The Importance Of Women In The Hebrew Bible

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The importance of women in a society in which the family, rather than the individual, was the basic social, economic, and religious unit. Discuss.

Name of lecturer: Rev. Dr Paul Sciberras

By: Christine Sammut

ID: 169393(M)

Course: B.A in Theology and Psychology

Date: 16th January 2014

The importance of women in a society in which the family, rather than the individual, was the basic social, economic, and religious unit. Discuss.

In the Hebrew Bible, women are viewed as minor and inferior figures. Women are given a secondary place in society, nonetheless they play a crucial role and have a number of vital figures in the Biblical history.
The Apostle Paul, urged wives to obey their husbands and husband to respect their wives. This sums up the traditional idea of the family throughout Jewish history as pictured in the Bible. The man was the head of the house, however both man and woman worked together for the benefit of the family. In Ancient Israel, it was the parents who used to find a suitable match for their daughters’. One the suitable match is found, the bride’s family gives the daughter to the groom’s family and in return they were given a gift – a dowry. A married couple was an economic partnership, that is, if the man ended up penniless, his wife would be sold in slavery along with him. The wife’s first duty in the family was to give birth. A boy would’ve been preferred in order to continue her husband’s name. Children were taught by their mothers’ the required technical skills needed to participate in and eventually take over the productive and processing tasks of the family household. If a wife couldn’t conceive, she would give the family’s slave to her husband and any offspring would give the wife the ...

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...re involved in the male’s productive task. It was the mother’s role to teach her children how they should behave, the cultural trends and social values. Women taught their young ones the social skills and cultural forms and norms in order to get along with society and guided them on how should they behave not only in the household but in the larger community. Women brought up the children who represented the future of the household and society.
Women did not have say on administrative level but on domestic level they had a great influence. Women were treated differently from men and also had different roles. However, Jesus treated men and women the same, and talked to foreign women. Nowadays, women still have great importance in the family domain. Women, now have a say on both level, however there is still a lot to be improved especially when it comes to equality.

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