HISTORY is recorded by the victors. Few women who took the veil in the
Christian story emerge as victors. Women stayed at the foot of the cross and they were the first messengers of the resurrection, yet they remain invisible in the church governance, despite their presence in religious assembly.
The history of religious sisters over two millennia forms the ambitious task undertaken in a single volume by Joy Ann Kay McNamara. Original sources and archives are excavated to find the hidden story of women who, voluntarily and involuntarily, took the veil. Ms McNamara has achieved a balance between impressive academic research (there are over one thousand detailed references) and a book for the general readership that gives Catholic sisterhood a distinct historical identity.
The extent and variety of sisterhood revealed by Ms McNamara's research is staggering. We learn that Briget of Kildare was one of many women who pursued an alternative life to the one chosen for her by her parents. Clarissa of Assisi, in full bridal regalia, escaped from her family to join Francis of Assisi, although she was not allowed to become a member of his mendicant order. Princess Etheldreda of East Anglia made a life of chastity the condition for the financial and political advantage that her marriage brought to each of her husbands. A Spanish abbess of the 13th century heard confession. Another abbess was accused of treating her subordinates badly while she played backgammon and kept her lover in the convent, disguised as a woman. A Montreal nun earned enough money as an architect and connonical gospels and the Gnostic tradition. This sibling existence, modelled on the gospel, was very quickly erased. Control of women became a critical factor in the regulation of sisters' lives. A patriarchal structure was imposed by bishops: they saw themselves as fathers to the spiritual daughters.
The council of Chalcedon in 451 decreed that no monastery could be built without episcopal approval. By the 9th century the practice of castimony appears. This was a chaste marriage where the woman married Christ in an elaborate ceremony with a ring and veil, and was given away by a male guardian. Later, control tractor to found eleven hospitals, seven academies and two orphanages by her death in 1902. Despite the strict control of their lives within a patriarchal church, sisters through 2,000 years achieved many levels of excellence as teachers, healers, scholars, artists and political activists.
Although evidence of women's involvement in early Christianity is fragmentary, Ms McNamara highlights the existence of "syneisactism" in the early church. This was a system whereby women and men lived together chastely, sharing what they had and supporting one another without regard to gender difference. Scriptural evidence for this view is found in the Acts of the Apostles and also the non-caturned to censure. When men failed to live up to the ideal of the rule, they were enthusiastically reformed. In contrast, women's failure led to closures of their houses and confinement under episcopal supervision. Enclosed women were protected from temptation, but also were prevented from tempting men.
Reformation teaching on the place of women, especially that of Martin Luther, saw an even more negative attitude towards women who chose a lifestyle outside the home. Even Erasmus, the Catholic humanist, viewed celibacy as an offence against nature. Virginity was attacked as a selfish refusal to shoulder the burdens of home and family.
CONVENT life had a different appeal for different sections of society. Women often saw it as freedom from male dictates at a personal level, or as an authentic response to the call of the gospel. Others used convents as sanctuaries for women married to clergy, as places of shelter for helpless and abused women, and for widows. For at least part of their existence, convents were convenient solutions for many social problems.
Throughout history women who stepped outside the role designed for them by the ruling male elite of their societies were mould breakers. What Ms McNamara discloses is a story of many independent-minded women, in some ways the first feminists, who knew that there was more than one way of living their humanity in the light of the gospel values of solidarity and community.