Female condition at the Witnesses of Jéhovah

The Pilot of Jéhovah , being based on a certain number of biblical verses, estimate that the woman has a role different from that of the man within family setting, monk and social.

The account of the creation of the man in the Genesis says that God has creates the woman as a complement of the man.

For the Witnesses of Jéhovah, this complementarity does not imply any natural lower of the woman, but well the fact that, in the original divine provision, the man was not complete without a woman, and this in spite of the fact that it is subjected to him.

This tender implies a certain number of characteristics in the specific role which it holds within the family structure, in the Christian congregation and consequently, in the company.

This particular design of the place and the role of the woman with been worth to the organization of the critical various Witnesses of Jéhovah.

History

Franklin Joseph Rutherford, the second president of the Company Watchtower, considered the women as being being inferiors who must learn how to remain their own place; it had apparently little respect for the women and declared besides that a woman is “only one heap of bone and a mop of hair of hair”. Its behavior was undoubtedly influenced by its resentment towards Maria Russell, the wife of Charles Taze Russell, which he regarded as a rebel, and by its marital own experience (he lived separated from his wife until his death). Rutherford estimated that the fact of proposing the women in the businesses of the religion contributed to destroy the crowned character of the house and diverted the men of God. According to him, the women were not to be the object of romanticism or adulation. They preserved a good position while being activated in the activity of evangelization and while remaining subjected at the same time to the hearth and in the congregation; best were than they remain alone and than they are pioneers. In the worst case, the women could be regarded as being haughty “Jézabel” (biblical character, wife of the king Jew Achab, and which was known for its arrogance) which disturbs the theocratic order within the organization of the Témoins of Jehovah.

It would seem that Rutherford depreciated the women. It estimated that one had to take off its hat to greet a woman (because it regarded that as an act of idolatry), neither to hold a door to him nor still to rise when she entered a part. Accordingly, Rutherford condemned the Mother's Day besides because he considered that this festival granted too much importance to the women and led to the “Culte mothers”, thus diverting human returning worship with God.

However, Nathan Homer Knorr, the following president, rehabilitated the place of the woman and the wives in general were well treated within the community.

Its role

At the family level

It is the husband who directs the family and makes the important decisions. The woman, for its part, must herself of him be subjected and to testify a deep respect to him, to regard her support, and it as her “legitimate chief”, and that even if it does not share his beliefs; she must devote herself mainly to the domestic tasks and the education of the children, and it is necessary that she gets dressed with modesty. For the Pilot of Jéhovah, the portrait of the able woman is described in Proverbs 31:10 to 31, which the religious movement regards as a completely honourable role. A difference in belief does not authorize a woman to leave her husband for a legal separation or a divorce (except if the husband opposes savagely the faith of his wife, if he maltreats it at the point to put his health or his life in danger or if he misleads it), bus of the kind, it can the évangéliser so that he converts. Even in this case, it must regard it as the household head.

The Société Watchtower justifies its position in this field by verses such as Éphésiens 5:22,23,33 and 1 Corinthians 11:3 which declare:

That the women are submitted to their husbands as with the Lord, because the husband is chief of his wife as Christ also is chief of the congregation (...). On her side, the woman must have a deep respect for her mari.
(...) the chief of the woman, it is the man (...).

At the spiritual level

In the congregation, the Femme cannot reach all the functions of monitoring (old, ministerial Assistant), because those are exclusively reserved to the men; she cannot a fortiori belong to the Central Collège.

At the beginning of the year 1959, the women in the congregations started to be able to take part in the school of the theocratic ministry. It is not possible for it to teach in public at the meetings of the congregation by making speeches or while directing parts of the program. It can however speak at the meetings by giving comments, to carry out subjects as a pupil, but in this case, it is not addressed to the audience, but to an interlocutress.

She can take part in the evangelization; moreover, the largest part of this work is carried out by the women being given their availability in week (often, she does not work and has more spare time). In fact often the Femme S Témoins of Jéhovah return visit to their sick co-religionists or who deal with the poor.

Possibly, the woman can be member ointe (i.e. to have the celestial hope and to belong to the 144.000). She can also occupy of the important stations in other authorities jehovists, such as for example being with the head of the European Circle of the off-set and interned old Witnesses of Jéhovah (CETJAD), role currently assumed by Ruth Danner, itself old off-set, and which replaced with this position an other off-set old woman, Simone Arnold-Liebster.

If, in the absence of male elements, it must fulfill a role related to the Culte normally reserved for the man, it must cover the head as a sign of tender.

Criticisms

Certain detractors of the movement estimate that the Société Watchtower has an obsolete point of view on the role of the woman, not granting a place developing to this one and not respecting thus the parity between the two sexes.

In its biographical work, old faithful complained about the role allotted to the woman in the religious organization, by in particular evoking the tender with the husband, prohibitions to teach in public with the Salle of the Kingdom and to come in pants to the weekly meetings. She affirms that the Réunions of the congregation show a “disturbing machism” and estimates that the Witnesses of Jéhovah “set up for the women of the congregation a moyennâgeux diagram near to the enquiry”.

The National coordination of the victims of the organization of the Witnesses of Jéhovah estimates that the process consisting in refusing to let the women teach with the Salle of the Kingdom is “ridiculous and aberrant”, affirming that it is “one of different the aspects misogynists which account the Culte of the Witnesses of Jéhovah”. According to this association, “the women center of the Witnesses of Jéhovah are lowered, regarded nothing if not as flexible prédicatrices, subjected wives or mothers teaching their children well”.

The bi-annual report/ratio 2001-2002 of the CIAOSN (opinion and Information center on the harmful sectarian organizations) reproach the place which the religious movement grants to the woman. It evokes this fact in a chapter entitled " Problems, controverses" : Place Femme: Although the Témoins of Jéhovah recalled in June 2002 that, according to their doctrines, the woman is with equal of the man, the attitude which the movement recommends to its members with respect to the latter does not fit in the European tendency and international as regards equality between men and women. At the Witnesses, the opinion of the husband precedes and his wife must assist it in her decisions and respect them. She is submitted to her husband and must testify a deep respect to him because he is the chief of famille.

In addition, former members estimate that women are sometimes victims of ill-treatment within the organization by their husband and that “this potential of abuse is largely caused by the way in which the [Company] Watchtower sees and considers the women”.

See too

Internal bonds

Pilot of Jéhovah
Woman
Controversies related to the Witnesses of Jéhovah

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