The Woman's Bible: Part 1

by Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The Woman's Bible is a two-part non-fiction book, written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1895 and 1898 to challenge the traditional position of religious orthodoxy that woman should be subservient to man. By producing the book, Stanton wished to promote a radical liberating theology, one that stressed self-development. The book attracted a great deal of controversy and antagonism at its introduction. Many women's rights activists who worked with Stanton were opposed to the publication of The Woman's Bible; they felt it would harm the drive for women's suffrage. Although it was never accepted by Bible scholars as a major work, much to the dismay of suffragists who worked alongside Stanton within the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), it became a popular best-seller. Susan B. Anthony tried to calm the younger suffragists, but they issued a formal denunciation of the book, and worked to distance the suffrage movement from Stanton's broader scope which included attacks on traditional religion. Because of the widespread negative reaction, including that of suffragists who had been close to her, publication of the book effectively ended Stanton's influence in the suffrage movement.

152 pages, Paperback

Published August 11, 2021

About the author

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist and leading figure of the early woman's movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, presented at the first women's rights convention held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, is often credited with initiating the first organized woman's rights and woman's suffrage movements in the United States.

Before Stanton narrowed her political focus almost exclusively to women's rights, she was an active abolitionist together with her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton and cousin, Gerrit Smith. Unlike many of those involved in the women's rights movement, Stanton addressed a number of issues pertaining to women beyond voting rights. Her concerns included women's parental and custody rights, property rights, employment and income rights, divorce laws, the economic health of the family, and birth control. She was also an outspoken supporter of the 19th-century temperance movement.

After the American Civil War, Stanton's commitment to female suffrage caused a schism in the women's rights movement when she, along with Susan B. Anthony, declined to support passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. She opposed giving added legal protection and voting rights to African American men while continuing to deny women, black and white, the same rights. Her position on this issue, together with her thoughts on organized Christianity and women's issues beyond voting rights, led to the formation of two separate women's rights organizations that were finally rejoined, with Stanton as president of the joint organization, approximately twenty years later.

Reviews

[Jim Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first installment of Stanton's (and her coauthors') review of the Bible.

Mostly good stuff here.

Stanton and some of the other writers take a surprisingly scathing approach to the first five books of the Old Testament. The cruel stuff is very much called out for what it is, and the constant assault on women is pulled out of its "holy" light and shamed.

Interestingly, a few bits and pieces by other writers take an entirely different tone, finding something feminist in the text.

It creates the unusual situation of having a book that both condemns the Pentateuch as immoral and sexist and not at all the real word of God; and also points to the Pentateuch as proof that God was a feminist from the start and that women's freedom lies right there in the very real word of God.

Odd, but it's honest, mostly works.