In our society women are still openly subjected to a greater or lesser degree of prejudice. The oppression of women began in Europe with the spread of Christianity. In a one-god religion there is no place for a Goddess, and therefore no place for women on the Earth. "Let the women be silent in the Church, for they should remain in submission," is a familiar Bible-quote (1 Cor. 14:34). In consequence, the women's movement really began shortly after the Christian conversion in the Middle Ages. With Inquisition and Witch-hunt Christianity attempted to preserve the dominance of men and to exterminate magickally active women and healing-women. Voltaire estimated that 9 million Witches fell victim to this madness, and even in our own times there are Witch-hunts in Third World nations. The ideology behind it hasn't changed, and is still counted as a holy book---the Bible. "Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live," (Exodus 22:18) is the desert-spirit Jehovah's order to his followers.
It was quite different among our Germanic and Celtic ancestors. Women were highly honored and were paid attention, people asked them for their advice and followed it, wisewomen (Witches) traveled through the land, and their intuition was valued, as they were welcomed as healers and prophetesses. Women had a choice of how they wanted to live and the housewife had the authority to make decisions for the household. Women could make their own decision on such matters as abortion. The hatred of the human body and human sexuality that Christianity brought was not present in Heathenism. Besides the roles of the housewife and the wisewoman, there were also women warriors, as for example the Gothic Amazons reported by Jordanis around the year 600. They defended their land for 200 years against the enemy. Therefore women had and have a free choice as to how they want to live. The social position of the housewife in those days much higher than it is today. There are old Heathen customs which give evidence of this high position. The wife carried, as a token of her freedom, a dagger, and as token of her authority the keys of the house. She managed the household income (her husband had to give her his wages), she received the first food at mealtimes, and so on.
The high position of women continued in some ways into the Middle Ages, as for example in the lyric poetry of the minnesingers, which the newly converted Heathen used to counter the official Christian contempt for women. [Translator's note: The minnesingers were poets of the 12th and 13th century who wrote poems expressing the love of a knight for his lady-love.]
In our mythology there are equally powerful Goddesses and Gods. In the Heathen creation myth women and men were created at the same time from two trees, the man from an oak and the woman from an elm, and they are therefore of equal worth.
This high position of women we would like to contrast to the oriental (Middle Eastern) contempt for and oppression of women.
From the Introductory Booklet of the Germanic Glaubens-Gemeinschaft (Germanic Faith-Community), an Asatru group founded Germany in the year 1907. Written by: Geza von Nemenyi. Translation from the German by: Nissa Annakindt
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