Cheryl Schatz

Don,

You said:

I agree we are all legal hiers thru adoption, just that there does not need to be any mapping of a woman to a legal son, what counts is being a legal heir.

The fact is that a woman was not a legal heir.  Her dowry was not in her hands and in that patriarchal setting, her dowry could be removed so that she would never benefit from it in any way.  A daughter’s rights in no way were equal to a son’s privileges.  This left women subject to mistreatment.  However “in Christ” we are all full legal heirs.  No one can take away our inheritance like a husband could take away his wife’s dowry.  Do you see the difference?

By making us all legal sons, we are in a position of power.  We are not subject to having our gifts taken away from us as if our gift is under someone else’s control.  What Paul has done is provided the strongest legal wording of that day and applied it to women.  Women now are legal “sons” and as “sons” they are given the privilege and responsibility in such a way that their privilege is not subject to the control of someone with more responsibility and privilege than they have.  When someone is under the ultimate control of another, there is no equality in privilege.  Daughters did not ultimately have control of their own privileges.  This would have been the problem if Paul had made us “sons and daughters” in Christ.  We would have been seen as under the men since no woman had ulitmate control of her dowry.  But as “sons” we do not have a dowry.  We have a full inheritance with full privileges and we are not under a tutor or a controller.

To me this is the full essence of equalty in Christ.  We are all “sons” IN Christ and in Christ there is no sense that I have to have a human male meditator between God and my inheritance.  Men should now be able to see us as full “joint” heirs.  Women never were “joint” heirs in the natural sense with the men.  They always came up on the short end.  The men controlled their dowry and could take it away.  If a woman went in public without her head covering, he can divorce her without giving her a cent of her dowry.  This is not equality in any sense of the word.

But if she was a in the legal sense a joint heir, a legal “son”, then he could not touch her inheritance.  This is what God has given to women.

Is this okay with you?