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Where Women Had it Best, the 600-1000 CE Edition
After reading Chapt. 9 of your textbook, and the excerpts regarding the experiences of women in the Abbasid, Tang and Carolingian empires of the first millenium, CE, please take an informed position in response to the following statement: "The experience of women in the civilized world of this time was such that it didn't really matter where she lived...East, West or in between." [Please be sure that your position includes selected evidence (primary and secondary) to support your thinking on either side of this debate.]
Women, Faith, and Empire
Pages 336–337
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The role of women within the community was of great concern as the new empires discussed in this chapter spread their common cultures. As the Abbasid dynasty extended its reach from Southwest Asia across North Africa and into Spain, Muslim ideas about women and family became more widespread. Surah 4 of the Quran ("On Women"), excerpted below, outlines rules about marriage, inheritance, and the treatment of orphans, among other family-oriented topics. Recorded in the seventh century ce, the Quran, along with the hadith (the sayings of Muhammad), was the basis for the sharia regulating community matters.
The Christian text excerpted here, the Law of Adamnan, demonstrates how both lay leaders and the Christian clergy had to come to terms with the brutal realities of tribal warfare as their faith expanded into Ireland. In response to those realities and to protect noncombatants, such as women, children, and the clergy, a monk named Adamnan at Iona created the Cáin Adamnáin (or Law of Adamnan) around 700 ce. This text describes how Adamnan, inspired by his mother and an angel, developed a law protecting noncombatants that was then signed by kings, nobles, and religious authorities.
During this period Tang authorities vacillated in their endorsement of Buddhism, but the importance of Confucian thought in political and social matters never waned. In the late eighth century ce, two young women, Song Ruoxin and Song Ruozhao, in attendance at the court of the Tang emperor, composed their Analects for Women. This text, which in some ways expands on Ban Zhao's ideas from almost 700 years earlier (see Chapter 7, Competing Perspectives), adapted Confucian thought in a set of advice for women living around 800 ce. From Western Christendom through Abbasid Islam and into the Tang realm, religious and philosophical ideals influenced the realities that governed women's lives.
Primary Source 9.1
Surah 4, An-Nisa' ("On Women"), from the Quran (seventh century ce)
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1. O mankind! Be careful of your duty to your Lord who created you from a single soul and from it created its mate and from two has spread abroad a multitude of men and women. Be careful of your duty toward God in whom you claim (your rights) of one another . . . God has been a watcher over you. . . .
3. . . . [M]arry of the women, who seem good to you, two or three or four; and if you fear that you cannot do justice (to so many) then one (only) or (the captives) that your right hands possess. . . .
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4. And give to the women (whom you marry) free gift of their marriage portions; but if they of their own accord remit to you any part of it, then you are welcome to absorb it (in your wealth).
23. Forbidden to you are your mothers, and your daughters, and your sisters, and your father's sisters, and your mother's sisters, and your brother's daughters and your sister's daughters, and your foster-mothers, and your foster-sisters, and your mothers-in-law, and your step-daughters who are under your protection (born) of your women to whom you have gone in. . . .
25. And whoever is not able to afford to marry free, believing women, let them marry from the believing slave girls whom your right hands possess. . . . This is for him among you who fears to commit sin. But to have patience would be better for you. God is forgiving, merciful. . . .
34. Men are in charge of women, because God has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret what God has guarded. As for those from whom you fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them. Then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them. God is ever high exalted, great.
SOURCE: "Sura 4," The Norton Anthology of World Religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Vol. 2, ed. Dammen McAuliffe, trans. Marmaduke Pickthall (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014), pp. 45–48.
Primary Source 9.2
Law of Adamnan (700 ce), Adamnan
33. After fourteen years Adamnan obtained this Law of God, and this is the cause. On Pentecost eve a holy angel of the Lord came to him, and again at Pentecost after a year, and seized a staff, and struck his side and said to him: "Go forth into Ireland, and make a law in it that women be not in any manner killed by men, through slaughter or any other death, either by poison, or in water, or in fire, or by any other beast, or in a pit, or by dogs, but that they shall die in their lawful bed. Thou shalt establish a law in Ireland and Britain for the sake of the mother of each one, because a mother has borne each one, and for the sake of Mary mother of Jesus Christ, through whom all are. . . . For whoever slays a woman shall be condemned to a twofold punishment, that is, his right hand and his left foot shall be cut off before death, and then he shall die, and his kindred shall pay seven full cumals, and one-seventh part of the penance. If, instead of life and amputation, a fine has been imposed, the penance is fourteen years, and fourteen cumals shall be paid. But if a host has done it, every fifth man up to three hundred shall be condemned to that punishment; if few, they shall be divided into three parts. The first part of them shall be put to death by lot, hand and foot having been first cut off; the second part shall pay fourteen full cumals; the third shall be cast into exile beyond the sea, under the rule of a hard regimen; for the sin is great when any slays the mother and sister of Christ's mother and the mother of Christ, and her who carries a spindle and who clothes every one. . . .
34. The enactment of this Law of Adamnan is a perpetual law on behalf of clerics and women and innocent children until they are capable of slaying a man, and until they take their place in the tribe, and their (first) expedition is known.
SOURCE: Adamnan, Anecdota Oxoniensia: Cáin Adamnáin, an Old-Irish Treatise on the Law of Adamnan, ed. and trans. Kuno Meyer (Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905), pp. 23–25.
Primary Source 9.3
Analects for Women (800 ce), Song Ruoxin and Song Ruozhao
Book One: On Deportment
The first thing for any woman to learn is the principle of deportment: that of purity and chastity. If you are pure, then chastity will follow; if you are chaste, then you will be honored. . . . Indoors or out, men and women should be in separate groups. . . . Hide your face when watching something. When going outside you must cover yourself.
Book Eleven: On Conciliation and Yielding
The rules for managing a household for a wife are to prize harmony and filial piety above all else. When your mother-in-law rebukes you, don't feel hurt. When your father-in-law has any criticism, listen to it quietly. In the upper rooms, and in the lower chambers, with nephews and nieces, you should behave harmoniously. Whether [disagreements are] right or wrong, don't get involved. [Whether an issue involves] good or bad, don't argue. Shameful family matters should never be exposed to the public. Be as good as you can in etiquette to neighbors both to the east and west. Greet them as they come and go, and behave cordially to them; [offer] a cup of tea or water, exchange pleasantries joyfully; say only what needs to be said; do whatever needs to be done. Idle talk of right or wrong should not enter your door. Don't learn from those stupid women who gossip in vile language without knowing the truth of the matter, thus offending and insulting the venerable elders. I venture to advise women to look to the past and to think ahead.
Book Twelve: On Preserving Chastity
. . . The bonds of the first marriage weigh more than a thousand pieces of gold. If there occurs the misfortune of the husband dying at a young age, wear mourning clothes for three years, and remain firm in your will to preserve your chastity. Protect your family and manage your property. Clean and sweep your husband's tomb. In life or in death, it is one life shared.
This essay "Book of Analects" discusses all topics exhaustively. Women from now on should follow this, day after day and month after month, remembering it always, taking unquestioned guidance from it. If you persist in this, you will enjoy boundless happiness.
SOURCE: Song Ruoxin and Song Ruozhao, "Book of Analects for Women: Consort Song (Tang)," trans. Heying Jenny Zhan and Roger Bradshaw, Journal of Historical Sociology 9, no. 3 (Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1996), pp. 261, 267–268.
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