What Paul Really Thinks About Women

November 2009

by Joy A. Schroeder

Paul was a complicated fellow, especially when it comes to his thoughts about women. He respected women as co-workers for the gospel. He did not put particular blame on Eve (or women in general) for humanity’s fall. On the other hand, he had traditional views about gender and said that man is the “head” of woman. So what does he really think?

Paul’s beliefs arose from various sources, including society, custom, and Scripture. Paul was a Hellenized (Greek-influenced) Jew, raised with many Greek customs and worldviews. We must not put special blame on Judaism for the negative ways some early Christians treated women. While every individual’s experience was different, first century Jewish women generally had no less freedom and authority within their families and communities than Greek and Roman women had. (Sometimes Jewish women had more freedom). Most societies at that time believed husbands should be in charge of their wives.

Writing in Paul’s Name

The likelihood that some “Pauline letters” were not actually written by Paul complicates our understanding of him. Most scholars believe some New Testament letters written in Paul’s name were from his later admirers. There is significant doubt about Paul’s personal authorship of Ephesians, Colossians, 1–2 Timothy, Titus, and 2 Thessalonians. These letters’ vocabulary, writing styles, and ideas differ from letters we can be sure Paul wrote, such as Romans and 1–2 Corinthians.

For instance, 1 Timothy provides requirements for bishops, reflecting a later time when Christianity grew more structured than in the church’s earliest days. This same letter tells women not to teach, have authority over men, or wear braided hair, gold, or pearls. It also says women will be “saved through childbearing” (1 Timothy 2:8–15).

The authors of these letters felt that they were continuing Paul’s work, writing things they thought he would have said. The likelihood that Paul did not author some works written in his name does not change the fact that the church accepts these letters as part of the New Testament. But as we seek to determine what Paul himself thought about women, we will look only at the work that we can be certain Paul wrote.

Not a Woman-Hater

Paul is sometimes called a misogynist (woman-hater). This accusation is unfair. He valued female church leaders as partners in spreading the Gospel. Paul calls Euodia and Syntyche his co-workers (Philippians 4:2–3), the same term he uses for his fellow missionary Timothy (Romans 16:21). The final chapter of Romans is filled with the names of Paul’s female friends and colleagues. He praises Phoebe the deacon and Prisca, who had risked her life to help Paul (16:1–3). He greets an apostle named Junia (16:7). (The idea that Paul called a woman an apostle was puzzling to later readers, who changed “Junia” to the masculine name “Junias.”)

One quotation from Paul offers especially important support for women’s full inclusion in the church: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Scholars think that Paul is quoting a saying recited at baptisms. Paul’s culture had powerful assumptions about people’s value, based on gender, ethnicity, and social status. But Paul wanted his readers to remember that baptism erases all these differences and affirms the equal value of each person.

Not “All About Eve”

In Genesis 3, a serpent tempted the first woman to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge. She gave the fruit to her husband, who also ate. Through the centuries, men have used this story to say women are especially prone to temptation.

The author of 1 Timothy says that women should not teach or have authority over men because “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (2:14). Some men blamed all women for bringing sin into the world. Tertullian, a third-century church leader, said to women: “You are the devil’s gateway.”

However, Paul says that “sin came into the world through one man” (Romans 5:12), without mentioning Eve at all. While Paul believed that all people have sinned, he did not single out women for special blame. In 2 Corinthians 11:3, Paul does say that the serpent deceived Eve, but he is using this story to warn women and men not to be misled by false teachings.

Marital Relations

Thinking that Jesus would return soon, some first-century Christians thought they should avoid marriage so they could dedicate themselves to serving God rather than taking care of a spouse. Paul agreed with this. Paul himself was probably unmarried (1 Corinthians 7:7–8). Nevertheless, the apostle did not think that everyone should be single. He asserted that those without a special calling to remain single should go ahead and get married.

Paul was also concerned that some married people thought they must avoid sexual relations in order to devote themselves to God. Paul thought it unfair for one spouse to decide to be celibate for religious reasons when the other partner did not want this. Addressing this situation, Paul says that husband and wife have mutual and reciprocal authority over one another’s bodies (1 Corinthians 7:2–6). Unfortunately, this passage has been used to persuade women to submit to their husbands’ sexual wishes, even against their will. Paul intended that husbands and wives should respect one another’s needs and wishes in a way that is fair, mutual, and loving rather than domineering or abusive.

Hair Problems

One of Paul’s most puzzling passages is his discussion about women’s head coverings. Paul wanted worship to take place “decently and in order” (1 Corinthians 14:40). He thought there was something disorderly about how women in Corinth wore their hair when praying and prophesying. Paul said these women should cover their heads (1 Corinthians 11:5). This might mean they should wear a veil (which is how this passage is often translated). Or it could mean they should wear their hair carefully styled into a braided tiara atop their heads. Since Greek and Roman women unbound their hair and wore it loose when worshiping the popular Egyptian goddess Isis, perhaps Paul did not want Christians to resemble those disorderly pagan women with disheveled hair.

Paul says a woman should have “authority on her head, because of the angels” (1 Corinthians 11:10). Scholars disagree about what this means. Since angels were expected to show up when people worship, perhaps Paul thought women should wear veils to protect themselves from the romantic attention of angels. (Genesis 6:1–4 says the “sons of God” married human women. Early Christians and Jews thought this was about improper relations between humans and angels.)

Or, since Paul thought that man was the “image and glory of God,” and “woman is the glory of man” (1 Corinthians 11:7), female “glory” might offend or distract the angels from proper attention to worshiping God. Usually the Greek word doxa (related to the word doxology) is translated “glory,” but the NRSV translates 11:7 to say woman is man’s “reflection,” which may make Paul seem more negative toward women than his original words might indicate. On the other hand, even if Paul compliments woman by calling her “man’s glory,” he might be trying to avoid stating that woman is the image of God, despite what Genesis 1:26–27 says.

Scholars are not sure what it means for a woman to have “authority on her head.” (In the NRSV, 1 Corinthians 11:10 says “a symbol of authority,” but the word “symbol” is not in the Greek.) “Authority on her head” might mean that she should wear a veil as a sign of submission. Or it could mean that a female prophet should wear something on her head as a sign that she had authority over her own head and was authorized to speak aloud in worship.

Because he offers so many different reasons, Paul clearly thought that women’s head covering was an important issue. Referring to Genesis 2, Paul says that woman was made from man and for man (1 Corinthians 11:8–9). However, in 11:11–12, he says that that man comes “through woman,” and that neither man nor woman is independent of the other.

Paul also used an “argument from nature” to prove that women’s heads should be covered. He said it was “natural” for women to have long hair and “shameful” for them to have short hair. This is an example of Paul believing that his society’s customs were based on the natural order.

Creating a pun in his discussion of what women should wear on their heads, Paul said that a husband is the head of his wife (11:3). All of this is in a chapter about what women should put on their heads during worship, not about how husbands and wives are to relate to one another. Nevertheless, here Paul demonstrates his traditional understanding of gender roles.

1 Corinthians 14:33b–34 says: “As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches.” The NRSV puts 14:33b–36 in parentheses since many scholars believe these verses were added later by a different writer. Some ancient manuscripts even place these verses at the end of chapter 14.

Perhaps a scribe wrote these words as a note in the margin and later readers thought they belonged in the scriptural text itself—so one copyist put them at the end of the chapter and another placed them where they are located in our modern translations. Furthermore, verses 14:33b–36 interrupt the train of thought in chapter 14 and contradicts Paul’s earlier statements that women (with proper head-coverings) may pray and prophesy aloud in church gatherings.

Our Mother Paul

Some of Paul’s most striking language is his motherly imagery describing his relationship to his readers. Though he sometimes calls himself their father (1 Thessalonians 2:11), the apostle also compares himself to a mother or female caregiver. Christians in Galatia are “my little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). He likewise compares himself to a children’s nurse. In the days before bottle-feeding, families hired wet nurses to breastfeed a baby when the mother died in childbirth or was unable or unwilling to nurse her own child.

Ancient literature describes nurses as loving and indulgent. Paul says that he and his fellow missionaries “were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children” (1 Thessalonians 2:7b). Paul uses this feminine language to describe his feelings toward his spiritual children.

If you find Paul’s views about women confusing or even inconsistent, you are not alone! Many others join you in puzzling over what he meant. And while many Christians find some of Paul’s ideas about women (such as their need for head-covering) to be out of place in our day and age, we can be grateful to “our mother Paul” for his timeless proclamation that, whether you are male or female, “in Jesus Christ you are all children of God through faith” (Galatians 3:26).

The Rev. Dr. Joy A. Schroeder, an ELCA pastor, teaches church history at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and Capital University, where she holds the Bergener Chair in Theology and Religion. She is the author of Dinah’s Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation (Fortress Press, 2007).