2.4 2.5 the literature of the early church  (Page 4/8)

For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal. 3:26-28.)

Texas Baptists used references to the epistles far more often than other portions of the Bible to determine and to justify the proper sphere of women. The specific teaching on woman's general demeanor and on her place in the home and in the church made these writings a valuable ideological source. Their frequent use lends support to the assertion by one present-day author that "their effects remain in almost every form of social relationship." Harkness, p. 69.

Paul's advice on veils, the braiding of hair, and the wearing of gold and pearls had already been reduced by the late nineteenth century to a common-sense denominator: modesty. Occasionally a scrupulous person would inquire whether it was a sin for a Christian woman to wear gold, and the response was that the meaning of those admonitions was that apparel was not to be uppermost in a woman's mind and that excesses of adornment were to be shunned. A woman should be a "lady" and dress like one, summed up one writer. BS, February 24, 1916, p. 19. No one insisted that "the apostle here [intended] to forbid women's wearing modest, becoming ornaments." BS, June 24, 1897, p. 7. Veils, or their American equivalent, hats, were never mentioned beyond one reference in 1894 to woman's wearing "her sign of subjection.” BS, November 15, 1894, p. 8. This might have referred to long hair rather than to a hat or veil. Since this later became an issue in some conservative denominations and in Roman Catholicism, the subject was probably avoided because women still uniformly wore hats and bonnets in public throughout the period. In general, biblical injunctions regarding women's dress seem to have been re-interpreted to mean conforming to prevailing standards of modesty.

The segments of scripture that elaborated on the relationship between husband and wife were the ones whose literal meaning was most widely accepted throughout the period of this study. Submission was emphasized more strongly in the nineteenth century and reciprocity was of growing concern in the twentieth, but the paternalistic family order of Genesis 2 and 3, repeated by Paul, Peter, and other New Testament writers, was never seriously challenged. The reference to "Adam [being] first formed, then Eve" (I Tim. 2:13) was "history, literal and simple, and not allegory," its credence enhanced by Jesus' and the apostles' reaffirmation. BS, June 12, 1902, p. 7. "As the head of Christ is God, so the head of the man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man" is the way one Baptist succinctly summed up the argument in 1894. BS, November 15, 1894, p. 8. At the turn of the century Reverend F. M. McConnell emphasized that the Corinthian correspondence restated that man was made first, then woman was made "for him." Man was the glory of God; woman was the glory of man. The Ephesians analogy of the relationship of Christ and the church as applied to that of husband and wife made clear the position of the two within marriage: man did the will of God; woman, the will of man. While the author did not address himself to the problem the system posed for single women, he did acknowledge that some men were not as worthy of being followed as was Jesus. "But," he asked, "shall we disregard a law of God because of the weakness of human nature?. . . If we disregard God's law on the subject are we sure we will get along any better by following an opposing law of our own making? Is it not enough honor for man that he becomes the glory of God, and is it not enough honor for woman that she becomes the glory of man? Earth's highest duty is to perfect this Trinity." BS, November 1, 1900, p. 3.