Without A Woman In It

They talk about a woman’s sphere. As though it had a limit; There’s not a place in earth or heaven, There’s not a task to mankind given, There’s not a blessing or a woe, There’s not a whisper, “Yes,” or “No,” There’s not a life, or death, or birth, That has a feather’s weight of worth, Without a woman in it.1

That bit of rhyme is very much “in tune with the times,” as opportunities for women continue to advance. Not so, in Jesus’ time. In Jesus’ time (and, we might add, for many centuries thereafter), women were regarded and treated as men’s inferiors.

For thousands of years people lived under what often has been called “The Old…