Were pre-christian Northern European societies more in line with feminist ideas?

Question

From what I have read about the Celts , the Norse , and other people of the Teutonic family it seems to me that the Romans and the spread of Christianity spread the meditterranean model of gender status? Anyone have a diffrent take on this?

Answer 1

If by feminism you really mean lesbians, then yes.

Answer 2

Far from being a utopia for universal goddess worship, ancient Pagan societies usually treated women no better than chattel. In Greco-Roman culture, if a woman was raped, she was expected to kill herself from bringing shame to her family. Yes, you read that right. Women were  rarely given an education and seldom ventured out of their homes after they were married.  Christianity was really the first great women's liberation. Christians taught that husbands should be kind to their wives. The practice of killing a woman when her husband died, known as "widow burning" was practiced in many ancient Indo-European Pagan cultures. Christians banned this barbaric practice in countries (including Rome) where it took root. By contrast, in Pagan India, the practice continued until 1000 A.D. and beyond.

Rome, supposedly the most advanced of the ancient Pagan nations, was far from non-violent. The heathen Romans were fascinated by the gladiator games, and they were much more cruel than the Russel Crowe movie.  The Pagans of "pre-xtian"  Rome feasted their eyes and ears on the sights and sounds of murder. The Colosseum, which stands today as a testament to the barbarism that was Pagan Rome, was the place of the execution of not only men but thousands of women as well.  According to author Peter B. Ellis, to mark the grand opening of this death factory in circa 80 A.D., a total of 9,000 animals were killed in fights with men and women. The number of men and women slaughtered that day is not known, but no doubt it was in the thousands as well. In the early days of the Pagan Roman Empire 300 prisoners had to fight to the death, and 1200 women and men were killed by wild animals in a single day at the Circus Maximus. As a special feature during this Pagan event, 20 girls were forced to have s*x with wild animals. It took the death of a Christian monk to finally put an end to the gladiator games, when he was killed trying to stop such a "game".  The idea of ancients Pagans being enlightened, peace-loving and somehow more tolerant of women is ridiculous!

In many Pagan cultures, women could not inherit property, and when their husbands or male relatives died they were left destitute. This changed under Christianity, and women could finally inherit property. Women who had unwanted babies had no choice but to abandon them to starve to death and die from exposure. Christianity changed all that, stopping these practices and creating the first orphanages.

Rather than being objects for the pyre, widows were treated kinder in the Christian era, and were given alms rather than allowed to starve to death on the street or become prostitutes. Early Christian writers make clear that widows as a group held a place of considerable honor and dignity. Often they are listed along with the bishop, elders, and deacons (e.g., Origen, Hom. in Luc. 17), and Tertullian calls them an "order" and says that widows were assigned a place of honor within the assembled congregation (On Modesty 13.4).

If women chose not to marry, they too could persue the scholarly life of the monastery. The tradition of learned monastic women continued into the medieval period. Lioba (eighth century), sister of St. Boniface, "had been trained from infancy in the rudiments of grammar and the study of the other liberal arts." "So great was her zeal for reading that she discontinued it only for prayer or for the refreshment of her body with food or sleep: the Scriptures were never out of her hands." "She read with attention all the books of the Old and New Testaments and learned by heart all the commandments of God. To these she added by way of completion the writings of the Church Fathers, the decrees of the Councils and the whole of ecclesiastical law. Princes and bishops, we are told, "often discussed spiritual matters and ecclesiastical discipline with her"."(Life of St. Lioba, in The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, ed. C. H. Talbot (London: Sheed and Ward, 1954, 1981), p. 215.)

Many of the first converts to Christianity were women. Early churches often met in the houses of wealthy women during the Lion Times. This is because women could see that under Christianity they would have more rights and more freedom. If Christians have failed in anything, it is that we haven't liberated people fast enough. If you want to make the world a better place, I invite you to put away your superstitions and join us.

Answer 3

Christianity, unlike with feminists say, has long been egalitarian and this led to its success.

Now that feminists control America, they are trying to  disassemble religion. All women must fight against it.

Answer 4

It is believable. Feminist's censor idea's they don't like could explain why the Celt's where dominant in western Europe for over 2,000 years and never built a strong civilization.

       Guess building cities, and science was too "radical"

Answer 5

Well, the Norse had a lot of odd ideas about women. On one side, they were revered as being the only beings possible of performing magic (g*y men were not trusted for it was believed that they had the same capacity due to their unnatural attractions.) On the flip side, women were assumed to do anything for their husbands, including being burnt alive with their husband's corpses during certain funerary rites.

The Celts likewise had a mixed bag. While women were renown for being wise in the ways of herbs and magic, men were the warlords and warriors, with rights above women in many regards. Women who were powerful healers were treated with deference, but often revered and mistrusted for their strange powers.

Answer 6

I think it is possibly true that women in Celtic and Norse societies had some rights that Roman women did not.  however, they were not by any means regarded as the equals of men, and Christianity, rather than lowering women's status, improved it.  That is why women were such enthusiastic converts to Christianity.  Everywhere in the ancient world it seems that women were at the forefront of being converted, and converting others.

if you read 'Ecclesiastical History of the english people' by Bede for instance (written in the early 700s AD) you will see that Christian women were actively involved in converting others.  For instance, the Queen of Kent in the early 600s was a Christian, and she was active in persuading her Pagan husband to convert to Christianity, which led to the widespread conversion of the people of Kent.  And there were many powerful Christian women who exercised an influence on society that was rare in the Pagan world, as with Hilda of Whitby for instance who was Abbess of a large double monastery, and presided over the Synod of Whitby.

There has never been any society in the world anywhere that has accorded women equal rights with men, until western society in the present era.  There was no feminist society in the ancient world.

Answer 7

I wouldn't say they were in line with feminist ideas, women in these societies were just asskicking s*x machines who due to the harsh nature of life at the time had to be tough yet bangable, unlike in the Roman world where even the men were soft and wimpy and spent most of their time bathing with little boys.

Celtic and Norse women were probably just practicle and got on with it, which to me is unlike feminist ideas which seem to be to blame men for everything and whine alot.