Date: Thu, 15 Aug 1996 18:32:40
Subject: QUERY: Theological Implications of Women in Combat
From: R.H. Miller
I'd be grateful for referral to any ongoing or completed study of the
Biblical theological implications of national policy favoring assignment of
"women in combat."
Sincere thanks,
R.H. Miller
I'm not sure if this is what you had in mind; I have no idea as to what various contemporary religions have to say on the subject although I assume that most of them have some sort of concept of "just war" and women could defend themselves and their motherland under the same circumstances that men are permitted to do so, usually if the cause of the war is "just". As the Romans amply demonstrated it's not hard to work up a cause.
I'm a medievalist and in that period in Europe they wrote volumes about the Bible and almost anything you could think of, including women and war. I've just translated about 10% of the "Treatise on the Song of Songs and the Virgin Mary" written by John of Mantua for the Countess Matilda of Tuscany around 1085. The purpose was to keep her active in the war between the papacy and the Empire at a particularly sensitive time; the papacy had no other reliable military support. The basic argument was that in accepting the role God gave her, as Mary did, she was performing a kind of equivalent service to that performed by those who lead lives of prayer and contemplation which was usually considered the road to sanctity. War on behalf of the church was equated with prayer on the scale of good works. Why? Because it leads to peace and justice. Sound familiar?
Offhand I remember that in addition to Mary and the Bride of Canticles various documents refer to Deborah, Jael, and Judith, all the obvious choices, plus an array of male saints including the apostle Paul for whom she had a special devotion it seems. Others, such as Martin of Tours, are of course post-biblical but the selection of a soldier-saint can hardly be accidental. The most popular biblical passages were the ones about "bears not the sword in vain" and "cursed be he who draws back his hand from the blood." These of course are not the usual passages for women but they appear all over the discussions of the war including those for and about the countess.
As a footnote, nearly 900 years after her death, Matilda of Tuscany, who is buried in St. Peter's in Rome, has been put forward for canonization. I tried to figure out who would invoke her and it seems that those of you who maintain peace under arms have got the saint of your dreams.
Val Eads
This isn't Biblical, but there is a book called "The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders" by Desmond Seward, Penguin books 1972, reprinted 1995, ISBN 0-14-019501-7, that has a nice summary of all of the religious fighting orders. Some of those orders had nuns as well as monks. Many of them seem to have been founded on the idea of applying military discipline to the religious life.
Sharon Wildwind
I was present at the Chicago hearings on women in combat a few years ago, and one of the speakers was a Catholic priest who had a few remarks on the subject, though they didn't seem to constitute an "ongoing or completed study". He started out by saying the Catholic church didn't actually have an official position on the issue one way or the other, except, perhaps, insofar as one could be construed from their having canonized Joan of Arc. (I would tend to see any such implication as having been pretty much cancelled out by their having burned her in the first place, especially since one of the charges against her was wearing men's clothing.) If you want more detail, I'll dig out my copy of the proceedings and my notes.
Marian Neudel
Sorry, but Seward's _Monks of War_ is not the place to go for any serious study of the military orders. There has been a boom in Templars et al., not to mention crusades in particular and medieval milhist in general for the past several years. Try Forey or Mary-Jane Upton-Ward's translation of the Rule of the Templars for a look at the primary material.
Briefly, the military orders were a maximizing of available troops in the crusader states. A shortage of troops was always a problem there. The military orders such as the Templars and Hospitallers tapped into the long-standing habit of giving donations to support monks. So you found an order and the order recruits a large number of pious lay brothers, NB: lay brothers, to fight the infidel and this standing professional army is supported by the donations of the pious back home who do it for God. As the end approached, there was even an order of healthy lepers. Talk about maximizing available resources.
What about women? I know of no contemporary document reporting their participation in any of this except as patrons, i.e., they shelled out the cash. Most of the military orders had no female members (see the Rule of the Templars) and even when they did the sisters provided prayer not nursing, supply, or communications. Sorry. [If anyone knows a source that says otherwise I'd love to hear about it!]
Val Eads
Sincere thanks for the several helpful and very interesting responses to the
subject inquiry. While I was looking particularly for studies which might
examine implications of employing women as national warriors from a Biblical
world-view, (i.e., considering the Bible's exposition of God's design and
purpose for mankind, created in his image, male and female),--yet I value and
appreciate your thoughtful answers.
R.H.Miller
On religion and military I refer you to Joe Helmick, West Point 1986. The email address I have is genesis@mindspring.COM. Genesis Software Designers, Inc.
Rosemarie Skaine
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