Women's Role in the Rise of Early Christianity

Introduction: Women as a Key to Christianity's Growth

Despite the struggles of modern women in obtaining parity within many Christian denominations, women had a significant role in the development of the early Christian church and the shift from paganism to Christendom in the ancient world. According to Rodney Stark's 1995 article, "Reconstructing the Rise of Christianity: The Role of Women", women were in fact instrumental in proselytizing the new religion. For Stark, women hold one of the keys to explaining how Christianity shifted from a rather small and obscure corner of the Roman Empire to replace classical paganism altogether.

Because women had higher status and more influence in the early formulations of Christianity compared with pagan religions, they were more apt to convert to the new faith. But they did not necessarily marry Christians. The higher percentage of women in the religion, combined with the social compulsion to marry, often meant that their husbands were non-Christians. Women thus had a great influence from behind the scenes of the family in encouraging acceptance of the new religion.

Stark finds this a far more persuasive, socially grounded, and historically supported argument than the idea that mass conversions explain the success of Christianity. One problem in understanding how the Christian religion spread is that so many of its adherents are sincere believers who wholeheartedly accept the gospel accounts of mass conversions, viewing the acceptance of Christianity as part of Christ's miracle in and of itself. This is highly problematic for historical inquiry, as it leaves social science and historical documentation with little to offer in understanding the history of religion.

The Appeal of Christianity to Women in the Roman Empire

What can be substantiated outside of the gospel narratives is the fact that the pagan Roman Emperor Valentinian specifically prohibited Christian missionaries from calling upon women within their homes (Stark, 1995, p. 231). The fact that the greater status offered to women within Christianity was so appealing — and that the Emperor saw fit to prohibit contact with women, particularly within the home where men might not be present — is telling.

Men significantly outnumbered women in the Roman Empire at the time, which was another important factor. Female infanticide, driven by the desirability of producing a male heir, was partially responsible for this gender imbalance. Additionally, Stark notes that abortion in the ancient world, far from being liberating for women, was often practiced in a manner that was "barbaric and deadly," in stark contrast to modern, safe abortions (Stark, 1995, p. 232). By prohibiting both common methods of reducing the number of female births and a practice that frequently killed women, Christianity increased the percentage of women in the religion for biological reasons as well, over time.

To further support this point, Stark draws on an example from pagan antiquity. In Athens, where female infanticide was practiced, women led highly circumscribed lives, despite the fact that Athens is often praised as the birthplace of democracy. Sparta, although far more militaristic, only practiced infanticide when children were born with physical defects. As a result, Spartan women owned property, moved freely, married later in life, and actually made up the majority of the population, owing to the heavy losses of men during wartime.

Household Conversion and Female Influence

Even when women did not hold positions of power themselves, Christian women married to influential pagan men could make their opinions felt. The Emperor Commodus, although he himself never converted, was influenced by his wife Marcia to free a man who eventually became a future pope (Stark, 1995, p. 233). Stark also makes a distinction between primary and secondary Christian converts, arguing that men were often less enthusiastic secondary converts to the faith. Women were the primary converts, enthusiastically adopting the new religion. Men might go along, following the path of least resistance, but once a man adopted a particular faith, all members of the household — children, servants, and slaves — would follow suit.

The image of Christian conversion presented by Stark is therefore not one of mass public conversions, but rather of Christianity spreading household to household. This explains the particular anxiety of pagan emperors about proselytizing to women within their homes. Stark also suggests that as the religion's greater appeal to women increased female survival rates and community participation, the power of women within Christian communities grew accordingly. Women were no longer restricted and regarded as "scarce goods" — a commodity to be controlled primarily for the purpose of producing the next generation (Stark, 1995, p. 234).

Conclusion: The Indispensable Role of Women

Finally, the fact that the early Christian patriarchs sanctioned marriage between non-Christians and Christians cannot be underestimated. Men wished to protect their wives — even if those wives were Christian — and the general scarcity of women in the Roman Empire, combined with the greater autonomy women enjoyed in Roman society compared to Athenian society, enabled women to leverage that power to encourage their husbands to convert to Christianity, or at least to tolerate Christian teachings within the household.

In short, according to Stark, without women, Christianity simply could not have gained the foothold it eventually needed to convert the masses of the Roman Empire and change the world. Women were not passive recipients of a new faith; they were its most enthusiastic early adopters, its household ambassadors, and, in many cases, its financial and organizational backbone.

References

Stark, R. (1995). Reconstructing the rise of Christianity: The role of women. Sociology of Religion, 56(3), 229–244.