The Complementarian Argument From Historical Precedence

One of the most common reasons given for the correctness of the complementarian doctrine is that it is the view supported by church history. The complementarian argument goes that the egalitarian perspective has only come about in the last few decades because of the radical feminist agenda in the culture which has infiltrated the church. The complementarian view is clearly the biblical view if one considers it is the overwhelming practice throughout church history, the reasoning goes.

So let’s look at several quotes that provide an overview of the teachings on women throughout history both in the church and in general. (These quotes are given in Ten Lies The Church Tells Women: How the Bible has been misused to keep women in spiritual bondage.) Then I’ll add a few closing thoughts.

Historic Religious Quotes About Women

Out of respect to the congregation, a woman should not herself read in the law. It is a shame for a woman to let her voice be heard among men. The voice of a woman is filthy nakedness.
From The Jewish Talmud

No wickedness comes anywhere near the wickedness of a woman… Sin began with a woman and thanks to her all must die.
Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus 25:19, 24

Do you not know that you are [each] an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of your lives in this age; the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the Devil’s gateway: You are the unsealer of that [forbidden] tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law; you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. On account of your desert—that is , death—even the Son of God had to die.
Tertullian (155-220)

Men should not sit and listen to a woman… even if she says admirable things, or even saintly things, that is of little consequence, since they came from the mouth of a woman.
Origen, Early Church Father (185-254)

What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother; it is still Eve the temptress that we must be aware of in any woman… I fail to see what use women can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children.
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Take up a stick and beat her, not in rage, but out of charity and concern for her soul, so that the beating will rebound to your merit and her good.
Friar Cherubino in Rules of Marriage on what a medieval husband should do if his wife does not obey his verbal correction

Woman was evil from the beginnings, a gate of death, a disciple of the servant, the devil’s accomplice, a fount of deception, a dogstart to godly labours, rust corrupting the saints; whose perilous face hath overgrown such as had already become almost angels. Lo, woman is the head of sin, a weapon of the devil, expulsion from Paradise, mother of guilt, corruption of the ancient law.
Salimbene, Franciscan Monk (1221-1288)

Woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex, while production of woman comes from defect in the active force.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

The woman is subject to the man, on account of the weakness of her nature, both of mind and of body. Man is the beginning of woman and her end, just as God is the beginning and end of every creature. Woman is in subjection according to the law of nature, but a slave is not. Children ought to love their father more than their mother.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

[A woman] is more carnal than a man, as is clear from her many carnal abominations. And it should be noted that there was a defect in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed from a bent rib, that is, a rib of the breast, which is bent as it were in contrary direction of a man. And since through this defect she is an imperfect animal, she always deceives… Since [women] are feebler both in mind and body, it is not surprising that they should come under the spell of witchcraft.
Dominican Inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger in a 1468 tract in which they argued that women are the source of all witchcraft

Women are ashamed to admit this, but Scripture and life reveal that only one woman in thousands has been endowed with the God-given aptitude to live in chastity and virginity. A woman is not fully the master of herself. God fashioned her body so that she should be with a man, to have and to rear children… No woman should be ashamed of that for which God made and intended her.
Martin Luther, 1524

Men have broad shoulders and narrow hips, and accordingly they possess intelligence. Women have narrow shoulders and broad hips. Woman ought to stay at home; the way they were created indicates this, for they have broad hips and a wide fundament to sit upon, keep house and bear and raise children.
Martin Luther

Woman must neither begin or complete anything without man: Where he is, there she must be, and bend before him as before a master, whom she shall fear and to whom she shall be subject and obedient.
Martin Luther

It is an ascertained physiological fact that the actual capacity of the average male brain is considerably greater than that of the female.
M. Burrows in an 1869 article that argued against allowing women to attend college in England

Women have no creative power, inventive genius, or originality. Rather [they are] creatures of instinct and imitation, beautifully adapted to what nature intended.
Anonymous British Doctor, in an 1869 pamphlet opposing women medical students

Many women will be so busy about voting and political office that the home and children will have no attraction for them, and American mothers and children, like Christian charity, will be a rarity.
The Lutheran Witness, in an 1894 editorial opposing women voting

Abuse and Torture of Women Suffragists

And lastly, if you’ve never read about what some women endured in their desire to see women gain the right to vote, consider this as you have the freedom to head to the polls on Tuesday. While I know this is not specifically church history, remember that much of the church fought tooth and nail against giving women the right to vote just a mere 90 years ago. From Silent Sentinels at Wikipedia:

As the suffragists kept protesting, the jail terms grew longer. Finally, police arrested Alice Paul on October 20, 1917, while she carried a banner that quoted Wilson: “The time has come to conquer or submit, for us there can be but one choice. We have made it.” She was sentenced to seven months in prison. Paul and many others were again sent to the Occoquan Workhouse, where Paul was placed in solitary confinement for two weeks, with nothing to eat except bread and water. She became weak and unable to walk, so she was taken to the prison hospital. There, she began a hunger strike, and others joined her.

In response to the hunger strike, prison doctors placed Paul in a psychiatric ward and threatened to transfer her to St. Elizabeths Hospital, an insane asylum. She still refused to eat. Doctors became afraid that she might die, so three times a day for three weeks, they forced a tube down her throat and poured liquids into her stomach. They force fed her substances that would have as much protein as possible, like raw eggs mixed with milk. One physician reported that she had “a spirit like Joan of Arc, and it is useless to try to change it. She will die but she will never give up.”

Despite this seeming regard for Paul’s health, those at the prison deprived her of sleep. They directed an electric light at her face and turned it on briefly every hour of every night. There were also reports of worm-infested food and unsanitary conditions for the jailed protesters.

On the night of November 15, 1917, the superintendent of the Occoquan Workhouse, W.H. Whittaker, ordered the nearly forty guards to brutalize the suffragists. They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head, then left her there for the night. They threw Dora Lewis into a dark cell and smashed her head against an iron bed, which knocked her out. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, who believed Lewis to be dead, suffered a heart attack. According to affidavits, guards grabbed, dragged, beat, choked, pinched, and kicked other women.

Complementarian Argument from History? Culture?

At first blush, the complementarian argument from history sounds noble and good. Who wants to argue with 2,000 years of church history, after all? But looking at church history and the beliefs about women over hundreds of years is eye opening, to say the least.

The common argument is that egalitarians are taking their cues from the culture. Complementarians lament that if only the church wasn’t listening to the radical feminists, we wouldn’t be having these problems in Christianity.

I beg to differ. I think it is the complementarians who are bending to the culture.

Considering the views toward women even up until just a century ago, do we honestly think women would have as much freedom as they do today in the church if the feminist movement had not come about? And I’m not talking about the radical feminists here. I’m talking about the first feminists who believed that women were people, should be able to speak for themselves, vote, and own property. I believe that the only reason women have any measurable freedom in the church is because of the cultural pressures that have forced the complementarians to soften their views.

I truly believe at some point in the future, Christians will look back on some of the complementarian writings of today and view them with the same incredulous shock that we feel when we read that Christians taught that blacks were animals and women were the gateway of the devil. I know that probably will offend some reading here, but that’s the conclusion I’ve come to as I think with a heavy heart and a sick stomach of what my sisters in Christ have endured through the centuries.