FATHER, what is a Legislature?A representative body elected by the people of the state.
Are women people?No, my son, criminals, lunatics and women are not people.
Do legislators legislate for nothing?Oh, no; they are paid a salary.
By whom?By the people.
Are women people?Of course, my son, just as much as men are.
We would find that dichotomy humorous, except it is too true. Women were excluded from the electoral process, but conveniently included when it came to paying lawmaking and lawkeeping costs. Subtle reverberations of this attitude remain into the present.
It's been several decades ago, but when I applied for my first teaching position, the three board members who interviewed me asked, "Are you married? Are you planning to get married? We don't want a teacher getting pregnant." And it hasn't been all that long ago that car salesmen said to female prospective buyers, "When will you husband be able to come in with you?" Just recently, I overhead a delivery man make a disparaging remark about no women being present (or so he thought) to give the guys a hard time. Sometimes this slighting attitude is present even in the Church. One fellow made it clear that the men were meeting to pray about important issues like war and politics. The women, he scornfully assumed, met in "tea party" style to pray about the Sunday School and Aunt Susie's rheumatism.
So, it has ever been that men take care of serious business, while women are supposed to be less interested and certainly less capable. I grew up thinking that the only meaningful life for a grown woman was one of service (read: mother, teacher, nurse). Never mind that my real passion was ideas and words: reading them, and writing them. Society as a whole, and the Church in particular, believed that men and women were quite different inherently—God having made it so—and therefore must confine themselves to their prescribed roles. Those who study human behavior have changed many of their earlier-held views, but sadly, much of the Church has lagged behind.
Inequality, even arrogant domineering, shows up in many homes of the faithful. One writer, a man, says that ever since Eve, women have wanted to control their husbands. Is he implying that this would be wrong, but that it is okay for men to control their wives? Maybe so. With all due respect for his education and experience, I think that ever since that incident in the Garden, people have wanted to control other people. Unfortunately, some Christian men feel that the Scripture gives them license to do so.
Women, along with everyone else and perhaps not in any greater degree than others, want safety and security. I have to admit that not all women need or choose the same means of being secure. Some women want someone telling them exactly what to do. I think about one of the sweet songs from the movie, "The Sound of Music." Liesl sings to her admirer, the telegram-delivery fellow, "I am sixteen, going on seventeen . . . I need someone older and wiser, telling me what to do. You are seventeen, going on eighteen. I'll depend on you." Women of sixteen, twenty-six, even forty-six or ninety-six may feel that way, and that is their choice. But for someone to tell all women they must feel that way is ridiculous! Some women may prefer the security they find in knowing that that they cannot fully depend on anyone or anything but themselves and their relationship with God. They feel safe in their knowledge that there is no real security outside God Himself.
Of course women are people! In spite of traditional difficulties and prejudices, more and more women are recognizing that we matter to God and that we matter in His plan for life in this world.
Including election of the legislature or to the legislature, and paying taxes.
Marjorie
Source of Miller's piece: http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_awp000_introduction.htm
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