Indeed, the Church did allow women, and men, to escape from their socially ordained roles: both men and women could devote themselves to Christ and join an order. True, women tended to be confined to cloisters, but there were often (temporary) exceptions, such as third order mendicants, or the Beguines. And usually membership in an order was dependent on some sort of dowry. But in those days, even that much freedom to choose your state in life was quite rare.As if women weren’t allowed to work for a thousand tears in the Christian world. It’s not like the Church condemend them working on the fields and owning shops, and becoming Queens, and having the right to raise children, and helping their husbands, and resisting forced attempts at marriage and rape, and etc… true the Church had a thing against women joining and fighting in the army but thats because it considered soldiering a mans job and women still helped in wars by taking care of the men when they were wounded and other necessaties.
I admit there was a mentality before that it was OK to beat your wife because she was subject to you and stuff, etc… but this wasn’t the mindset of the Church but the mindset of people’s perverse thoughts and the Church. Is there a document by the Church sanctioning such practices? It goes against free will and the Church supports free will.
This person’s whole point rests on people taking every word of the scripture absolutely literally - and if we did which we pretty much never have, there would be no need for the church or its teachings. Show me how all of Christendom doesn’t eat seafood or wear polyster cotton mix clothing for fear of being struck down and then there is a case to even suggest half of what that individual is saying.
There is nothing misogynistic about Christianity, misogyny is hatred. A Christian has issues with it if they can be persuaded by the scornful to take hatred from the faith of Jesus Christ, to be honest.
As for the more obviously observed bits being “sexist” well anything that differentiates between the sexes could be called “sexist”, and the sexes are in fact different, so we could sit here all day coming up with examples of why life itself is sexist, why families are sexist, why actual sex is sexist, to demonstrate why submitting to your husband in marriage could be seen as horrendous and sexist.
Notice though that he missed out the equal and opposite part which says a husband must give up his life for his wife to make that point. Could be seen as pretty sexist too, unless you see it as what it is - a call to be devoted to your spouse.
Perhaps it would benefit this person to have more than a glancing idea of what he is talking about - especially with regard to the history surrounding and immediately preceding the spread of Christianity proper. The things Christianity brought the the ancient world - in terms of the treatment of women and respect for marriage most particularly are to be regarded as far from evil and oppressive.
Honestly, that is the sort of person that wants the rest of us to answer to them for our faiths, so they can arbitrate over us all and The LORD with their great wisdom and intellect. Somebody needs to be praying for that man right now.
You can’t really say that women with no husband or children are unfullfilled. Some of them are but for reasons other than not having a husband or a child. Some decide to remain single with no husband or child for many reasons, some of them valid and holy. Don’t tell me there weren’t single saints who never entered a religious order because the book Secular Saints by Joan Carrol Cruz is full of them. People like Pauline Jaricot, Joseph Moscati, etc… dude, choose your words carefully.The most unfulfilled women in the world are those with no husband or children. The most fulfilled women in the world are those with husband and children, over whom they rule with love and kindness. You can sometimes insult a man father with impunity. You can never insult a man’s mother, because she is the source of his power. The real power in this world is hidden in a woman’s heart … unless she is a heartless woman.
And then there’s that human being whom he raised up above all others, his mother…When our Lord altered the Mosaic Law forbidding men to divorce their wives He performed the greatest act for woman’s rights in history.