1 Christian ideology played no little role in women’s oppression.

Without a
2 doubt, there is a breath of charity in the Gospels that spread to women
3 as well as to lepers; poor people, slaves, and women are the ones who
4 adhere most passionately to the new law. In the very early days of
5 Christianity, women who submitted to the yoke of the Church were
6 relatively respected; they testified along with men as martyrs; but they
7 could nonetheless worship only in secondary roles; deaconesses were
8 authorized only to do lay work: caring for the sick or helping the poor.
9 And although marriage is considered an institution demanding mutual
10 fidelity, it seems clear that the wife must be totally subordinate to the
11 husband: through Saint Paul the fiercely antifeminist Jewish tradition is
12 affirmed. Saint Paul commands self-effacement and reserve from
13 women; he bases the principle of subordination of women to man on the
14 Old and New Testaments. “The man is not of the woman; but the woman
15 of the man”; and “Neither was man created for the woman; but the
16 woman for the man.” And elsewhere: “For the husband is the head of the
17 wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.” In a religion where the
18 flesh is cursed, the woman becomes the devil’s most fearsome
1 temptation. Tertullian writes: “Woman! You are the devil’s gateway. You
9 have convinced the one the devil did not dare to confront directly. It is
20 your fault that God’s Son had to die. You should always dress in
21 mourning and rags.” Saint Ambrose: “Adam was led to sin by Eve and
22 not Eve by Adam. It is right and just that he whom she led into sin, she
23 shall receive as master.” And Saint John Chrysostom: “Of all the wild
24 animals, none can be found as harmful as woman.” When canon law is
25 written in the 133 fourth century, marriage is treated as a concession to
26 human failings, incompatible with Christian perfection. “Take up the
27 hatchet and cut the roots of the sterile tree of marriage,” writes Saint
28 Jerome. In the time of Gregory VI, when celibacy was imposed on
29 priests, woman’s dangerous character was more harshly asserted: all the
30 Fathers of the Church proclaim her wretchedness. Saint Thomas will
31 remain true to this tradition, declaring that woman is only an “occasional”
32 and incomplete being, a sort of failed man. “Man is the head of woman
33 just as Christ is the head of man,” he writes. “It is a constant that woman
34 is destined to live under the authority of man and has no authority of her
35 own.” Thus, the only marriage regime canon law recognizes is by dowry,
36 rendering woman helpless and powerless. Not only is she prohibited from
37 male functions, but she is also barred from making court depositions, and
38 her testimony holds no weight. The emperors are more or less under the
39 influence of the Church Fathers; Justinian’s legislation honors woman as
40 spouse and mother but subjugates her to those functions; her
41 helplessness is due not to her sex but to her situation within the family.
42 Divorce is prohibited, and marriage has to be a public event; the mother
43 has the same authority over her children as the father, and she has equal
44 rights to their inheritance; if her husband dies, she becomes their legal
45 tutor. The Velleian Senate decree is modified: from that time on she can
46 intercede for the benefit of a third party; but she cannot contract for her
47 husband; her dowry becomes inalienable; it is her children’s patrimony,
and she is forbidden to dispose of it.

Fragmento de “The Second Sex” (1949) de Simone de Beauvoir1.2

1Simone de Beauvoir (1949), The second sex, Ed. Vintage, Segunda parte: Historia, capítulo 4,
Páginas 133 y 134.
2
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) fue una escritora, profesora y filósofa francesa feminista. Fue
una luchadora por la igualdad de derechos de la mujer y por la despenalización del aborto y de
las relaciones sexuales. Escribió novelas, ensayos, biografías y monográficos sobre temas
políticos, sociales y filosóficos. Su pensamiento se enmarca en la corriente filosófica del
existencialismo y su obra, “El segundo sexo”, se considera fundamental en la historia del
feminismo.