Suffer Not a Woman to Speak (R)

The article “Suffer Not a Woman to Speak,” describes woman throughout history and their roles in certain aspects of life. Women were ranked low in social status from the beginning. Christians see this in the Holy Bible. As written in Suffer Not a Woman to Speak and according to the Bible, God punishes Eve by saying, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, And he shall rule over thee” [Genesis 3:16}. The last part of that statement is where the ranking of women is truly shown. “And he shall rule over thee,” puts the husband in the dominant position of the relationship.
Throughout history women were regarded as property of their spouses and not regarded as humans. In court and in every day life women were not respected like they are in our present time. They were often abused whenever their husbands wished to abuse them.
The ranking of women is due in large part to different religions. The Protestants and Quakers educated their women regularly like men. This was not heard of in some other religions and contributed to the American Colonies having at one point the “highest literacy rate in the world,” according to Arthur Schlesinger Sr. If a woman was educated, they were respected and held high reputations in society, higher than that of uneducated women.
Single women and married women had very different lifestyles. Single women were in a way treated like men. The reasoning for married women having essentially no rights was because their husband could take care of everything. Without a husband, women had to have rights to protect their property. Married women were under complete control of their husbands, down to the point were they could not sell anything without their husbands permission.
Women did not seriously attempt to better their status until the 1800s. Throughout these years women conducted women’s rights movements and tried very hard to earn respect as human beings. The movements are key points in history and are the reasons that women are regarded so highly in this day and age.