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| ISBN-13: | 9781491863534 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | AuthorHouse |
| Publication date: | 02/28/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 144 |
| File size: | 285 KB |
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Women in Law
By Virginia Lalli
AuthorHouse LLC
Copyright © 2014 Virginia LalliAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4918-6454-8
CHAPTER 1
DEBORA
Female judge, prophet and warrior
When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they crossed a vast desert before coming to the shores of the Jordan River—the only great river in Palestine—which was also a border. Although their leader only managed to see it from afar, the Israelites had finally reached the Promised Land. According to God's promise to Abraham, this was a wonderful land "of milk and honey", with mountains, hills, valleys, plains, forests and springs in abundance. Its name was Canaan and its dwellers were the Cananaeans, who had built small fortified towns,c ultivated the fertile land and worshipped their gods Baal and Astarte. The Israelites' arrival completely overwhelmed their lives.
The year is circa 1150 BCE. After Moses' death, Joshua became the new leader. Seeing the Cananaeans worship Baal and other gods, the Israelites wondered whether they too should worship other divinities to obtain a good harvest; thus, they began to be unfaithful to their God.
When Joshua died, the military and political unity of the Jewish people fell apart, and the manifold different patriarchal groups broke away from one another.
The Cananaeans began to attack them, seeking to reduce them into slavery or to drive them away. The Cananaean king Jabin was the ruler of Hasor; Sisara was the leader of his army. The children of Israel cried out to their Lord in despair, because Jabin had "nine hundred chariots fitted with iron, and had been oppressing them with violence for twenty years"(Judges 4, 1-3). The Israelites' lives were in danger: travel was unsafe, anarchy ruled and all could do as they pleased; the people began to worship idols. In other words, they were in desperate need of a leader—a Judge, a figure who enjoyed great authority over neighboring peoples too:
"All village life had ceased, it had ceased in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, arose as mother in Israel. Foreign gods were worshipped and, at that time, war was nigh" (Judges 5, 7-8).
The roles of prophet, judge and warrior were all combined in one woman.
The Book of Judges introduces Deborah as the wife of Lappidot (Judges 4,4), but her husband plays no part in the narration; we know nothing of him other than his name. He does not have any particular role to fulfill, while she, on the other hand, was already well-known by the time she took command of the government and became the "mother of Israel" (Judges 5, 7) and savior of her land thanks to her courageous commitment to defending her people.
Deborah enjoyed special renown as a prophet and a sage who adjudicated and resolved disputes among the Israelites. She was the knowledge that establishes justice, an illuminated woman who had a particularly close relationship with the God of Israel: she was the enlightened prophet, the mouth of God for his people. The Israelites consulted her in multitudes, climbing the Ephraim mountain between Rama and Betel; here, Debora would receive them in the open air, seated under a palm tree that bore her name (in the ancient East, the palm tree was sacred and symbolized the glory of God—the walls and the shutters of the Holiest of the Holy in Solomon's Temple were decorated with palm trees: 1 Kings 6, 29-35).
"[The] Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided ..." (Judges 4, 4-5). For the first time after Moses' death, the role of prophet was fulfilled by a woman, Debora. It is she who acted as the intermediary between God and the people.
"Debora does not fear facing those who are powerful, and is the only woman who receives the title of "judge". The Word of God makes her free to listen to the problems and lamentations of those who turn to her seeking justice, advice and spiritual guidance, and she shows the Israelites the path of faithfulness to God. Debora is close to people's lives; her prophetic vocation is expressed through a special talent for listening and spiritual understanding, which is surprisingly in touch with daily life. Debora would calmly sit under her palm tree and listen to those who sought her in this natural setting, in direct contact with the earth, God's gift to his people. With Debora, we are not on sacred ground. Rather, God's glory reveals itself in his creation, under the palm tree where the prophet-judge listens to the people's problems. Debora draws people to her with her wisdom. She is a woman who resolves issues and seeks peace. What is the good of sowing seeds, working and cultivating the land, if the enemy then seizes the harvest? What is the use of being free from Egypt, if one is a slave in one's own land? Debora listens to complaints, and gives advice and encouragement. The shade of the palm tree under which she sits evokes the Divine Presence, recalling the shade cast by the cloud that guided Israel through the desert (see Es 13, 22; 19, 16). God does not abandon his People. He always finds men and women who can hear the Word and lead on the path to freedom. Under Debora's palm tree, the prophecy expresses itself in a female declination".
Debora thus revealed the glory of God, a glory that manifested itself as justice and freedom from oppression, in the complex turns of history. Debora took the initiative to summon the Israelite general Barak (whose name means "thunderbolt") and to show him the divine oracle, which ordered him to enlist ten thousand men and face the enemy's army: "The Lord God of Israel gives you this command: go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. I will lead Sisara, the commander of Jabin's army, with his chariots and troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands." General Barak hesitated. He feared defeat and told Debora: "[i]f you go with me, I will go; but if you don't go with me,I will not go"(Judges 4,8),so that he could consult God through the prophet during the battle. Indeed, Debora was the one to impart courage and indicate the correct strategies to Barak's improvised army, against the enemy king Sisara, his troops and his nine hundred war chariots. Debora agrees to accompany Barak to war, but announced that the honor of victory will belong to a woman. "Certainly I will go with you [...] But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisara into the hands of a woman" (Judges 4, 9).
It is Debora who decided the day upon which the battle was to take place (Judges 4,14). The army follows, and at the right moment, she told Barak: "Go! This is the day the Lord has given Sisara into your hands. Has not the Lord gone ahead of you?" Debora was the leader of the battle; God, not Barak, was victorious.
Debora was at Barak's side on the Tabor mountain, certain of God's intervention. Once Sisara learnt that Barak had gone up to the Tabor, he brought his nine hundred chariots and the entire army from Haroset-goim to the Kishon River. Debora turned to Barak: "Rise, this is the day that the Lord will deliver Sisara into your hands, the Lord himself will be your guide". Barak descended from the Tabor with his ten thousand soldiers. The Lord "routed Sisara and all his chariots and army by the sword".
Debora called for rain, and Israel won: the Cananaeans' chariots were mired down in the Kishon swamps. On the shores of the Kishon River, another miracle happened: the River, just like the Red Sea, flooded the powerful army, and the God of Israel reversed the outcome once again. After a long fight, Barak followed the chariots and the enemy was defeated" (Judges 4, 1-16).
Sisara leapt down from his horse and fled on foot, but he died by the hand of a woman, Jael.
Contrary to what one may guess, the woman to whom the victory was attributed and into whose hands Sisara was delivered was not Debora. Indeed, the prophet had foretold: "Sisara fled on foot to the tent of Jael, the wife of a relative of Moses. Jael went out to meet Sisara and said to him 'Come, my lord, come right in. Don't be afraid.' So he entered her tent, where she offered him some water. After making him believe that she was guarding the tent, Jael quietly returned to the tent and killed him with a hammer. When Barak came by in pursuit of Sisara, she went out to meet him saying 'Come, I will show you the man you seek.' Barak went in and saw Sisara, dead" (Judges 4, 17-22).
"The region had peace for forty years", according to the Book of Judges (5, 31). Israel regained its unitary strength, which had not been possible for years because all "village life" had ceased and each tribe had fended for itself, without any inter-tribal sense of fraternity or solidarity whatsoever. Israel had needed a "mother", had needed Debora, for its regeneration. "It is she who recalls that life is struggle and fight, that one cannot remain silent before evil and injustice, that the fraternal conscience and sense of personal responsibility must be rekindled. Debora taught the people how to listen to the Word and to re-establish justice, to strive for peace under the palm tree, to remain faithful to God and to continue to praise the Lord, God of Israel".
The heroine remains Debora, enterprising, wise, brave, loyal. After the victory, she raised her most famous hymn to Yahweh and keenly invited all to bless the Lord who frees his people from enemies.
CHAPTER 2ANTIGONE
The conflict between man-made laws and divine laws
Creon: "You differ from all these Thebans in that view". Antigone: "They too share it; but they curb their tongues for you."
Antigone: "I know that I please where I am most bound to please."
(from Sophocles' Antigone)
The protagonist of Sophocles'tragedy is Antigone, a woman who challenged the laws of the polis: in particular, King Creon's edict forbidding her brother's burial, contrary to religious prescriptions. Burial rites were then an extremely significant form of recognition and respect for the deceased, and absolutely sacrosanct for Antigone. Indeed, she profoundly opposed the injustice and flouted the Sovereign's orders.
The tragedy thus focuses on a moral and religious dilemma. King Creon denied "the honor of burial" to Polyneices' body because he had betrayed his city, Thebes, by waging war against it: the King ordered his body to be left unburied, so that "carrion dogs, or birds" would devour it. The funeral rites were to be respected, instead, for Polyneices' brother Eteocles, who died defending Thebes.
Antigone confided in her sister Ismene her plan to bury their brother Polyneices, and asked her to join in fulfilling their fraternal duty. Antigone saw this duty as natural, and as such, unquestionable.
"To the first objections raised by timid Ismene, Antigone replies that failing to bury Polyneices is tantamount to "betraying" him. Then, when Ismene tries to persuade her that women cannot fight against men, and that she will pray to their dead brother to forgive them, Antigone stops trying to convince her sister, and no longer considers her as being of the same blood: she disowns her once and for all".
In her struggle to defend the divine laws, Antigone cannot count on anyone but herself. She will have to perform the funeral rites for Polyneices alone.
Thus, the contrast between Antigone's heroic humanity and Ismene's "common" humanity emerges. The play's next scene features the old Thebans saluting the dawning sun and the liberation of their city—their victory against the enemy. Creon solemnly proclaims his edict and makes a display of his skill in ruling. He orders Polyneices' unburied body to be guarded by soldiers, but Antigone is watching, concealed. Taking advantage of the guards' distraction, she quickly performs the funeral rites for her brother. One of the guards who were supposed to watch the body reports to Creon that the edict has been violated: the body was covered with earth for burial, and the funeral rites necessary for his peace in Hades had been performed. A guard leads Antigone, captured, before King Creon. The ensuing dialogue between her and the king constitute the core of the tragedy. Antigone exalts divine law: her words strike the king "in his sense of arbitrary authority, in his pride, in his greed for power".
To Creon's long speech, Antigone simply replies "Will you do more than take and slay me?" To his response that her death will suffice, she persists: "Why then do you delay? In your discourse there is nothing that pleases me,—never may there be!—and so my words can only be unpleasing to you. And as for glory—how could I have won nobler glory than by giving burial to my own brother?"
"Antigone's position is absolute: on one hand, there is good, on the other there is evil. There is no space at all for accommodation, negotiation, or discussion".
However, Creon cannot give the same fate to the traitor and the brave: Eteocles died defending his land, but Polyneices died trying to destroy it. For the tyrant, enemies remain enemies forever, even after death. Antigone replies that she was not born to bind herself in hatred, but in love: Polyneices was her brother, not a slave, and Hades requires rites to be performed for all the deceased.
Loyal to the unwritten law of the fraternal bond, Antigone goes to her death.
"The scene between Antigone and Ismene before Creon highlights Antigone's heroic humanity and strength. Ismene is drawn to her higher morality. Indeed, her love for her sister and the awareness of having failed a sacred duty bring Ismene to falsely accuse herself, in an attempt to sacrifice a life that, previously, she feared losing.
Before such love and sincere anguish, at the end of the scene Antigone says harsh and pained words: "Be of good cheer; you live; but my soul has long been given to death, that so I might serve the dead."
Haemon, Antigone's betrothed, uselessly tries to persuade his father Creon to spare the girl: "Father, the gods give reason to men, the highest of all things that we can call our own. It is not for me—far from me be the quest!—to say wherein you err; and yet another man, too, might have some useful thought. [...] The dread of your frown forbids citizens from speaking words that would offend your ear; but one can hear murmurs in the dark, of the city for this girl: 'no woman', they say, 'ever deserved her doom less,—none ever was to die so shamefully for deeds so glorious as hers; who, when their own brother has fallen in bloody struggle, would leave him unburied, to be devoured by carrion dogs, or by any bird: deserves not she a golden honor?'"
Antigone is led to her death. Creon sentences her to be sealed alive in a cave. Loyal to her faith in the gods and to her brother, after the tension of rendering due homage to Polyneices and defending her cause, Antigone laments her lost youth and her impending death as the guards take her to the cave where she will die. She is overwhelmed by the anguish of having to die so young, alone, in a moment when she should have been celebrating her nuptials.
With Antigone's exit from the scene, Creon's tragedy begins. The infallible oracle Teiresias tells him of the wrath of the gods, who are indignant that Polyneices' burial was forbidden; he foretells the evils that his edict will bring upon him and upon the city. Creon first resists; then, floored by the threatening visions, ends up acquiescing. He orders Polyneices'burial and Antigone's release. However,it is too late. The Chorus hopelessly invokes the god Dionysius, the protector of Thebes, to save the city from all evil, but a messenger announces that Antigone has killed herself in the cave and that Haemon, seeing her body, has killed himself too. Upon this, Eurydice, Haemon's mother, also commits suicide. Creon then appears with his son's body in his arms: he wails over his ruin and desperately invokes death.
"Antigone is the hero of religious, moral and human duty, which is felt with invincible force. She does not have tender words for Polyneices: her sacrifice is motivated by her love for her descent, by her sense of religion."
Antigone considers it her religious and eternal duty to bury her dead brother and disobey Creon's edict, since he has turned out to be an odious tyrant who has violated divine laws, instead of a supporter of the State's law. Thus, Antigone's rebellion against the decree is legitimate, as she states herself: "it was not Zeus that published that edict; the laws established for men by the justice who dwells with the gods below are not such; nor have I deemed that your decrees were of such force that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes of heaven. For their life is not of today or yesterday, but of all time, and no man knows when they were first laid out."
The tragedy thus transcends Polyneices' funeral rites to explore the problem of obedience to the laws enacted by men. It acquires a universal dimension, in its affirmation that the validity of human laws derives from their conformity with divine laws.
"Sophocles was fascinated by man's secular faith and wrote a hymn to celebrate the inventive and organizational capacity of human ingeniousness. Man has conquered the strength of the sea: he knows how to cross it even when tempests are raging; he has broken the land and made it fertile through the skill of ploughing; he has managed to catch birds, fish, wild beasts, and to tame horses and bulls; he knows how to use words, he elaborates his thoughts, he has organized social life, and constructed civilization. It appears that he has conquered all obstacles except death, and even here, he has been able to hinder its advance by discovering medicines to cure diseases that were once fatal.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Women in Law by Virginia Lalli. Copyright © 2014 Virginia Lalli. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
DEBORA Female judge, prophet and warrior, 1,ANTIGONE The conflict between man-made laws and divine laws, 6,
ELEANOR OF ARBOREA Medieval lawmaker who fought for equality and women's rights, 11,
THE SUFFRAGETTES Women's vote and more, 19,
BERTHA von SUTTNER Lay down your arms, and spread the word!, 24,
EGLANTYNE JEBB The woman who "Save(d) the Children", 33,
LIDIA POET The lawyer who could not practice, 45,
LINA FURLAN The first practicing female lawyer, 55,
ELEANOR ROOSEVELT A rhino's hide, 60,
CRYSTAL LEE SUTTON Trade union representative who fought for female workers' rights, 71,
SHIRIN EBADI Muslim lawyer who fought for the rights of Iranian women, 75,
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON The rights of the children of the "Global Village", 86,
JODY WILLIAMS Leading the ban on landmines, 102,
VANDANA SHIVA The law on seeds and a patented world, 108,
REGGIE LITTLEJOHN Defending conceived children: a gift from God, 117,
MICHELLE ROBINSON OBAMA "Vote for Michelle's husband", 120,