Patriarchal anthropology has come perilously close to seeing women as the cause of sin in the world. From ancient to modern times, through the theology of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Barth, run the threads of patriarchal thinking. Augustine, the classical source of such views on women, believed that the male alone possessed the image of God normatively. Aquinas accepted a biological theory of women’s inferiority and adopted the Aristotelian definition of woman as a ‘misbegotten male’. Though the Reformation brought about some changes, patriarchal thinking continued to dominate Christian theology. “Women through the Fall and in punishment for the Fall lost her original equality and became inferior in mind and body. She is now, within fallen history, subjected to the male as her superior. This subjugation is not a sin against her, but her punishment for her sin. It is an expression of divine justice”, writes Ruether. Barth subscribed to an order of creation. “God is sovereign over his Creation. The covenant of nature has not been annulled but reestablished in the covenant of grace by which Christ as head rules his people as obedient servants. Male and female, then, are necessarily ordered in a relation of those who lead and those who follow. Men and women should accept their own place in this order, the man humbly and the woman willingly.” Such, according to patriarchal anthropology, is the divinely ordered scheme of things.

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Reference Rosemary Ruether Sexism and God Talk pages 95-98