Woman Between Islam and Western Society
2. Woman in Society
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Speculation was another mode of thought which
produced strange, and often pernicious results.
Ridiculing the thought processes of the ancient
Greeks, Bertrand Russell writes: “Aristotle
maintained that women have fewer teeth than men;
although he was twice married, it never occurred to
him to verify this statement by examining his
wive’s mouths.”
2
Christianity did little to improve this situation,
having attached great importance to the erroneous
belief given in the very first book of the Bible, that it
had been Eve’s wrongdoing which had caused
Adam’s ejection from the garden of Eden. Referring
to women in general in this context, the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
says: “[According to
Christianity] they were regarded as temptresses,
responsible for the fall of Adam, and as second class
human beings.”
3
With such a myth ever-present in
the collective consciousness of society, it is little
wonder that women were allotted an inferior
position in both religious and secular matters. In the
first letter addressed to the Corinthians, St. Paul
says: “For the man is not of the woman; but the
woman for the man.”
4
In this, St. Paul is simply
