), feel that they are de-valued as Christians by such exclusion. Some women hold that the exclusion of all women from certain ecclesiastical offices de-values womanhood. Other women hold that distinction of male and female functions enhances the value of womanhood because it is in accord with God’s will. Both convictions are also found among men. It is on this issue that debate should be conducted.

Patriarchal systems certainly need not be oppressive to the women who live in them. Often they have provided women with special protection and consideration, treated them with deference, sought to relieve them of some of the trials that men are expected to endure without complaint.(23) While it is true that in some cultures women have been treated as chattels, it is not legitimate to claim that every form of patriarchy must treat women in this way. Certainly the respect that a person is accorded seldom depends upon the title which the person holds. In many lands respect for high office in church or state has sometimes been conjoined with contempt for individuals who have managed to attain it by devious means. In any society regard for womanhood will be determined by the character and achievement and manner of life of the majority of women within it, whatever the pattern of social organization that prevails.

In the world today, whether in America or elsewhere, there are many women who are publicly recognized as influential, and many others who exercise great influence without seeking public recognition. This was true also one hundred years ago, and indeed throughout known history. One could easily name half a dozen women within the membership of the Episcopal Church in America at the present time who have had more genuine impact upon its life than most members of the House of Bishops.(24) These women are not leaders of the movement for the ordination of women, and some of them oppose that movement because they believe it stands in the way of the genuine service to God that women can offer. It is possible to contend that God will lead us or is leading us to move beyond patterns of behavior and organization that have been characteristic of Christianity in the past. This has happened at other times in Christian history. But when it is God who leads us in new directions, we must expect that the leading will be done in charity and on the basis of some clearly Christian imperative, rather than with the rhetoric and the political maneuvering that we might expect to characterize some purely secular aspiration.

Footnotes

1. Structure here is understood as a complete unit, such as the nine thousand year old tower at Jericho; the piling of stones at the mouths of caves or the scraping of water channels can be traced to earlier times. Burial is taken as a grouping of human remains deposited with some plan, and the writer is not aware of any more than twelve thousand years old; an isolated human body preserved in a bog need not be a burial, although it would prove that the area had at least been visited. Tool is defined as an item shaped for a purpose, probably of bone or horn or stone; prior to the fashioning of tools pieces of stone suitable for cutting or scraping were picked up and used. Archaeologists can determine the period of repeated use of a pit or hearth for burning, and some such locations have been found that are more than twenty thousand years old.

2. The writer is not aware of any evidence for a distinctively Hebrew culture that was pre-patriarchal.

3. The change from matriarchal to patriarchal culture took place prior to conquest by the Mycenaean Greeks; the writer accepts a date of three thousand eight hundred years ago.

4. It has also been characteristic of the Chinese and Mongol and related peoples, but the Semitic and Indo-European are mentioned as those among whom the Judeo- Christian tradition has had most influence.

5. It is on the stories of Sholem Aleichem that the recent play Fiddler on the Roof is based.

6 . Exodus 3: 14.

7 . Hosea 11: 3.

8. Isaiah 49:15; properly we should say Deutero-Isaiah.

9. 1 Timothy 3: 1-7; the qualifications for a church leader there have much in common with those expected by the Romans in a civil administrator.

10. Galatians 4: 4

11. John 14: 15-26 and 16: 12-14 serve to illustrate one Christian writer’s view of the situation.

12. In Deuteronomy 22: 5, for example , a woman must not wear the garments proper to a man, nor a man those proper to a woman.

13. On homosexual behavior see Romans 1: 26-27; on the adoption by women of Church functions proper to men see 1 Corinthians 14: 34-35 or 1 Timothy 2: 11-15 .

14. Amos 7: 14-15 .

15. Judges 4:4 (Deborah), Luke 1:36 (Anna), Acts 21:8-9 (the daughters of Philip).

16. 1 Samuel 2: 12-17.

17. 1 Corinthians 11: 3, Ephesians 5: 23.

18. Ephesians 6: 1-3.

19. Ephesians 5:25-29 and 6:4.

20. 1 Corinthians 7:10-11.

21. Romans 13: 1-7, 1 Peter 2: 13-17.

22. One may consider such a study as L. Christiansson The Christian Family.

23. Civil law in the United States and in many other countries provides special protection for women, especially in regard to working conditions. Social custom promotes other forms of consideration. In America women hold title to more than two-thirds of the private property, including corporate stocks and bonds .

24. The writer would suggest, in alphabetical order, Estelle Carver, Margaret Mead, Emily Gardner Neal, Agnes Sanford, Helen Shoemaker, Cynthia Wedel. All of these have won recognition for achievements other than those relating to the advancement of feminist causes.