Personalities · 22 · The Matriarch
Women open every era of the story
Eve begins life east of Eden. Sarah and Hagar begin the nation. Midwives and Miriam begin the exodus. Rahab begins the conquest. Hannah begins the monarchy. Bathsheba begins the end.
Men experience the big events; women set them in motion.
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Societies at war reduce women to mothers. Teddy Roosevelt compared a woman avoiding childbirth to a man fleeing battle. The Bible expands women's roles far beyond childbearing and makes the home, not the war camp, the center of collective life.
Source: Why the Bible Began, pp. 357–358
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