¶ … Women's choice lead a celebate life, remain a virgin, a rejection societal expectations? A conclusion drawn thesis question. I attaching suggested books citation. Essay 12 pages length counting citations bibliography.
Was a Women's choice to lead a celibate life or remain a virgin a rejection of societal expectations?
The role of women in the society has been widely debated throughout the history of both philosophical thought and social sciences. Women have a particular place in society since ancient times and there are clear indications, in the religious literature, that women have had specific views and opinions regarding their own place in the society. In this context, the current research discusses the choice of women to lead a celibate life or keep herself a virgin and whether this choice was a reaction to societal expectations and social pressures. The perspective of the research analysis is focused on Christian traditions from the Apostles to the Reformers.
The research, in the first part, focuses on providing a short background of the current role women have in society and points out common signs of submissiveness. In the second part, the discussion takes into account the main perspectives of women in the Bible up to the Reformers in order to examine the situation of women as presented in the religious texts of the Apostles and further in the Middle Ages and the period of the Reformers. This approach is important particularly because it underlines the different types of perspectives of women and therefore justifies the lack of a conclusive answer to the research question.
Background
There is little doubt that the society is constantly experiencing new evolutions, whether one looks at it from a political, economic, or social point-of-view. Some transformations can be quantified in figures and the development of countries assessed mathematically. However, at the level of the society and the day-to-day activities, this development may not be as visible as statistics point out. One of the areas in which it is rather hard to determine the exact situation is the equality between men and women.
There have been many scholars that argue the inequality between men and women is directed by the role women have in the society. More precisely, Eric Rakowski argued that if women do not wish to be exposed to poverty and its associated vulnerabilities they should not bear children as these actions lead to the woman being limited in their capacity to interact at a social level and dedicate their lives to the home rather than personal achievement that would bring about equality among individuals.
Surely, opinion polls and social analyses do offer, to a certain degree, a rather comprehensive picture of the evolution of the social mentality and the transformations it suffered in comparison to different other periods in time. Consequently, it would be fair to argue the fact that despite the important progress humanity has undergone there is still a lot of negative attitude in respect to gender equality and more precisely to the role women play in the society, regardless of the type of society being analyzed. This constant tendency is present in all areas of today's society, and manifests itself in all shapes and forms.
One of the most important tendencies in relation to the treatment of women in the society is the supposition that women should lead a submissive life in the society. From a theoretical approach, the term implies the notion of patriarchal society and relationship
. Despite the fact that the term itself can be used to define the characteristics of different social orders, the general idea behind it is the organizational structure, which is based, and at the same time underlines the male dominance and, implicitly, the female's inferior role. Those who argue a radical point-of-view see patriarchy "as a social system in which men appropriate all social roles and keep women in subordinate positions. They further state that this social system has managed to survive for so long because its chief psychological weapon is its universality as well as its longevity. Patriarchal attitudes are bred in the family through the socialization process."
One of the first environments that is confronted with the issue of female subordination and which influences on the long run the direction in which the male attitude is developed is precisely the family environment. From an early age, boys are instructed to engage in "manly" activities, while...
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