Witchcraft & Heresy Lesson 13

Lesson and description here, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.

Original: I feel with the exceedingly disproportionate number of women being accused of witchcraft in the Medieval and Renaissance period that there was a major feedback cycle. First women were viewed as having an intellect similar to that of a child and being more carnal in her desires than man. Soon marriage rituals changed from a bride walk to a dowry, the dowry making the bride’s family transfer their wealth over to the husband’s family. This started a trend of a beginning hatred towards women and even female children. Women were increasingly depicted in imagery with the devil or other demons, generally participating in orgies with these demons. Women were seen as temptresses and widows were especially warned against because they are no longer virgins and may seduce any man. With all these views combined and increasing, people of these times began to accuse women more of such heretical acts and therefore burning more of them at the stake than men. All of these aspects only further enforce each other creating this horrible cycle of misogyny which still takes place in a majority of cultures including ours. For example, in India the dowry exists and has been the cause for the popular and horrific dowry deaths. Dowry deaths usually occurred when the brides that did not provide dowry or satisfactorily amount of dowry were burned to death. These burnings would be posed as accidental and thus hard to prove, therefore difficult to punish those responsible. Not to mention that the dowry has been made illegal since 1961 and much later making dowry deaths an official form of criminal domestic abuse in 1986.
Response to student who responded to original: I am aware that that what I said does not apply to all cultures, I was merely discussing a specific example.
Another response to student who responded to original: I see how you feel, and I do not think there is any one answer or any one given point in history. But a gradualism of trends. How did the white man become superior to the black. How did the blacks become inferior. And on and on. There are various intertwining answers to those questions.
Student response #1: I see what you mean here although you have to also keep in mind that, especially for those who do not believe in the Bible or Genesis and so on, that those literatures did not exist since the dawn of man and may not reflect reality of that time. As they were written to more so reflect its own time period, hence the declination of the status of women. Which in turn, continues and enforces the cycle of misogyny with the story of Eve convincing Adam to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. So you cannot necessarily claim that women have been the seducer of men since the dawn of man based only by religious texts in which not everyone agrees upon as factual.
Student response #2: Please correct me if my interpretation of your writing is incorrect. But when you said that “we are given solid evidence that there were events that did take place at these Sabbaths,” do mean events in general or the specific events that were outlined such as demonic orgies, sacrifices, blood drinking, and the likes? If so, I would have to disagree with you on the basis that there is solid evidence presented to us. I take this solely as fabrication of possibly minor similar events or completely dissimilar events altogether. Aside from that point, I pretty much agree with your post.