These are some outline notes of an essay that will examine feminism, or the life of women, in the period preceding the introduction of the Hebrews religion. This essay will be completed after the preceding four essays. According to many feminists, this period before the introduction of the Hebrew religion was time of relative freedom, before the “repression” of women by a man-centered religion. And this is partly true. It was a time, for many, of freedom from families, freedom from accountability.But how did women survive when women did not want to be a part of a tribe or family?
Fending for oneself: slavery, scavenging, trading, up-skilling and ruling.
Household idols: worshiping sex toys?
Creating wealth from sexuality: prostitution.
Prostitution without modern pharmaceuticals: pregnancy, death and disease.
Unwanted pregnancies: sacrifice, infanticide, exposure, sale into slavery.
Worship of successful lovers: pilgrimages to shrines in high places.
The fate of the ordinary: living as an animal, on animal instincts.
So how are these feminist freedoms identified and curtailed within the Biblical text? Examining the matriarchs of the Hebrew religion.