Women in Society, 2,300-2,000 BCE
Off and on I've been reading a long book, Weavers, Scribes and Kings. This is a book based on surviving clay tablets used mostly be bookkeepers starting 3,000 years BCE. The area is roughly where Syria is today. While most of the tablets contain writing about administration of kingdoms and palaces there are also references to gods and the way society was organized at that time. There are records of what was bought and sold to conduct religious rituals. It is to me an accurate window into the economics and social life of that ancient time. It is much more accurate than what was presented in the Bible. The latter was a propaganda piece rewritten countless times.
While there was plenty of preoccupation with gods back at that time, and I assume those gods created the universe just as the Judeo/Christian God is claimed to have done, those gods had different rules as to what was right and wrong and what was the "correct" way to organize society.
One side note, a clay tablet told of a great king/god figure who had been hidden in a reed basket and floated down a river. A woman found him and knew he was supposed to be the next king. This was written in clay roughly during the time as the tale of Moses who was also floated in a reed basket. The reed basket back story apparently was a requirement for later greatness.
Humans back then knew how their gods wanted society to be organized, just as Christians today know how their God wants things organized. Catholic and Southern Baptist hierarchy know their God does not want women in power nor behind the pulpit. In the home, God wants men are to run things.
The gods back in the book's societies had different ideas. Gods then, like at all times, were carried around in people's heads so were pleased with the same things people were pleased with.
From records of administration and commerce it is clear that women, at least wives and mothers of kings, were career women making treaties with other nations and running parts of the governments. They had wet nurses for their babies because they were too busy running their domains to be full time parents. The clay tablets record all of this so no one can make the case women staying at home and husbands making all important decisions is some kind of "natural" way to organize society.
Today's claims women are not suited to be in authority was made up by Judeo/Christian men and enforced by them. The culture, not God, made these rules.
rather sketchty history here olde chap. but I'll let that pass and thank you for observing the holidays with posts about abortion, porn and oppressed women. even an old atheist needs his Christmas jollies, doesn't he ? what really amuses me, however, is your implcit (sometimes explicit) embrace of cultural relativism. it's the culture folks and every culture has its ways of organizing society, especially those "sanctimonious" (your word, not mine) Christians. in
ReplyDeleteyourview, it's obvious that the C's have no right to impose their values on society/culture. Presumably, however. sanctimonious atheists have the right to impose their worldviews on the rest of us: or in other words, tell us -- with no let or hinderance ---how to organize our culture. So what gives secularists/atheists (or for that matter anyone else )do the same thing that religious people are ,in your view, codemned for "attempting" to do . can't you see that your own words come back to bite your own arse?
The point of the blog is that women have not always been excluded from the most influential positions in society. Catholics, Baptists and others exclude women from the top positions in these branches of the faith because it benefits those in charge, men. When asked why the men in power do this, they often reply because "it's natural" or "there needs to be order." The point is there has been order when women were in charge. Naure and experience does not demonstrate a necessity men have power over women.
Deletemy comment was not specific to any particular post. just a reaction to several of your recent posts. as to women and oppression. your take on history, filtered as it is by radical feminist ideology, is simplistic/distorted. I would elaborate if I had time just now.
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