Friday, February 4, 2011

The Biblical Family

We interrupt our originally planned Proverbs reading to bring you some rudimentary research on the Biblical family: past and present.

I have been doing a little online research on Biblical families, just so I can have a little more background to go on when I talk about the family structures in the Bible. You'd think the Bible itself would be enough, but it is horribly vague and doesn't talk enough about some aspects of the family. So let's see what the internet has to say about this. I do intend to see if I can locate a book that will have the information I want, but that will take me time to find, purchase and then read so for now we'll have to be okay with internet research. Note: I will include a couple of more academic articles (I wish the internet actually had more academic articles to read) and also modern interpretations of the Biblical family (mostly for the lols).

Researchy Articles

Family, Work, Worship in the Bible:The Ideal Woman; Slaves and Servants; Daily Tasks

Biblical Archaeology: Work

So it seems women actually did have a wide variety of tasks, even if they are not mentioned in the Bible. Apparently there was a head matriarch in the central family (which we will read about in Proverbs 31 soon) who actually had power and real respect, it seems. Women had jobs that ranged from the inane (making herself look pretty, being on call for anyone who may need her, overseeing emotional needs of the household) to actually pretty interesting (clothing and tent making, gathering food, administering finances and buying investment property). Childrearing did not seem to play a huge role in the life of a woman in these times (more on that in a second). I find it interesting that it was women who were relegated to bury the dead, especially when handling the dead was decidedly unclean in the Bible. While it may have been considered a noble job in other religions or a noble job today, it was definitely considered lesser work to the Biblical God. Reading the description of life for these women, though, I do not think they were given the task of burying the dead as some sort of slight against them. Women seemed to have been revered and they played such a huge part in life and death in these communities. During births, the pregnant woman was surrounded by other women. Midwives, female relatives and female slaves all gathered around to help bring another life into the world. Giving life was something women did, and it was given the respect it so deserved. It only makes sense that since women were the bringers of life that they would also take care of the dead. Women are there at the beginning and the end, and during these times when many tribes and clans were still deeply entrenched in goddess based religions (like Ashera, who we have heard about in the Bible as an enemy to God) these roles were greatly respected.

It makes sense, then, that God, who views women as the downfall of his perfect creation, would use these roles to work against women. Once God started making the rules, birthing was no longer a celebration or a power that women held. Instead, giving birth and everything associated with it become unclean. Women who menstruated were exiled to tents until their bleeding stopped, and any man who dared to touch anything that may have been contaminated with the blood, including the women herself, were also declared unclean and had to perform purification rituals. Being born of a woman becomes a fault in the Bible, not something to be proud of. Then God declares corpses and those who touch them to be unclean, when this was apparently a woman’s job. Corpses had not been unclean up to this point. Dying was a part of life, and women being the keepers of life honored the dead by taking care of them. But God cannot tolerate women having any sort of power in the community so he declared that the handling of corpses was unclean and whoever should touch one would be exiled outside of the town until they are clean once more. God stripped women of a vast majority of their power, all so that men, his favored creation, could truly have full reign over every creature, big and small.

Once everything about a woman become unclean it didn’t take long for them to become the bottom rung of the ladder and for goddess worship to disappear. Why would one worship a female god when everyone knows that women are weak and unclean?

And if anyone here has never watched the documentary The Burning Times you really have to take time out of your day and watch it. It is an excellent documentary that covers the gendercide of women during the witch hunts that didn’t happen all that long ago. So many women murdered at the hands of religion and patriarchy. Really, it is amazing to watch.

Modern Interpretations of Biblical Families

Note: These all make me laugh and cry at the same time. It shows that even though women back in the day actually did have a decent amount of power in the home, the Bible's harsh take on women can slowly chip away at that power. What the Bible says beats out the actual reality of those times, and, more often than not, interpretation matters far more than the reality.

A Look At The Biblical Family

What does the Bible have to say about the family?

The Feminization of the Family

What Does The Bible Say About Family Relationship?

How revealing are these articles? It is insane how much they differ from what the reality of what a real “Biblical” family would have been like. Like I have stated before, what people do with something and how they interpret it is often much more important that what the actual reality is. Women in the times of the Old Testament had respect and power, but this reality has been completely overshadowed and pushed away by what is written in the Bible. If I had never done this research, I would have never known how life really was. I, like many, many people, viewed the Bible as at least ahistorical text if nothing else. A first hand view into how life was for these people. But the reality is that the Bible doesn’t even do that. It cannot even do the simple task of giving us an accurate description of the family. All we have in the Bible is what GOD wishes a family that follows his ways to look like. A home with a man as the head and all others under him to look to him as the leader, for the father is lord of them all. These men today can sugar coat that all that want, but the truth is they teach and preach that men are above women, they still teach that one is better than the other. That is the basis of this Christian family model. How do you have a happy well balanced family when one of the parents is considered a problem if she does not do as the husband wishes. If she does not bear as many children as her husband wishes, if she does not keep the house clean, if she does not cook efficiently, if she does not sacrifice all that she is so that the rest of her family may live better than she, that is a bad mother. A good mother, by the definition of a good “Biblical” family, is one who must think nothing of herself or what she may want.

This is the antithesis of what an actual Biblical family was like. A woman was part of her family but she was also one who held responsibilities that were respected. Her housework was respected. Her ability to bear life was respected. She seems to have had as much power in a family as her husband did. Elder women were respected for their knowledge, not chided as being spinsters and called witches. And because these families lived in tribes and clans they were not just one family. A mother had the help of all of her relatives, her servants, her community when it came to taking care of her family. This, I think, is one of the biggest differences between being a mother today and being one back in the ancient times. Mothers today do not have the community to help her. No, instead often the community despises a mother who requires help to keep her family going. A mother is a bad mother if she must leave her child at any time to work or to run errands. A mother who needs to take welfare is a leech on the system and isn’t fit to raise her children. Today, a modern mother is expected to shoulder all of the responsibilities that were once the responsibilities of an entire village. Yet, as mother’s were given more responsibility as house keepers men were not. Men have no rules or laws concerning aiding their wives in work. While women are commanded to honor and obey their husbands, husbands are only instructed to “love” their wives, whatever that may mean. Love does not require action. Often in our patriarchy, love can simply be a lack of abuse. Love can be nothing more than a lack of action.

So a Biblical family requires most of the household responsibilities to rest on the mother’s shoulders, while the father is simply only required to love his wife and children and make sure his house remains in order. And yet despite the father’s lack of responsibilities, that seems to be all these men can talk about when it comes to a modern Biblical family. The “feminizing” of the family, which is becoming the ruin of society, is because men are losing control of their household. Their women are leaving the house to work, their women are becoming too independent, and, worst of all, their women can now decide to divorce and leave if they do not like their marriage. All of these “problems” of the family boil down to one thing: independence. According to the Bible and the way many people interpret it, women are meant to be dependent on their husbands completely. So when women gain independence and realize they do not need a man to survive (especially a man that is abusive or unloving), this chips away at the hierarchy that God has set up. This is also why so many religious people bemoan the single mother. There is constant talk and debate on how a child just cannot be raised correctly or will grow up to be a detriment to society (or worse in the case of male children, gay) simple because they do not have a father to discipline them. A woman without a man is a terrifying thought to a patriarchy that holds men in such high regard.

Fathers are the keystone to a family, so they get the most attention in these articles. Men are urged to regain control (“loving” control) of their households. To make the household like church, with him as Christ and the rest of the family as congregation. Men are placed in a worship position, they are expected to be revered and if they are not they are a failure. Is it no wonder that some men can so easily use the Bible to justify physical abuse in the house?

But let us not forget the biggest enemy to the family. The evil that slithers throughout our society corrupting our women and destroying the very foundation of a functioning community.

Feminists.

Dear sweet baby Jesus please save us from these horrible, corrupting women!

Seriously. Feminists are held up as the greatest plague upon the family. And why? Because they DARE to let people know that women are individuals who have a right to equality. They have a right to life and a right to happiness just like everyone else. That women should not be discriminated against just because of the sex we were assigned at birth. That women should be able to choose what happens to their bodies and when. That women should be allowed the resources to take care of themselves without having to rely on a man to get through life. That women should have equal pay for equal work, and that “women’s” work, both in the workplace and at the home, should be given the same amount of respect as “men’s” work. That simply being female shouldn’t be seen or treated as a handicap.

Oh my god what monsters! D:

Although they are not wrong. These ideas shatter the very foundation of what a “Biblical” family is. A Biblical family requires the woman to not be a person. To be nothing more than a servant to those around her and a slave to her husband. A woman who realizes that she can be her own person and is given the tools to be independent is the exact opposite of the subservient and dependent woman that Christianity calls for. Feminists are the greatest enemy of the Christian patriarchy and the Christian patriarchy knows this. It fights back as hard as it can against the feminist movement. It does its best to convince its followers (women especially) that God’s laws are really in the best interest of the family and that women’s subservience and dependence is really not bad. It is in fact a special form of power for a wife to submit to her husband and to think only of her family, and it is utterly selfish to think of anything or do anything that does not benefit the family. And the Christian patriarchy does its best to control those women who are not already under its control. Its foot soldiers work to restrict a woman’s right to choose. They work to insert their religious beliefs and hierarchy into government and laws. They work to keep gays and lesbians from being able to marry or adopt children. Women (and many others who choose to not live in a “Christian” way) are not safe either inside the religion or outside it. Christianity works to put everyone under its thumb.

In the end, it does not matter what the reality is, women today must face the consequences of the interpretations of “historical” writings in the Bible. Women may have held respect and power in the ancient communities, but today that power has been stripped down to nothing. Wives much submit if they are to be “good” wives, which means that they must forgo being a person with wishes and choices in order to serve the family. Feminists are such a danger to these ideals and are constantly being vilified by those who see ideas of female equality and independence as a detriment to society. Christianity plays a big part in making sure that wives remain dependent on and subservient to their husbands, both by making sure laws stay in place or are put in place to keep women from having full independence and by telling the women in their congregations over and over and over again that subservience is a virtue and is what God has decreed a woman’s role to be.

And honestly, who can argue against the truth of an almighty God?

Monday: Proverbs 23-27

4 comments:

  1. That's a lot to keep up with. It took me a while to get through it, and I find that I'd prefer to comment on it piecemeal rather than to comment in summary. Also, I ran into your max character count and so have submitted two comments.

    "So it seems women actually did have a wide variety of tasks, even if they are not mentioned in the Bible."

    The lack of mention really hurting once the culture changes and the reader cannot be assumed to know what it is that's being left out.

    "It makes sense, then, that God, who views women as the downfall of his perfect creation, would use these roles to work against women."

    Or that those who are recording the rules have done so.

    "And if anyone here has never watched the documentary The Burning Times you really have to take time out of your day and watch it."

    I will make a point of it. Thanks for the recommendation.

    "What the Bible says beats out the actual reality of those times, and, more often than not, interpretation matters far more than the reality."

    "I, like many, many people, viewed the Bible as at least a historical text if nothing else. A first hand view into how life was for these people."< br />
    The Bible is a historical document. Histories are written through the biases of its author. The writer determines which "facts" are in and which are out, what is presented as true and what else is declared to be false, what is important and what is not. The scope of this project will get a lot larger very quickly if you start looking for what's left out and what's distorted when the Bible is compared against archaeological evidence and other stories from the day. It's an interesting topic, but not small.

    "All we have in the Bible is what GOD wishes a family that follows his ways to look like."

    Or what somebody would have you believe is the way a family should be structured.

    "How do you have a happy well balanced family when one of the parents is considered a problem if she does not do as the husband wishes."

    Is this a trick question?[/sarcasm]. If your view of a proper family is that the man rules and the woman obeys, then by definition the family is happy and well-balanced if everyone goes along with this and manages a bit of happiness. If you're using some more objective standard reached by rational analysis of non-anecdotal data on happiness, the answer is likely that you can't. But that conclusion probably depends on taking the woman's point of view into account. That seems not to be important in the Bible.

    "Mothers today do not have the community to help her. No, instead often the community despises a mother who requires help to keep her family going. A mother is a bad mother if she must leave her child at any time to work or to run errands. A mother who needs to take welfare is a leech on the system and isn’t fit to raise her children."

    And the harshest such critics of women seem to be other women, to me ... based purely on anecdote and faulty memory and so suspect. But an ugly thing, if true.

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  2. "The father is simply only required to love his wife and children and make sure his house remains in order."

    And be able to provide all the resources (income) necessary for the family. A man is a failure if his wife has to work: she's having to help with his familial function if she works. Fortunately for him, though, men are judged less harshly for this (same anecdote/memory disclaimer here).

    "So when women gain independence and realize they do not need a man to survive (especially a man that is abusive or unloving), this chips away at the hierarchy that God has set up."

    Once again, I prefer to place blame on the writers for the set-up.

    "To make the household like church, with him as Christ and the rest of the family as congregation. Men are placed in a worship position, they are expected to be revered and if they are not they are a failure."

    I thought Christians are supposed to be humble?

    "Feminists are held up as the greatest plague upon the family. And why? Because they DARE to let people know that women are individuals who have a right to equality. They have a right to life and a right to happiness just like everyone else."

    I laughed here. "everyone else" is men. Otherwise they'd be women. :o)

    "That simply being female shouldn’t be seen or treated as a handicap."

    That being female should be seen or treated as being a person, an equal in the discussion of people. Absolutely!

    "A Biblical family requires the woman to not be a person. To be nothing more than a servant to those around her and a slave to her husband. A woman who realizes that she can be her own person and is given the tools to be independent is the exact opposite of the subservient and dependent woman that Christianity calls for."

    This seems like the sort of thing that should be in the conclusion of this project rather than declared halfway (or less) through. I can't fault it on the basis of what we've read so far, and I also think we won't find enough to contradict the point later in the work, but it is a little early to write the wrap-up.

    "Women may have held respect and power in the ancient communities, but today that power has been stripped down to nothing. Wives much submit if they are to be “good” wives, which means that they must forgo being a person with wishes and choices in order to serve the family."

    There are women who have bucked this norm, but the fact that they are a tiny (but thankfully growing) minority shows that we have so much farther to go.

    "And honestly, who can argue against the truth of an almighty God?"

    That's the assignment of those who do not like the status quo.

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  3. I guess just a few points:

    I obviously do not believe a God exists so when I talk about God making laws or God decreeing something I'm saying it with a hint of sarcasm or air quotes. I am really talking about those men who made up God and his rules, but to many people this is actually an all powerful deity so I will address him as such. I just use the language of the religious because that is how they view this book of holy crap, and I like to point out how ridiculous this "God" really is.

    If women did not help to enforce the patriarchy I do not believe the patriarchy would not have lasted as long. Women have to play a key role in our oppression, not that I think it is really done by choice. This is how many women are raised, that it's normal to be catty and bitchy, and until they realize what is going on (and that the real enemy is the patriarchal system and not other women) the system will continue to devalue us. Women make up 51% of the world population, if we all decided that we were no longer going to take this shit laying down I think we could solve most of these issues overnight. Or at least overthrow the world governments and start our own utopia. I think of it as the bourgeoisie v. the proletariat. The proletariat vastly outnumber the upper class, and yet they do not rise up to better their station in life either because they are unaware of the system of oppression or the upper class distracts them and turns their attention away from the real enemy.

    Many women do not buck the system because they benefit when they stay in their place. Women gain power from the patriarchy by pleasing men, wearing makeup, wearing dresses, by being sexually available to men at any time. To buck the system is to be placed in an outcast type position, which many women are not able to afford to do. And so women police each other, that they may possibly get brownie points from the patriarchy (think GOP women who work to enforce anti-women policies) or that they may help other women not be outcast by the system (like when my mom insists I wear skirts to interviews, she doesn't want to enforce the sexist rules but she does not want me to continue to be unemployed and she knows obeying feminine dress codes will help me get a job).

    And to comment on "I thought Christians were supposed to be humble?" I once thought that too. I went to a cousin's wedding (very churchy and conservative) recently and let me tell you, the entire wedding ceremony had me biting my tongue to keep from screaming "BULLSHIT!" The minister just waxed poetic about how the husband was Christ and the wife was the church that was to be purified by Christ. The husband was there to love and cherish his wife and the wife was meant to love Christ as the church does (ie. worship him). And seriously, he mentioned SEVERAL times how the wife was to be purified by her husband. Really? I thought ALL people were sinners, but only the wife is the only who needs to be purified? Oh, right, because it's only women's chastity that is important. Men can fuck anything with a hole but heaven forbid a woman even have sexual thoughts! D: That was the first time I had heard about this concept of the husband as Christ and the wife as church, but now I see this is shit that comes straight from the Bible.

    Christian men are anything but humble. >\

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  4. And I realize I often speak of men and women as groups, which is just easier when doing analysis on those two groups. I get that a lot from people, when I talk about sexism and people reply "Well I'm not a misogynist/I'm not a submissive person!" But I'm not talking about individuals and I think that stops a lot of the dialogue. People assume just because they are not like the majority of people in every or or just because they know someone who isn't like the majority of people that the analysis is irrelevant and sexism is over. I guess what people often call anecdata (not that anecdata isn't important, but it must be looked at in relation to other data and not taken as always true for everyone everywhere). No one is completely like statistics say the majority of people are, and not everyone's life is gonna reflect those statistics 100%, but if we just went "Well, the norm doesn't fit everyone so I guess that means we can't talk about it" we would never get anything done.

    I hope more women begin to buck the system, and I do believe that awareness on what is going on in our patriarchal society is really the key to fixing things. Only until women realize just exactly how oppressed women are as a sex class (even if some women do happen to be very privileged or have very happy lives) we will not get anywhere. I think this kind of awareness is harder to raise in developed countries because our sexism isn't always as overt as the sexism in other countries. It's easier to see the sexism in countries with burkas or in countries where female genital mutilation is common place. But when the sexism is less overt and more prevalent it's not a problem, it's just the way things are. Women are still objects to be owned and used as anyone wishes but we also have this odd belief that because these women aren't beaten in the streets this means we love women more. Or something. It's all really weird, but because it's just so ingrained in our society and the physical harm is covered up (ie. most women don't report their rapes or many women do not speak out about domestic violence) no one realizes it's still there.

    People have to learn to see sexism now, and see it for what it is. I just hope people realize it sooner rather than later so we can have our revolution and get this shit fixed. Yeah?

    I don't think I've kept up my writing very well since I got out of college, lol. I've tried to keep my analysis skills up to par but I almost always had help when it came to editing and where to put what when I wrote papers in college. I tend to write with more of a stream of consciousness which I then try to tidy up as best I can when I'm done. So I'm not surprised I put my best points in the middle of my post. I hope it was informative despite it. :P

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