Women in freemasonry

The women were allowed in Franc-maçonnerie only gradually. Their participation in this movement was very diverse, according to the times and the countries.

History

old duties old duties

It is attested, even if the phenomenon were rare, that some women could reach the control in various corporations before the appearance of speculative freemasonry. They could for example be widows having taken the continuation of their husband. Part of the old statutes ( old loads ) testifies some, for example the book of the trades of Paris (1268), the statutes of the Guild of the carpenters of Norwich (1375), or the statutes of the cabin of York (1693).

At the 18th century

Oldest testimonys of presence of women in freemasonry date from the whole beginning of the 18th century.

The case of Elisabeth Aldworth

The first woman who was initiated freemason would have been Mrs Aldworth de New Market, in the county of Cork in Ireland. Born in 1713, his/her father and his brothers were members of the aristocratic cabin n°44. In 1732, whereas Lord Doncraile, his brother, was worthy, this cabin organized its held in the enclosure of the family home. The young woman would have dug a hole in the wall and succeeds in observing the meetings. Having been surprised, its case gave place to a meeting of more than two hours at the conclusion which it was decided to offer to him the choice between initiation and death. It accepted initiation and would have remained member of the cabin until his death at the 95 years age.

The exclusion of the women by the constitutions of Anderson

Apart from this anecdote, there hardly exists of precedent of the initiation of women in freemasonry at that time. The primary reason was most probably the fact that the women were then regarded as legally minor, therefore nonfree of the authority of their fathers or husbands. It is in the sense that article III of the Constitutions of Anderson affirms into 1723 that members of a cabin: must be men of good and honest, born free and of ripe age and discrete, neither serfs neither women nor immoral and scandalous men, but of good reputation .

The warning statement of Ramsay

On the continent, the knight of Ramsay in his famous speech maconnic of 1736 states same prohibition, but makes of it less one question of principle that of protection of purity of our maxims and our manners (sic). He adds: If the sex is banished, that it does not have alarms of them,
It is not an insult with its fidelity;
But one fears that the love entering with his charms,
does not produce the lapse of memory of the fraternité.
Names of brother and friend seroient weak armes
to guarantee the hearts of the competition .

Cabins of adoption

It was however impossible, in the French company of the 18th century, to hold the women completely, and especially those of the nobility, with the variation of the innovation of a philosophical movement which claimed to hold secrecies and which started to profit from an effect of unquestionable mode.

Being based on the fact that nothing in the Constitutions Anderson prohibited the ladies from being received with the banquets and entertainments which followed work, nor to take part in the religious ceremonies of mourning or the Jean Saint, the French freemasons took the practice to name " sœurs" women present at these occasions, then came from there to create one masonry of the ladies or masonry of adoption , reserved for the ladies of the nobility, of which duchesses of Bourbon and Chartres as well as the princess of Lamballe, which made say to the queen Marie-Antoinette that all its court was .

One finds traces of these cabins of adoption in France since 1740. They often bear the name of a male cabin to which it remain attached. In France, the historians count some a little everywhere about 1760: Annonay, Arras, Besancon, Bordeaux, Caen, Confolens, Dijon, Lorient, Narbonne, Nancy, Rochefort, Toul, Toulouse, Valognes. With those it is advisable to add four of them attached to military cabins, and four others with Paris, including one attached to the famous cabin of the Last nine Sisters.

This masonry of the ladies remain however completely different from male freemasonry. In particular, its ritual is based on other sets of themes:

Tower of Babel to the first degree.
Garden of Eden to the second degree.
Flood with the third degree.

To these symbolic systems degrees were added, as it was then of habit, various systems specific of High ranks maconnic, of which it is not however certain that they ever existed elsewhere than on the paper of their ritual.

There were also cabins of adoption in Germany: One mentions two with Hamburg of them: supreme Happiness and Concordia .

In Egyptian freemasonry

Women were also initiated with $the Hague with the various ranks of the very first freemasonry known as Egyptian woman within the framework of the female cabin whose Cagliostro had entrusted the direction to his Sérafina wife. With the wire of its voyages, it made some in the same way with Mitau in 1780 and Paris in 1785.

The order of Mopses

One finally saw appearing, in France as in Germany, different orders female or mixed, recruiting exclusively in the high aristocracy, and which especially aimed at making fun freemasonry on the mode of imagination badine.

Among those the Ordre of Mopses knew a few years of success at the court of Frederic II, under the presidency of his/her sister, Wilhelmine de Bayreuth. The exalté topic was that of fidelity and the password was the barking of the dog ( Mops being the German word for carlin ).

At the 19th century

To the freemasonry of adoption, which will perdurera, at least in France, throughout the 19th century, will be added other female or mixed manners gradually to practice freemasonry:

The order of the Eastern Star

Appearance of mixed freemasonry

It is at the end of the XIXe century, in France, that will appear for the first time a true mixed freemasonry. Indeed, until there, the female or mixed forms of freemasonry had remained:

anecdotic (some rare cases isolated like that from Elisabeth Aldworth)
marginal (the Egyptian freemasonry of Cagliostro)
subjugated with aristocratic male cabins (cabins of adoption)
or para-maçonniques in their rites and practices (the order of Eastern Star)

In 1880, twelve cabins symbolic systems had broken with Central big room the Supreme Council of France and made up a new obedience, under the name of Big room Scottish symbolic system . Some of these cabins then approved the principle of the initiation of the women, but could not go further.

This is why the cabin Free thinkers Pecq proclaimed its autonomy on January 9th, 1882, in order to initiate on January 14th, 1882, according to the practices of the Scottish Rite old and accepted, Maria Deraismes, journalist and militant feminist, noticed by the brothers for its talents of lecturer and its engagement militant for the recognition of the women's rights and of the children.

Eleven years later, Maria Deraismes, helped inter alia Georges Martin, initiated 17 women ritually on March 14th, 1893, then founded, the next on April 4th, a named Cabin " Mixed big room Scottish symbolic system of France the Right humain".

It is the latter which gave birth, in 1901, with the international mixed Order maconnic " The Right humain" .

At the 20th century

In England

The mixed freemasonry of the Human right extends almost immediately in England, via Annie Besant and takes the name there of Co-Masonry . The first mixed cabin is founded in England on September 26th, 1902. Very quickly, English female freemasonry is in dissension with the order of French origin on three points:

the tender of the cabins symbolic systems to a the Supreme Council.
obligation of belief in a higher or divine principle.
co-education (the Co-Masonry English cease to accept male novel members since 1908).

and transforms itself gradually into a female version of English freemasonry, differing from this one only by the sex of its members.

A scission occurs in 1913, leaving the place to two female English obediences almost impossible to distinguish:

The Honourable Fraternity off Antient Masonry (1908)
The Honourable Fraternity off Ancient Freemasons (1913)

In France

In France, parallel to the development of mixed freemasonry, under the impulse of the Human right, the cabins of adoption continue to function at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1945, in the hope of a hypothetical bringing together with the block of the Big rooms of the plain Big room of England, the Big room of France separates from its cabins of adoption. The sisters constitute themselves then in one Female maconnic union of France who will take in 1952 the name of female Big room of France and will give up in 1959 the rite of adoption for the Scottish Rite old and accepted.

In North America

The first mixed cabin of North America was founded in 1903, in New York under the aegis of the Human right. In 1924, the American Federation of the Human right counted a hundred cabins. At the end of the 20th century, the majority of these cabins left the Human right and off founded the Honorable Order American Co-Masonry and the Eastern Order off International Co-Freemasonry .

In the other countries of the World

At the 20th century freemasonries female and mixed essaimèrent, since the sources mentioned above, in the majority of the countries where freemasonry is authorized.

Current location

Nowadays, in the majority of the European countries, the women can join the mixed or exclusively female obediences, oldest being the the international Human right, founded mixed Ordre maconnic in 1901 and the Order off Women Freemasons , founded in 1908.

Liberal obediences generally recognize the mixed and female cabins. Some, like the the Great East of France, recognize the female cabins and accept the presence of women in their cabins, but do not initiate them.

The freemasonry of the traditional branch, on the other hand, formally does not recognize any group accepting the women, although in many countries of the abstract relations or specific co-operations can exist. It is thus for example which the plain Big room of England considers since 1998 that certain mixed cabins must be seen like belonging to freemasonry, without being able to be recognized officially in an authorizing treaty of the mutual visits.

In North America (the United States and Canada), it is more common than the women directly do not join freemasonry but via distinct associations, comprising their own traditions and their clean ritual, like the Order off the Eastern Star or Daughters off the Nile which functions in.liaison.with the traditional maconnic cabins. Although America of Nord generally follows England on many points, it is on this continent that mainly resistance to the recognition of the women freemasons concentrates today.

Appendices

References and notes

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