Doubt. Women who convert to Christianity are usually pleased by the improvement it brings to romantic relationships, especially marital life. I certainly was. That was actually one of the major drivers for the spread of Christianity: Christ loved women more than other rulers did and that was reflected in the form of marriage He and the Apostles preached.
Also, that women are not considered "only useful as wives", but have a societal rank in different vocations.
I'd be curious to see the distribution of that across the globe.
My reading of the Norse sagas involved women wielding a notably large amount of power in society. Admittedly largely domestic power, but when a household consisted of over 100 people, wielding absolute power was no small thing. And then being able to goat their husbands by simply suggesting that doing anything other than what wives wanted was cowardice... Perhaps it's not fair to say this was indicative of all women of the time, given that of course these were the wives of the chieftans being written about, and not the thralls or other lower classes, but they did seem to be more empowered than many Christians of the era.
I would believe though that in Southern and Eastern Europe cultures would have been different, especially with smaller household structures around the same time period.
Norse women had husbands that were often absent. Don't know, if that's representative of anything.
Also, as you note, stories of Christian marriages tend to be full of depictions of totally normie households, like small farmers and smiths, and stuff. Not just the upper class.
Could be, though that absence was largely seasonal, with a LOT of time spent very much together through the cold dark winters.
I do wonder how much the shift away from agrarian society had to do with a shift in the perceived value breakdown of domestic vs public work. Running a farm and cleaning a small house are very different things (and often come with very different staffing arrangements). The isolation that comes with a more modern domestic life surely had a negative impact on the wellbeing of women in more recent modern society. That, and the relative access to capital. Some cultures seem to handle this better than others. I hear from the Japanese that men get lucky if they're given an allowance from what's left of their paycheck, while it wasn't very long ago here in America that women couldn't even have their own bank accounts or a credit card without their father or husband cosigning.
I would agree though that Christian marriage values are certainly healthier than contemporary secular humanist ideas. Where they'd rank among other traditional cultures is something I don't feel quite as qualified to weigh in on.
Not allowing married women to have their own accounts is actually a different issue than which spouse manages the joint accounts.
It's common, in many Western countries for men to earn the money and women to spend it, as budgeting is a chore considered part of housekeeping.
Agree. Wives are often very good at budgeting the household requirements, commanding the position over time.
In Taiwan my observation is that it is the norm with women also dominating the finance sector, if not leadership positions.
Husbands are expected to earn income for the household.
That said, that is a generalization and there are always exceptions.
That's one of my main beefs with all of this masculinist rhetoric: They always sound like they view women as nothing more than potential breeding mares, and their wives are just their personal mare that they can lock up in their barn, to keep other men from riding her.
That is a complete departure from New Testament teaching and Church tradition, and has nothing to do with the view of marriage defined in, for example, Ephesians 5 in the #Bible, where there is clearly a higher purpose to marriage
And 1 Corinthians 7, where it is clear that marriage is not the only appropriate vocation for a woman (or man).
Also, remember all the Manosphere guys all excited about that fertility cult, a while back? Quiverful or whatnot?
Yeah, that was pretty gross, but typical for their mentality.
I remember talking to some of them about that, back in the day, and they were surprised how horrified it made me, but there's nothing in Catholicism that demands you try to knock your wife up, every year, like you're in some sort of reproductive competition.
Being open to life doesn't mean she's constantly pregnant.
