Reconstructing the Rise of Christianity: the Role of Women Author(S): Rodney Stark Source: Sociology of Religion, Vol

Reconstructing the Rise of Christianity: The Role of Women Author(s): Rodney Stark Source: Sociology of Religion, Vol. 56, No. 3 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 229-244 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3711820 . Accessed: 12/11/2014 19:00

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This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Sociologyof Religion 1995, 56:3 229-244 The 1994 Paul Hanly FurfeyLecture Reconstructingthe Rise ofChristianity: The Role ofWomen

RodneyStarkt UniversityofWashington

Modernand ancient historians agree that women were especially responsive tothe early ChrisS tianmovement. Italso is agreed that women were accorded considerably higher status within Chris- tiancircles than itl thesurrouring pagan societies. In thisessay I firstexplain how these two aspects ofthe early church were connected. Then I explainhow an excessof women in the Christian subculS tures,combined with a greatexcess of males in the world around thems would have resulted ina subS stantialrate of intermamage. Firully, I show how this would have maintained early Chnstianity as an opennetwork thereby able to sustain the attachments tonon-members needed for continued growth.

Intermittentlyduring the past few years I have utilized social scientific theo- riesand methods toattempt toreconstruct therise of Christianity. Mygoal is to gaina fundamentalunderstanding ofhow it all came about toexplain how a tinyand obscure messianic movement from the edge of the Roman Empire dis- lodgedclassical paganism and became the dominant faith of Western Civiliza- tion.There is no single answer to why Christianity succeeded; a whole series of factorswere involved. l hope soon to complete an integratedreconstruction of at leastthe most important ofthese factors, but meanwhile I have been pubS lishingportions of the larger project as I go along(Stark 1992, l991a, l991b, 1987,1986a, 1986b). Today's 1994 Paul Hanly Furfey Lecture continues this process.In itI shallsuggest that gender holds one of the answers to howit was done thatwomen played a critical role in the rise of Christianity. However,before any useful social scientific work can proceed on the ques- tionof how it all came about, it first isnecessary toeliminate the oldest and still- dominantexplanation that the Greco-Roman world was saved by mass con- versionsinresponse topublic preaching and miracle working. From earliest days, massconversions have been central to the Christian story: Crowds have gath- ered,listened, marveled, and been saved. Thus Acts 2:41 reports that after Peter preachedto a multitude"there were added that day about three thousand souls."

t Directall carresponinceto Rodney Stark, Universiry ofWashington DK40, Seattle,WA 98195.

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This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 230 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION Writingin about325, Eusebius (111 37.3) tells us that "at first hearing whole multitudesina bodyeagerly embraced intheir souls piety towards the Creator of theuniverse." That massconversions built Christianity has seemedobvious. Adolf Harnack(1908:2:335-36) put it plainly:How else can we understandthe "inconceivablerapidity" ofChristian growth and "astonishing expansion" ofthe movement?Indeed, Harnack (fn.335) reminded his readers of St. Augustine's insightthat the greatest miracle of all would have been for Christianity togrow as rapidlyas it did without the aid of miracles. Inhis distinguished recent study, ChrisiiarlitingtheRoman Empire, Ramsay MacMullen (1984:29) also stressed the arithmeticalnecessity for mass conversions. Because "very large numbers are obviouslyinvolved," Christian growth could not have been limited to an indi- vidualmode of conversion, butrequires "successes enmasse." Thisis all very troublesome because modern social science lacks any theoret icalpropositions todeal with spontaneous mass conversions. Instead, conversion isexplained by social science as theresult of interaction processes within net- worksof interpersonal attachments whereby people come to accept new faiths in responseto theirsocial ties to thosewho already believe (Lofland and Stark 1965;Stark and Bainbridge 1980, 1985, 1987; Kox, Meeus, and t'Hart 1991). Thus,from the perspective ofmodern social science, the kind of mass conver- sionsdescribed by Eusebius and accepted by historians ever since would indeed bemiraculous. And if the rise of Christianity canbe explained only by resort to miracles,then social science would seem to have little to contribute. Fortunately,the"facts" justifying the miraculous assumption were wrong. Theonly reason people believed that there was an arithmetic need for mass con- versionwas because no oneever bothered to do theactual arithmetic. I have doneso in considerable detail, taking care to verify my results with the pertinent literature(Stark 1996). A briefsummary suffices here. Thereis generalagreement among scholars that Christians inthe Greco- Romanworld numbered somewhere between 5 and 7 millionin the year 300. Howthis total was reached from a tiny starting point of, say, 1,000 Christians in theyear 40 isthe arithmetic challenge. At first glance, growth ofthis magnitude mightseem a miraculousachievement. But, suppose we assume that the Chris- tianrate of growth during this period was similar to that of the Mormon rate of growthover the past century, which has been approximately 40 percent per decade(Stark 1984, 1994). If the early Christians were able to match the Mor- mongrowth rate, then their "miracle" isfully accomplished inthe time history allows.That is, from a starting point of 1,000 Christians inthe year 40, a growth rateof 40 percentper decade (or 3.4 percentper year) results in a totalof 6,299,832Christians inthe year 300. Moreover, because compounded rates resultin exponential growth, there is a hugenumerical increase from slightly more than1 millionChristians inthe year 250 to morethan 6 millionin 300. This givesfurther confidence inthe projections since historians have long believed thata rapidincrease in numerical growth occurred atthis time (cf. Gager 1975). The riseof Mormonism has been very carefully documented and their growthhas been based on theconventional network processes understood by socialscience, while mass conversions tothe Mormon faith of the kind described

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RECONSTRUCTINGTHE RISEOF CHRISTIANITY:THE ROLEOF WOMEN 23 1 byEusebius are unknown(Stark 1984, 1994; Stark and Bainbridge1985). Clearly,then, the rise of Christianity could easily have been accomplished inac- cordwith our current understanding ofwhy and how convetsion takes place and socialscience is sufficient unto the task at hand. So,let me now return to my primary thesis: that women were crucial to the successvf the Christian movement. WOMENAND CHRISTlANGROWTH Amidstcontemporary denunciations ofChristianity as patriarchal and sexS iSt, iteasily is forgottenthat the early church was so especiallyattractive to womenthat in 370the Emperor Valentinian issued a writtenorder to Pope DamasusI requiring the Christian missionaries tocease calling at thehomes of paganwomen. Although some classical writers claimed that women were easy preyfor any "feareign superstition," most recognized that Christianity was unusuallyapFnealing because within the Christian subculture women enjoyed far higherstatus than did women in the Greco-Roman world at large(Fox 1987; Chadwick1967; Harnack 1908). Butif historians have long noteel this fact, they have made no serious efforts toexplain it. Whywere women accorded higher status in Christian circles than elsewhereinthe classical world? In whatfollows I shall attempt to linkthe in- creasedpower and privilege ofChristian women to a verymajor shift in sex ratios.I showthat an initialshift in sex ratios resulted from Christian doctrines prohibitinginfanticide and abortion and then show how the initial shift would havebeen amplified bya subsequenttendency tO over-recruit women. Along the wayI shallsummarize evidence from ancient sources as wellas frommodern archeologyand historical demography concerning the status of women in the earlychurch. Finally, l shall explore the relatively high rates of exogenous mar- riagesby Christian women and suggest how these would have generated many "secondary"cvnversions toChristianity.

CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN SEX RATIOS Mengreatly ournumbered women in the Greco-Roman world. Cassius Dio (1987),writing inabout 200 C.E., attributed the declining population ofthe Empireto the extreme shortage offemales. In hisclassic work on ancientand medievalpopulations, J.C. Russell(1958) estimated that there were 131 males per100 females in the city of Rome and 140 males per 100 females inItaly, Asia Minor,and North Africa. Russell noted in passing that sex ratios this extreme canonly occur when there is "some tampering with human life" (1958:14). And tamperingthere was. Exposure of unwanted female infants and deformed male infantswas legal, morally accepted, and widely practiced by all social classes in theGreco-Roman world (Fox 1987;Gorman 1982; Pomeroy 1975; Russell 1958).Lindsay (1968:168) reported that even in large families "more than one daughterwas practically never reared." A study of inscriptions atDelphi made it possibleto reconstruct 600families. Of these, only six had raised more than one daughter(Lindsay 1968).

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 232 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION I willpursue the subject of female infanticide atlength in a subsequentstudy ofChristian fertility. For now, consider a letter, written by one Hilarion to his pregnantwife Alis, which has been reported by many authors because of the quiteextraordinary contrast between his deep concern for his wife and his hoped-forson, and his utter callousness towards a possible daughter.

Knowthat I amstill in Alexandria. And do not worry ifthey all come back and I remainin Alexandria.I ask and beg you to take good care of our baby son, and as soon as I receive paymentI shall send it up to you. If you are delivered ofa child[before I come homel, ifit is a boykeep it, if a girldiscard it. You have sent me word, "Don't forget me." How can I forget you.I beg you not to worry (in Lewis 1985:54). Thisletter dates from the year 1 B.C.E.,but these patterns persisted among pagansfar into the Christian era. Given these practices, even in childhood, be- forethe onset of the high female mortality associated with fertility inpre-mod- erntimes, females were substantially outnumbered among pagans in the Greco- Romanworld. Moreover, itwasn't just the high mortality from child birth that continuedtoincrease the sex ratios among adults. As I shalldocument atlength elsewhere(Stark 1996) abortion was a majorcause of death of women in this era.That is, abortion was widely practiced and the methods were barbaric and deadly. However,things were different among Christians as their distinctive subcul- turebegan to emerge. There is little hard data on the sex composition ofChrisS tiancommunities. Inhis Epistle to the Romans Paul sent personal greetings to 15 womenand 18 men.If, as seemslikely, there were proportionately more men thanwomen among those Christians ofsufficient prominence to merit Paul's specialattention, then the congregation inRome must already have been pre- dominatelyfemale. A secondbasis for inference isan inventoryofproperty re- movedfrom a Christian house-church inthe North African town of Cirta during a persecutionin303. Among the clothes the Christians had collected for distri- butionto the needy were 16 men's tunics and 82 women'stunics as wellas 47 pairsof female slippers (Frend 1984; Fox 1987). Presumably this partly reflects theratio of men to women among the donors. But, even though better statistics arelacking, the predominance ofwomen in themembership ofthe churches was,as Fox ( 1987:308)reported, "recognized tobe so by Christians and pagans." Indeed,Harnack (1908:2:73) noted that the ancient sources:

. . . simplyswarm with tales of how women of all ranks were converted inRome and in the provinces;although the details of these stories are untrustworthy, theyexpress correctly enoughthe general truth that Christianity waslaid hold of by women in particular, andalso thatthe percentage ofChristian women, especially among the upper classes, was larger than thatof men. Theseconclusions about Christian sex ratios merit our confidence when we examinewhy sex ratios should have been so differentamong the Christians. First,by prohibiting all forms of infanticide and abortion, Christians removed majorcauses of the gender imbalance that existed among pagans. Even so, changesin mortality alone probably could not have resulted inChristian women

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RECONSTRUCTINGTHE RISEOF CHRISTIANITY:THE ROLEOF WOMEN 233 comingto outnumber Christian men. However, there was a secondfactor influ- encingChristian sex ratios: Women were more likely than men to become Christians.This, combined with the reduction infemale mortality, would have causeda surplusofwomen in the Christian subcultures. SEXB1AS IN CONVERSION Inhis widely-admired monograph onthe early church, the British historian HenryChadwick noted that "Christianity seems to have been especially success- fulamong women. It wasoften through the wives that it penetrated the upper classesof society in the first instance" (1967:56). Peter Brown (1988:151) noted that"women were prominent" among upper-class Christians and that "such womencould influence their husbands to protect the church." Marcia, concu- bineof the Emperor Commodus, managed to convince him to free Callistus, a futurePope, from a sentenceof hard labor in themines of Sardinia (Brown 1988).Although Marcia failed to securethe conversion ofCommodus, other upperclass women often did bring husbands and admirers tofaith. Itwill be helpful here to distinguish between primary and secondary conversions.In primary corlversion, theconvert takes an activerole in his or her own conversion,becoming a committed adherent based on positiveevaluations of theparticular faith, albeit that attachments tomembers play a majorrole in the formationofa positiveevaluation. Secontry conversion is morepassive and in- volvessomewhat reluctant acceptance ofa faithon the basis of attachments toa primaryconvert. For example, after person A convertedtoa newfaith, that person'sspouse agreed to "go along" with the choice, but was not eager to doso and verylikely would not have done so otherwise. The latter is a secondaryconvert. In theexample offered by Chadwick, upper class wives were primary converts andsome of their husbands (often grudgingly) became secondary converts. Indeed,it frequentlyoccurred that when the master ofa largehousehold became a Christian,all membersofthe household, including the servants and slaves, wereexpected to do so too.Keep in mind that once immersed inthe Christian subculture,even quite reluctant secondary converts can become ardent partici- pants. Theancient sources and modern historians agree that primary conversion to Christianitywas far more prevalent among females than among males. More- over,this appears to be typicalof new religious movements inrecent times. By examiningmanuscript census returns for the latter half of the nineteenth century,Bainbridge ( 1982) found that approximately two-thirds ofthe Shakers were female.Data on religiousmovements included in the1926 census of religious bodiesshow that 75 percentof Christian Scientists were women, as weremore than60 percentof Theosophists, Swedenborgians, andSpiritualists (Stark and Bainbridge1985). The same is true of the immense wave of Protestant conver- sionstaking place in Latin America. In fact, David Martin ( 1990) suggests that a substantialproportion ofmale Protestants inLatin America are secondary converts. Thisis not an appropriate place tO speculateon the reasons why women in manydifferent times and places seem to be far more responsive toreligion. Our

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 234 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION interestsaresufficiently served by explring the impact o f differential conversion rateson the sex ratios of the Christian subcultures inthe Greco-Roman world. Givenseveral reasonable assumptions, simple arithmetic suffices toassess the magnitudeofthe changes differential conversion rates could have produce. Let'sbegin with a Christianpopulation that is equally male and female a sexratio of 100. Let us assume a growth rate from conversiort ak)ne of 30 percent perdecade. That is, for the moment we will ignore any natural increase and as- sumethat births equal deaths. Let us also suppose that the sex ratio among con- vertsis two women for every man. As notedabove, this is entirely inline with recentexperience. Given these reasonable assumptions wecan easily calculate thatit will take only 50 yearsfor this Christian population tobe 62 percentfe- male.Or ifwe assume a growthrate of 40 percentper decade, the Christian populationwill be 64 percent female in 50 years. Ifwe were to factor in reasonable assumptions about natural increase and dif- ferentialmortality wewould decrease this sex ratio to some extent. But even so, theChristian subcultures would have had a substantialsurplus of women in a worldaccustomed toa vastsurplus ofmen. Later I shall consider how a surplusof womenshould have resulted insubstantial secondary conversions via marriages tO pagans.But for now I wishto focus on the simple conclusion that there are abundantreasons to-accept that Christian women enjoyed a favorable sex ratio andto show how that resulted in Christian women enjoying superior status in comparisonwith their pagan counterparts. SEX RATIOS AND THE STATUS OF WOMEN Oneof the more significant and original contributions tosocial thought in recentyears is theGuttentag and Secord (1983) theory linking cross-cultural variationsinthe status of women to cross-cultural variations insex ratios. The theoryinvolves a remarkably subtle linking ofdyadic and social structural power anddependency. For purposes of this essay it is sufficientmerely to note that Guttentagand Secord conclude that to theextent males outnuraber femaless womenwill be enclosedin repressivesex roles as mentreat them as "scarce goods."Conversely, tothe extent that females outnumber males, the Guttentag andSecord theory predicts that women will enjoy relatively greater power and freedom. As theyapplied their theory to various societies in different eras, Guttentag andSecord noted that it illuminated themarked differences inthe relative status andpower of Athenian and Spartan women. That is, within the classical world, thestatus of women varied substantially inresponse tovariations insex ratios. InAthens, women were in relatively short supply due to female infanticide, practicedby all classes,and from additional deaths caused by abortion. The statusof Athenian women was very low. Girls received little or no education. Typically,Athenian females were married at pubertyand often before. Under Athenianlaw a womenwas classified as a child,regardless ofage, and therefore wasthe legal property ofsome man at all stages in her life. Males could divorce bysimply ordering a wife out of the household. Moreover, ifa womenwere se- ducedor raped, her husband was legally compelled todivorce her. If a women

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RECONSTRUCTINGTHE RISEOF CHRISTIANITY:THE ROLEOF WOMEN 235 wanteda divorce she had to have her father or some other man bring her case beforea judge. Finally, Athenian women could own property, butcontrol of the propertyalways was vested in the male to whom she "belonged" (Guttentag and Secord1983; Finley 1982; Promeroy 1975 ). Spartansalso practiced infanticide, butwithout gender bias onlyhealthy, well-formedbabies were allowed to live.Since males are more subject to birth defectsand are more apt to be sickly infants, the result was a slightexcess of feS malesfrom infancy, a trend that accelerated with age because of male mortality frommilitary life and warfare. Keep in mind that mortality rates in military en- campmentsfarsurpassed civilian rates until well into the twentieth century. At age7 all Spartanboys left home for military boarding schools and all werere- quiredto serve in the army until age 30 when they passed into the active reserve wherethey remained until age 60. A subjugatedpeasantry known as helots suppliedall of the males in the domestic labor force. Although men could marry atage 20, they could not live with their wives until they left the active army at age30. Spartanwomen enjoyed status and power unknown inthe rest of the classi- calworld. They not only controlled their own property, they controlled that of theirmale relatives when they were away with the army. It is estimatedthat womenwere the sole owners of a least40 percentof all landand property in Sparta(Pomeroy 1975). The lawsconcerning divorce were the same for men andwomen. Women received as mucheducation as menand Spartan women receiveda substantial amount of physical education and gymnastic training. Spartanwomen seldom married before age 20 and, unlike Athenian sisters who woreheavy, concealing gowns and seldom were seen by males outside their household,Spartan women wore short dresses and went where they pleased (Guttentagand Secord 1983; Finley 1982; Pomeroy 1975). RELATIVESTATUS OF CHRlSTIANWOMEN IfGuttentag and Secord's theory iscorrect, then we would have to predict thatthe status of Christian women in theGreco-Roman world would more closelyapproximate that of Spartan women than that of women in Athens. AlthoughI began with the assertion that Christian women did indeed enjoy considerablygreater status and power than did pagan women, this needs to be demonstratedatgreater length. The discussion will focus on two primaryaspects offemale status: within the family and within the religious community. Wives,Widows, a7ld Brides Firstof all, a majoraspect of the improved status of women in the Christian subcultureisthat Christians did not condone female infanticide. Granted that thiswas the result of the prohibition ofall infanticide.But, the more favorable Christianview of women also is demonstrated intheir condemnation ofdivorce, incest,marital infidelity, and polygamy. As Fox(1987:354) put it, "fidelity, withoutdivorce, was expected of every Christian." Moreover, although rules prohibitingdivorce and remarriage evolved slowly, the earliest church councils

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 236 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION ruledthat "twice-married Christians" could not hold church office (Fox 1987). Likepagans, early Christians prized female chastity, but unlike pagans they re- jectedthe double standard which gave pagan men so muchsexual license (Sandison1967). Christian men were urged to remainvirgins until marriage (Fox1987) and extra-marital sexwas condemned as adultery. Chadwick (1967: 59) notedthat Christianity "regarded unchastity ina husbandas noless serious a breachof loyalty and trust than unfaithfulness ina wife." Even the great Greek physicianGalen was prompted to remark on Christian"restraint incohabita- tion"(inBenkol986:142). Shouldthey be widowed, Christian women also enjoyed very substantial advantages.Pagan widows faced great social pressure to remarry.Augustus even hadwidows fined if they failed to remarrywithin two years (Fox 1987).Of course,when a paganwidow did remarry she lost all of her inheritance, itbe- comingthe property ofher new husband. In contrast, among Christians, widow- hoodwas highly respected and remarriage was, if anything, mildly discouraged. Thus,not only were well-to-do Christian widows enabled to keeptheir husband'sestate, the church stood ready to sustain poor widows, thus allowing them a choiceas towhether ornot to remarry. Eusebius (1965:282) provides a letter fromCornelius, Bishop of Rome, written in251 to Bishop Fabius of Antioch, in whichhe reportedthat "more than fifteen hundred widows and distressed persons"were in the care of the local congregation, which may have included about 30,000members atthis time. In all theseways the Christian woman enjoyed far greater marital security andequality than did her pagan neighbor. But there was another major marital aspectto the benefits women gained from being Christians. They were married at a substantiallyolder age and had more choice about whom they married. Since,as weshall see, pagan women frequently were forced into pre-pubertal, consummatedmarriages, thiswas no small matter. In a now-classicarticle, the historical demographer Keith Hopkins (1965a) surveyeda century ofresearch on the age of marriage ofRoman women girls actually,most of them. The evidence isboth literary and quantitative. Inaddi- tionto the standard classical histories, the literary evidence consists of writings bylawyers and physicians. The quantitative data are based on inscriptions,most ofthem funerary, from which the age at marriage can be calculated (cf. Harkness 1896). As tothe histories, silence offers strong testimony that Roman girls married young,very often before puberty. It is possibleto calculate that many famous Romanwomen married at a tenderage: Octavia and Agrippina married at 11 and12, Quintilian's wife bore him a sonwhen she was 13, Tacitus wed a girlof 13,and so on. Butin reviewingthe writing about all ofthese aristocratic Romans,Hopkins (1965) found only one case where the ancient writer men- tionedthe age of the bride andthis biographer was himself a Christian ascetic!Clearly, having been a childbride was not thought worth mentioning by ancientbiographers. Beyond silence, however, the Greek historian Plutarch reportedthat Romans "gave their girls in marriage when they were twelve years old,or even younger" (in Hopkins1965a). Cassius Dio, also a Greekwriting

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RECONSTRUCTINGTHE RISEOF CHRISTIANITY:THE ROLEOF WOMEN 237 Rotnanhistory, agreed: "girls are considered . . . tohave reached marriageable ageon completion oftheir twelfth year" (Dio 1987:170). Romanlaw set 12 as theminimum age at whichgirts could marry. But the lawcarried no penalties and legal commentaries from the time include such ad- viceas: "A girl who has married before 12 will be a legitimatewife, when she be- comes12." Another held that when girls under age 12 married, forlegal purposes theyshould be considered engaged until they reached 12. Hopkins (1965a:314) concluded:

. . . wehave no meansof knowing whether lawyers represented advanced, typical, or conser vativeopinions in these matters. What we do knowis that in the fragments oftheir opinions thatsurvive there is no sneeror censure against marriages before 12, and there are no teeth in thelaws [against itl. The quantitativedata are based on severalstudies of Roman inscriptions, combinedby Hopkins (1965a), frotn which age at marriagecould be calculated. Hopkinsalso was able to separate these Roman women on the basis of religion. He foundthat pagans were three times as likelyas Christianstohave married beforeage 13 (10 percentwere wed by age 11). Nearly half (44 percent)of pa- ganshad married byage 14, compared with 20 percent ofChristians. Incontrast, nearlyhalf (48 percent)of Christian females had not wed before age 18, com- paredwith a third(37 percent) ofpagans. Thosedifferences arehighly significant statistically. But, they seem of even greatersocial significance when we discover that a substantialproportion ofpa- ganRoman girls not only were married before the onset of puberty, to men far olderthan themselves, butthat these marriages typically were consummated at once. Whenthe French historian Durry (1955) first reported his findings that Romanmarriages involving child brides normally were consummated even if the bridehad not yet achieved puberty, he acknowledgedthat this ran counter to deeplyheld ideas about the classical world. But there is ample literary evidence thatconsummation ofthese marriages was taken for granted. Hopkins (1965) notedthat one Roman law did deal with the marriage ofgirls under age 12 and intercourse,butwas concerned only with the question of her adultery. Several Romanphysicians suggested that it mightbe wiseto deferintercourse until menarche,but did not stress the matter (Hopkins 1965a). Unfortunately,theliterary sources offer little information about how pre-puS bertalgirls felt about these practices, although Plutarch regarded itas a cruelcus- tomand reported "the hatred and fear of girls forced contrary tonature." I sug gestthat, even in the absence of better evidence and even allowing for substan- tialcultural differences, itseems likely that many Roman girls responded as Plutarchclaimed. Thus, here too Christian girls enjoyed a substantial advantage.

Genderand Religious Roles It iswell-known that the early church attracted anunusual number of high statuswomen (Fox 1987; Grant1970,1977; Harnack1908). Butthe matter of

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 238 SO(SIOLOGYOF RELIGION interesthere has to elo with the roles occupied by women within early Christian congregations.Letme emphasize that by early Christianity I mean the period coveringapproximately thefirst five centuries. After that, as Christianitybe- camethe dominant faith of the empire and as sex ratios responded tothe decline inthe differential conversion ofwomen, the roles open to womenbecame far morelimited. As tothe status of women in the early church, there has been far too much relianceon I Corinthians14:34-36 where Paul appears to prohibit women even fromspeaking in church. Laurence lannaccone (1982) has made a compelling casethat these verses were the opposite of Paul's position and were in fact a quo- tationof claims being made at Corinththat Paul then refuted. Certainly the statementisat variance with everything elsePaul wrote about the proper role for womenin thechurch. Moreover, Paul several times acknowledged women in leadershippositions invarious congregations. InI Romans16:1-2 Paul introduces and commends tothe Roman congregation"our sister Phoebe" who is a "deaconessof the church at Cenchrea,"and whohad been of great help to him. Deacons were of considerable importance in theearly church. They assisted at liturgicalfunctions and administered the benevolentand charitable activities ofthe church. Clearly, Paul regarded itas entirelyproper for a womanto hold that position. Nor was this an isolatedcase. Clementof Alexandria wrote of "women deacons" and in 451 the Council of Chalcedonspecified that henceforth a deaconess must be at least 40 andunmar- ried(Ferguson 1990). From the pagan side, in his famous letter to the Emperor Trajan,Pliny the Younger (1943) reported that he hadtortured two young Christianwomen "who were called deaconesses." Notonly did Paul commend Phoebe the deaconess to the Romans, he also senthis greetings toprominent woman in the Roman congregation: toPricilla, whomhe acknowledgesforhaving "risked her neck" on hisbehalf, to Mary, "whohas worked so hardamong you," and to several other women (I Romarls 16:1-15).Moreover, inI Timothy3:11 Paul again mentions women in the role of deacons,noting that to qualify for such an appointment women must be "serious, noslanderers, buttemperate and faithful inall things." Thatwomen often served as deaconsin the early church was long obscured becausethe translators ofthe King James version chose to referto Pheobeas merelya "servant" ofthe church, not as a deacon,and to transform Paul's words inI Timothyinto a commentdirected towards the wiqJes ofdeacons.l But this reS flectsthe sexist norms of the seventeenth century, not the realities of early Christiancommunities. Indeed, early in the third century the great Christian in- tellectualOrigen wrote the following comment on Paul's letter to the Romans:

Thistext teaches with the authority ofthe Apostle that . . . thereare, as we have already said, womendeacons in the Church, and that the women, who have given assistance toso many peopleand who by their good works deserve to be praisedby the Apostle, ought to be acceptedinthe diaconate (in Gyrson 1976:134).

1 I amindebted toLaurence R.Iannaccone forpointing out this feature ofthe King James Version.

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RECONSTRUCTINGTHE RISEOF CHRISTIANITY:THE ROLEOF WOMEN 239 Allitnportant modern translations ofthe Bible now restore the original lanS guageused by Paul in these two letters, but somehow the illusions fostered bythe KingJames falsifications remain the common wisdom. Nevertheless, there is virS tualconsensus among historians ofthe early church as wellas biblicalscholars thatwomen held positions of honor and authority within early Christianity (Frend1984; Gryson 1976; Cadoux 1925). Peter Brown (1988: 144-45) noted thatnot only did Christians differ from pagans in this respect, but from Jews:

TheChristian clergy . . . tooka stepthat separated them from the rabbis of Palestine. . . they welcomedwomen as patronsand even offered women roles in which they could act as collabS orators. Andnone of his colleagues would have regarded the following claim by the dis- tinguishedWayneMeeks(1983:71)ascontroversial:

Women. . . arePaul's fellow workers asevangelists and teachers. Both in terms oftheir posi- tlonin the larger society and in terms of their participation inthe Christian communities, then,a number ofwomen broke through the normal expectations offemale roles. Closeexamination ofRoman persecutions also suggest that women held po- sitionsof power and status within the Christian churches. The actual number of Christiansmartyred bythe Romans was quite small (MacMullen 1984; Grant 1977)and the majority ofthose executed were officials, including bishops. That a verysignificant proportion ofmartyrs were women led Bonnie Bowman ThursS ton(1989) to suggest that they also must have been regarded bythe Romans as holdingsome sort of official standing. This is consistent with the fact the women torturedand then probably executed by Pliny were deaconesses. Thus,just as theGuttentag and Secord theory predicts, the very favorable sexratio enjoyed by Christian women soon was translated into substantially morestatus and power, both within the family and within the religious subculture,than was enjoyed by pagan women. Let me note that women in Rome and inRoman cities, in contrast with women in the Greek cities of the empire, en- joyedgreater freedom and power (MacMullen 1984). However, itwas in the Greekcities of Asia Minor and North Africa that Christianity made its greatest, earlyheadway and it is thesecommunities that are the focus of this analysis. Grantedthat even in this part of the empire, pagan women sometimes held im- portantpositions within various mystery cults and shrines. However, these reli- giousgroups and centers were themselves relatively peripheral topower within pagansociety, for authority was vested primarily insecular roles. In contrast, the churchwas the primary social structure ofthe Christian sub-culture. Daily life revolvedaround the church, and power resided in church offices. To theextent thatwomen held significant roles within the church, they enjoyed greater power andstatus than did pagan women. Consider that participation in Mirthraism, whichoften has been regarded asearly Christianity's major competitor, waslim- itedto males(Ferguson 1990). BeforeI concludethis lecture I would like to pursuean additionaland equallyremarkable consequence ofthe very different sexratios prevailing among pagansand Christians. Inthe pagan world that surrounded theearly Christians,

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 240 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION an excessnumber of men caused wives to be in shortsupFuly. But within the Christiansubculture itwas husbands who were in short supply Herein lay an ex- cellentopportunity forgaining secondary converts. EXO&ENOUS MARRIAGEAND SECONDARY CONVERSION BothPeter and Paul sanctioned marriage between Christians and pagans. Peteradvised women, whose husbands did not believe, to be submissive sothat thehusbands might be won to faith "when they see your reverent and chaste be- havior"(I Peter3:1-2). Paul gives similar advice, noting that "an unbelieving husbandisconsecrated through his wife" (I Corirlthians7:13-14). Both passages commonlyare interpreted as directed towards persons whose conversion post- datedtheir marriage. In such circumstances, as Wayne Meeks (1983:101) explained,the Christian "divorce rule takes precedence over the preference for groupendogamy." But, I suggestthese passages may have reflected a far greater tolerancefor exogenous marriage than has been recognized. My reasons are several. Weknow there was a verysubstantial over-supply ofmarriageable Christian womenand that this was acknowledged to be a problem.Fox (1987:309) re- portedthe concern among church leaders "to match an excessof Christian womento a deficiencyof Christianmen." Indeed, in aboutthe year 200, Callistus,Bishop of Rome, upset many of his fellow clerics when he ruledthat Christianwomen could live in "just concubinage" without entering into marriage(Brown 1988; Fox 1987; Latourette 1937). Although Hippolytus and other contemporariesdenounced the Pope's action as givinglicense to adultery, Harnackdefended Callistus on the basis of the circumstances hefaced.

Thesecircumstances arose from the fact of Christian girls tn the church outnumbertng youths; theindulgence of Callistus itself proving unmistakably the female element in the church, so faras thebetter classes were concemed, was in the majority (1908:2:83-84). Inparticular, Callistus was trying todeal with the problem facing upper class womenwhose only marital options within the Christian community were to men offar inferior rank. Should they have entered into legal marriages with such men,high-born women would have lost many legal privileges and control of theirwealth. If high-born Christian women found it so difficult tofind grooms thatthe Bishop of Rome permitted "just concubinage," how was he to condemn middle-and lower-class Christian women who wed pagans, especially ifthey did so withinthe church guidelines concerning the religious training of the children?The case of Pomponia Graecina, an aristocrat and a veryearly convert, is instructive.It is uncertainwhether her husband Plautius ever became a Christian,although he carefullyshielded her from gossip, but there seems to be no doubther children were raised as Christians.According to MartaSordi (1986:27)"in the second century [her family] were practicing Christians (a memberofthe family isburied in the catacomb ofSt. Callistus)." I shall demon- stratein subsequent work that superior fertility played a decisive role in the rise ofChristianity. Buthad the oversupply ofChristian women resulted inan over-

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions RECONSTRUCTINGTHE RISEOF CHRISTIANITY:THE ROLEOF WOMEN 241 supplyof unwed, childless women, their potential fertility would have been de- niedto Christian growth. Summing up his long study of the sources, Harnack (1908:2:79)noted that many mixed marriages were reported and that in virtu- allyall cases "the husband was a pagan,while the wife was a Christian." Finally,the frequency with which early church fathers condemned marriage topagans could demonstratethat Christians "refused their sons and daughters in marriagetononmembers" (MacMullen 1984:103). But it could also reflect the reverse,since people tend not to keep harping on matters that aren't significant. Tertullianoffers an interestingexample. Writing in about the year 200 he vio- lentlycondemned Christian women who married pagans, describing the latter as "slavesof the Devil" (in Fox 19878:308). He alsowrote two angry treatises conS demningthe use of make-up, hair dye, fancy clothes, and jewelry by Christian women(1959). I certainlywould not conclude from the latter that most Christianwomen in Tertullian's time dressed plainly and rejected cosmetics. Werethat the case, Tertullian would have been an irrelevantfool-which he so obviouslywas not. I inclineto a similarinterpretation ofhis attack on Christianwomen for marrying pagans Tertullian'sanger reflects that such marriageswere frequent. Infact, Tertullian felt it necessary toacknowledge that oneof his colleagues claimed that "while marriage toa paganwas certainly an offence,itwas an extremelytrivial offence" (in Harnack1908:2:82). Michael Walsh(1986) seems to agreethat intermarriage wascommon. Commenting upona proposalby Ignatius of Antioch that Christians should marry only with thepermission oftheir local bishop, Walsh wrote:

Ignatius'proposal may have been an attemptto encouragemarriage between Christians, for inevitablymarriages between Christians and paganswere common, especially in theearly yearsThe Church did not at first discourage this practice, which had its advantages: It might bringothers into the fold (p. 216). Thisis further encouraged bythe lack of concern in early Christian sources aboutlosing members via marriageto pagans.Peter and Paulhoped that Christianswould bring their spouses into the church, but neither seemed to have theslightest worry that Christians would revert to, or convert to, paganism. Moreover,pagan sources agree. The composure ofthe Christian martyrs amazed andunsettled many pagans. Pliny (1943) noted the "stubbornness andunbend- ingobstinacy" ofthe Christians brought before him underthreat of death theywould not recant. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius (1916:295) also remarked onthe obstinacy ofChristian martyrs. And Galen wrote of Christians that "their contemptof death (and of its sequel) is patentto us everyday" (in Benko 1984:141).Galen's reference was to the willingness ofChristians to nurse the sickduring the great plague that struck the empire at thistime, killing millions, includingMarcus Aurelius (Stark 1992). The high levels of commitment that theearly church generated among its members should have made it safefor them toenter exogenous marriages. ThatChristians seldom lost out via exogenous marriages also is inkeeping withmodern observations of hightension religious movements. Female Jehovah'sWitnessesfrequently marryoutside thegroup (Heaton 1990). Seldom

This content downloaded from 132.239.54.173 on Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:00:13 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 242 SOCIOLOGYOF RELIGION doesthis result in their defection and it often results in the conversion ofthe spouse.Indeed, this phenomenon isso general that Andrew Greeley ( 1970) has proposedthe rule that whenever a mixed marriage occurs, the less religious per- sonusually will join the religion ofthe more religious member. Buthow much intermarriage wasthere and how much did it matter interms ofproducing secondary converts? What we do know is that secondary conversion wasquite frequent among the Roman upper classes (Fox 1987; Chadwick 1967). Thiswas partly because many married upper-class women became Christians and thenmanaged to converttheir spouses-this was especially common by the fourthcentury. But it alsooccurred because many upper-class Christian women did marrypagans, some of whomthey subsequently were able to convert (Harnack1908). Indeed, Peter Brown (1988:154) wrote of Christian women as a "gateway"into pagan families where "they were the wives, servants, and nurses ofunbelievers." In truth,there is no abundanceof direct evidence that intermarriages be- tweenChristian women and pagan men were widespread. But in my judgment, a compellingcase can be made by resort to reason. It is reasonable toassume that: 1.Given the great surplus ofmarriageable Christian women, existing inthe midstof a worldin which women were in short supply; 2. Giventhat Christians seem not to have feared that intermarriage would resultin their daughters abandoning their faith; 3. Suchmarriages ought to have been common. 4. Fromwhat we know about conversion mechanisms, these intermarriages oughtto have resulted ina lotof secondary conversions. As discussedearlier, conversion isa networkphenomenon based on inter- personalattachments. People join movements toalign their religious status with thatof their friends and relatives who already belong. Hence, in order to offer plausibleaccounts of the rise of Christianity, weneed to discover mechanisms by whichChristians formed attachments with pagans. Put another way, we need to discoverhow Christians managed to remainan open network, able to keep build- ingbonds with outsiders, rather than to have become a closed community ofbe- lievers.A highrate of exogenous marriage isone such mechanism. And I think itwas crucial to therise of Christianity. CONCLUSION HereI haveattempted toestablish three things. First, that Christian subcul- turesin the ancient world rapidly developed a very substantial surplus offemales, whilein the pagan world around thetn males greatly outnumbered females. This shiftwas the result of Christian prohibitions against infanticide and abortion andof substantial sexbias in conversion. Second, fully in accord with Guttentag andSecord's theory linking the status of women to sex ratios, Christian women enjoyedsubstantially higher status within the Christian subcultures than pagan womendid in the world at large. This was especially marked vis-a-vis gender re- lationswithin the family, but women also filled leadership positions within the church.Third, given a surplusofChristian women and a surplusofpagan men, a

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