Essay on Kingdom of Matthias by Paul E Johnson and Sean Wilentz

Households were strictly patriarchal in which the man of the house made all the important decisions. Women's jobs at the time were mostly relegated to domestic service and occasional work at harvest time. The jobs were always of low pay, low status, and required little training. In addition to this females were not legally permitted to inherit land or property. This was the bleak life of a woman, with little hope or power, and always the subordinate of men.

Since the Christian religion was a large and prominent force in the everyday life in the average person in the 17th and 18th century, the Bible was a large influence in how the woman was seen in society as it says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church…” (Ephesians 5:22-23, 33). The Bible is that the woman was ruled by her husband, that she didn’t even have her own head, and cannot think for herself because it was expected by the very faith that she must submit to her husband. The Holy Book also says that the woman was created from the rib of the man, which it is known now as completely preposterous, so it implies that the woman is inferior to man because she was created from man, because heaven forbid that any evidence point towards that it is man that came from a woman.

In the earliest of Christian texts, there is talk about what women did in the Church and the important roles they played (Fiddes, 1990; Fontaine, 1996). Many women were activists during that time, and they spent time focusing on their studies and duties to their households and to their God. In Corinth, for example, it was believed that a Jewish missionary woman who came from Rome helped to found the

Women have played important roles throughout history. They have been responsible for the rise and fall of nations, sustaining families, and have been the focal point of worship in ancient religions. Moving forward in history, women's roles have continually changed. Their status as matriarchs changed as the more advanced ancient civilizations rose. The patriarchal societies of ancient Greece and Rome viewed women differently from some societies of past eras. The study of the economic and political status of women, their rights, and their contributions to both these ancient societies reveals how views change throughout history.

In the sixteenth century the role of women in society was very limited. Women were generally stereotyped as housewives and mothers. They were to be married, living their life providing for her husband and children. The patriarchal values of the Elizabethan times regarded women as the weaker sex.’ Men were considered the dominant gender and were treated with the utmost respect by females. Women were mainly restricted within the confines of their homes and were not allowed to go school or to university, but they could be educated at home by private tutors. Men were said to be the ones to provide for their families financially. Women were often seen as not intelligent. Property could not be titled in the name of a female within the family. Legally everything the female had belonged to her husband. Poor and middle class wives were kept very busy but rich women were not idle either. In a big house they had to organize and supervise the servants.

In the nineteenth century, the legal rights of women and men were highly affected by gender and race, both positively and negatively. In the book, “Kingdom of Matthias,” by Paul Johnson and Simon Wilentz, they describe the life of two females, Isabella Van Wagenen and Isabella Matthews Laisdell which whom were affected by slavery and high influences of higher power from men. In the nineteenth century it was believed that males were to support the family by working and earning a wage as a husband was to provide for his wife and a father to provide for his children (Fahs 1/5). Also, during the nineteenth century women were seen to be working in homes and supporting their husbands by cleaning the home, raising the children, and cooking meals

In The Kingdom of Matthias by Paul E. Johnson and Sean Wilentz, the story follows the life of a man named Robert Matthews, who later bestows the name of Matthias (“The Prophet”) to himself. This book demonstrates important themes (and events) that are prevalent in the 19th century United States, including the War of 1812, the Market Revolution, the Second Great Awakening, and more. More specifically, this story communicates and reflects an exaggerated view of those subjects and how it affected Robert Matthews and Elijah Pierson. The American society during this time was going through many advancements, including having a market-driven culture and the movement of women’s independence. In The Kingdom of Matthias, these ideas are obvious through the actions of Matthias and how he despised the changes in society and culture. His actions including treating women poorly, attempting to start his own religious cult, and his fits of rage and insanity (which I believe are due mental illnesses and stress). These changes in society caused a negative shift in many people’s lives, including Robert Matthews/Matthias and Elijah Pierson; who also plays a key role in the story of the cult, the “Kingdom.” Once more, in The Kingdom of Matthias, it demonstrates many important U.S. themes of the 19th century in an exaggerated manner.

The industrial revolution swept through Europe and North America during the 19th century, affecting the class structure, economy, government, and even the religious practices of everyone who lived in or did commerce with these new "industrialized nations." It made the modern age possible, but it was not without its "growing pains." The position of women before the industrial revolution was often equivalent to chattel, and then as now, they were expected to take naturally to housework and child rearing. The history of working women in the Industrial Revolution is rife with accounts of abuse and tragedy, but overall it improved their position in capitalist societies. Below, I will explain the

In the United States in the 19th century women were expected to act in a particular manner and were destined to fill a certain sphere of society apart from men. Men being expected to live a public life, whether it was work or socializing with other men, while women were expected to live mostly at home, taking charge of the household and rearing children. Education was not portrayed as a necessity either; very few women were given the same opportunities as men. The Kingdom of Matthias presents this theme of sexism in many instances, and in addition, it served as a base for “The Kingdom”. Matthias was seen by some as a “woman-hating Prophet,” (Johnson, 101), this was seen repeatedly in both his treatment of women and his general thoughts of them. When speaking at his nightly meetings, in the days before ‘The Kingdom’, he stated, “Every thing that has the smell of woman will be destroyed. Woman is the cap sheaf of the abomination of desolation – full of all deviltry.” (Johnson, 93). This is but one of his many declarations against the entirety of

The claim of women as property to men displays how in both time periods, gender inequality influences how women are not treated as a human, but rather an object to men whether it is a husband or even a father.

The Women’s Rights Movement is very popular, and tracing back through the extensive history of all the powerful women the world has had, we learn that one important starting point was during the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution is was “the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840 (Powell 2017).” The revolution introduced new ways of manufacturing and selling goods. New machinery, ways of thinking, and factories were prevalent during this time period- as well as the introduction of women working in large-scale locations. Before

In today’s society, we as women often take for granted the rights, freedoms, and equality we share with men that women in the ancient world were not granted. As all civilisations in the ancient world exercised different treatment towards, this essay will illustrate a few comparisons in the status of women during ancient Egypt with women during ancient Rome. Academic sources will be relied on to provide the necessary actualities when one considers ancient civilizations. The legal status of women in society, the domestic atmospheres and roles that each unique region’s women held, and the possible occupations available to these women, will be discussed.

An unlikely candidate to dispute the unfair, misogynistic treatment of women by men and society, Christine de Pizan successfully challenged the accepted negative views that were being expressed about women by the all-male literary world of her era. Part of Christine’s uniqueness stems from the time in which she lived, the middle to late 1300’s. The lack of a positive female role model to pattern herself after made Christine a true visionary in the fight for the equal rights of women. Her original ideas and insight provided a new and more intelligent way to view females. Pizan’s work, The Book of the City of Ladies, provided women much needed guidance in how to survive without the support of a man.

Women withstood a multitude of limitations in the medieval era. Due to the political, social, and religious restrictions women encountered, historians neglected to realize that they demonstrated agency. The female experience is something that has been overlooked until recently. Unfortunately, without the knowledge of how women found ways to exert their power, we are experiencing a deficit of knowledge in this period. Through the close examination of the primary sources: The Gospel of Mary, Dhouda’s Liber Manualis, and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the creative means of female force are displayed.

In order to show support for women in leadership, I will examine several different online resources. Within these sources, I will meticulously pull out key contexts in order to help better articulate the idea of women in leadership roles. As apart of my paper, I will include in my first section of the paper the misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 14:34. In order to do so, I will be examining the text itself first, then going on to various online resources to gain a better idea of why Paul wrote this section. Ideally in writing this essay, I would like to gain a much better idea of women in the bible that have had leadership roles because it is important to understand in my opinion why women were or were not treated fairly in the context of