Protestant Reformation Dbq

The leader of the reformers, Luther, during the sixteenth century once said: “All

who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will

receive what they have asked and desired.” Unfortunately, “All” does not include women

nor their desires in the world of the Protestant Reformation Movement. Although the

immense change the movement brought relieved millions of corruption and other

issues, it has accomplished very little for women. The Reformation managed to

enhance women’s lives slightly through education and even motivated many to fight for

equality in the following decades. However, it also brought negative consequences

which not only deprived the little control women had in matters other than the

household,

but also placed further strict limitations on their freedom, rights, and desires.
Considered inferior to men, women held certain roles that prohibited the
improvement of the quality of their lives. Such traditional roles included taking care of
the husband, children, and other homely concerns. Although women attempted to
involve themselves in intellectual, political, religious, and business matters, the society
constantly suppressed them as these topics were far too “masculine” for women to even
consider about. This male-dominated society assumed that other abilities other than
homemaking are beyond a woman’s capabilities. Unfortunately, the Reformers did not
visualize women any different than the society and therefore, little efforts were made
towards change for the betterment of women.
To gain human worth and social legitimacy, a familial connection with a man was
necessary during this time period. Otherwise, as a burden, she would often receive
tauntings for not fulfilling her societal role as a complying wife and mother. Although the
Reformers noticed the little status given to women, they had accepted these societal
oppressive views wholeheartedly instead of approaching the biased issue with a
determined attitude. In fact, Luther once stated that “God fashioned her body so that
she should be with a man to have and to rear children” to confirm his belief, that a
woman is not the master of herself and will forever be dependent on a man, to the
audience. Instead of modifying the society to view women more than household objects,
Reformers embraced the idea without a hint of substantial reluctance.
Although the Protestant Reformation enforced societal views of women on them
with the use of biblical references and God, it eventually led to the recognition of women
as companions which men could not live without. Luther publicly stated this along with
his opinion that men couldn't do without women, even if they could bear children.
Surprisingly, reformers managed to change societal views of women from a temptress
to a model of (virgin) Mary, moderately increasing their worth. However, this alteration
only emphasized women’s role as a mother without hopes of equality nor independence
despite taking away the ‘sexual object’ title. On the positive outlook, Reformers began to
push limited equality between men and women even though it ironically benefited others
rather than the women themselves.
The portal to the cage of equality vaguely opened for women early in the
Protestant Reformation as the desire to educate them began to flourish within the hearts
of many. Luther encouraged communities to value education, establish schools and
urge parents to send their children to school, regardless of gender. Since Protestants
strongly believed in forming a personal connection with God, it consequently required
one to possess the ability to read and interpret the bible including a woman. Although
access to education was faintly accessible to women, it was solely for the purpose of
being able to pass on the scriptures to their children and write about religion, a
‘masculine’ subject. Therefore, whether educating women were more advantageous to
themselves than the community is highly debatable and places female rights of equal
treatment in question while restricting their access to knowledge.
Although the girls would attend school prepared and merrily, they would return
much sooner in contrast to the boys. Attending school for fewer hours a day and fewer
years overall, girls learned skills exclusively focused on reading the Bible, later passed
on to their children, and managing the household. Vives work, The Education of a
Christian Woman, further restrained the heavily placed restrictions on women by stating
that a true Christian woman would not lure herself towards education as Catholic areas
of Europe lagged behind the areas of Protestants. This led to a decline in the number of
educated Christian Women as the fear of tainting their worship toward god took over.
However, the chief reason for the frowning upon women’s education was due to the
common societal belief that educating women is detrimental towards pure bonds like
marriage. Nevertheless, education did slightly increase throughout Europe, despite the
inequality regarding both gender and social class.
In spite of the fact that both upper and lower women were considered
intellectually inferior to men, inequality existed between classes for women in terms of
education. For instance, upper-class women learned social graces such as dancing,
singing along with learning other languages and proper etiquette besides plain
housewifely education which was fundamentally what lower class women received.
Upper-class women’s education supposedly helped them act ladylike in courts and
acquire a worthy husband, which all ties back with the social expectations of women
regarding marriage. Taking everything into account, it’s safe to say that the education of
a woman was incomparable to a man in terms of learning material and extensivity. This
is due to social ideologies such as the belief of women as incapable of logical thoughts
and nor do they need the education to divert attention from their ‘housewife’ post. The
common misconception that educating women would affect the social balance of society
is primarily responsible for the lack of development of education for women.
In addition to unjust education, the Protestant Reformation introduced negative
consequences that affected women worse than men.

For example, the introduction of

divorce denied security and benefits of women while favoring men. Since a woman’s

sole function in society is marriage and childbearing, a divorce would cause her most

loss, as now she would not be able to afford to raise her children without going to work

nor have a stable home. In fact, a working woman was a sign of a divorced woman and

even perceived as disgraceful and embarrassing. Even Protestant historians confirmed

the fact that divorce has proved beneficial to the husband rather than the wife while it

claimed to aim to do the contrary. To this day, divorce has been the leading factor in a

family crisis and has reduced our disintegrated society to a vain and narcissistic one.

Ironically, the reformers also introduced a deeper understanding of marriage,

despite inaugurating divorce as well. Reformers including Luther and John Calvin

promoted marriage as a pure bond consisting more than an outlet for sexual desire

such as a companionship. Although The Reformation recognized the value of women as

tender mothers and devoted wives, they eliminated the only option for women that

allowed them to exercise leadership and actively participate in society by

closing
convents and nunneries. Consequently, it shut down women’s role in religious activities
in the society and dragged them back under patriarchal authority. Since this was the
only alternative to marriage for women and accepted way for a woman to have
involvement in religious matters, shutting down convents and nunneries, despite their
state of corruptness, resulted in being highly unfavorable to women.
Women attempted to engage themselves in religious matters by becoming
preachers and priests for convents and nunneries closed.

Unfortunately, this modern

idea of female rulers seemed absurd during the 16th century and consequently caused

Europe to frown upon it. In fact, considered a definite threat to public order, people

supposed that appointing female chiefs went against the law of God. Therefore, the

society remained patriarchal and possibly even worse off for women as their options for

community involvement were deprived under the cunning disguise of fixing corruption.

As stated before, The reformation has executed very little effort to achieve the rights

and desires of women. Sadly, Reformers had accepted this unjust society and their

narrow-minded norms as it was easier to implement it further rather than bring change.

Throughout history, the world has often neglected the subject of women and The

Protestant Reformation revealed nothing different. Although women acquired a small

measure of freedom through the Reformation, they were still under patriarchal authority

until the 20th century. Not to mention that the destructive impacts outweigh the

favorable, at least for the current time period. However, this particular movement had

long-lasting effects on women and their goal of fully attaining freedom and rights as

it
impelled women to break away from the submissive chains of patriarchal authority,
which was forced upon them for centuries. Alas, this modern society still refuses to
recognize women as competent enough as men, especially in European countries. No
wonder why poverty and high fertility rates occur in developing countries. After all,
countries as such offer women the least status, education and employment
opportunities. However, an Ideal society cannot exist in places with inequality and may
be the first step towards creating exemplary places.