By Peter Amsterdam
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One of the profound effects that Christianity has had on the course of human history since the death and resurrection of Jesus is in regard to the dignity and status of women.1
Throughout the reign of the Roman Empire, women lived under the law of patria potestas, which declared that the male head of the family had absolute authority over his children, even adult ones. Married women remained under the authority of their father unless the marriage was a manus marriage, which meant that the woman ceased to be under the authority of her father and came under the control of her husband. In such cases, a husband could legally physically chastise his wife, and if she committed adultery, he could kill her. A manus marriage gave the man complete authority over his wife, so that she only had the legal status of an adopted daughter.
Women were not allowed to speak in public settings. All places of authority, such as city councils, the senate, and legal courts were only accessible to men. If women had any legal questions or complaints, they had to convey them to their husbands or fathers, who would take the matter to the proper authorities on the woman’s behalf, as women were required to remain silent on such matters. In general, women were held in very low regard.
In the Jewish culture throughout the rabbinic era (400 BC to 300 AD), there also existed a strong bias against women. They weren’t allowed to testify in court, as they were considered unreliable witnesses. They were likewise barred from all public speaking. They weren’t allowed to read the Torah out loud in the synagogues. Synagogue worship was conducted by men, and women in attendance were separated from the men by a partition.
Some Jewish women were confined to their homes, and young women remained in parts of the house specified as the women’s quarters to avoid being seen by men. Married women in rural areas had a bit more freedom of movement, as they helped their husbands do the farming. However, it was considered inappropriate for them to work or travel alone. Any income a married woman would receive, including inheritances, belonged to her husband.
Throughout the Gospels, we find that Jesus had a very different attitude toward women than the customary one of that time—one which raised their status. Through both His teachings and actions, He rebuffed the common beliefs and practices which espoused that women were inferior to men.
One example is His interaction with the Samaritan woman in the Gospel of John. At that time, Jews didn’t interact with the Samaritans at all, yet Jesus requested that she give Him a drink from the well. She was surprised and wondered why He would ask her to give Him a drink, as “the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans” (John 4:7–9). Jesus not only ignored the fact that she was a Samaritan, but He also spoke with a woman in public. This contravened the oral law (Jewish religious laws added over the centuries to the original laws of Moses).
The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record that women followed Jesus, which was very unusual at that time, as other Jewish teachers and rabbis did not have women disciples: “There were also women [at His crucifixion] looking on from a distance, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. When he was in Galilee, they followed him and ministered to him, and there were also many other women who came up with him to Jerusalem” (Mark 15:40–41). (See also Luke 8:1–3.)
After His resurrection, Jesus appeared first to women, and instructed them to tell the rest of His disciples that He had risen (Matthew 28:1–10).
The early church followed Jesus’ precedent and ignored cultural norms regarding women. Women played an important role in the church, as seen in the Epistles of Paul, which indicated that they had churches in their homes. In the letter to Philemon, he addresses “Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house” (Philemon 1:1–2). Nympha was a woman who had a church in her home in Laodicea (Colossians 4:15), and he referred to Prisca and her husband Aquila, who also had a church in their house, as “my fellow workers in Christ Jesus” (Romans 16:3).
In the book of Romans, Paul wrote: “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae” (Romans 16:1). The Greek word translated as servant is diakonos, which is sometimes translated in the Epistles as deacon and other times as minister. Paul refers to himself as diakonos numerous times in the Epistles, as well as when referring to his co-workers and co-leaders (Ephesians 3:7, Colossians 1:7). So when he commended Phoebe as a diakonos of the church, it appears that Paul was acknowledging that she was a deacon or minister within the church.
Paul made the point that within Christianity, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Jesus, Paul, and the early church worked against the concept of keeping women secluded, silent, subservient, and segregated in worship and ministry.
Jesus’ message of salvation resonated with women in the early church, so much so that early church historians maintain that generally women were more active in the church than men were. German church historian and theologian Leopold Zscharnack wrote: “Christendom dare not forget that it was primarily the female sex that for the greater part brought about its rapid growth. It was the evangelistic zeal of women in the early years of the church, and later, which won the weak and the mighty.”2
For the first 150 years of Christianity, women were highly regarded within the church and very important to it. Sadly, after that time, some of the church leaders began to revert to the practices and attitudes of the Romans relating to women, and women were slowly excluded from leadership roles within the church. However, even with these distorted attitudes toward women, there were still many ways in which women were on equal footing with men within the church throughout that time. For example, women received the same instruction as men when becoming members of the church, they were baptized in the same fashion, they participated equally in receiving communion, and they prayed and stood with men in the same worship setting.
While there was some divergence from what the New Testament taught concerning women across the centuries, there were also major legal changes for the better throughout the territory of the Roman Empire. Within a half-century of Christianity being legalized, Emperor Valentinian l repealed the one-thousand-year-old patria potestas in 374 AD so that the male head of the family no longer had absolute authority over his wife or children. Women were granted the same property rights as men and the right of guardianship over their children.
This also meant that women had a choice in who they married, instead of having their husband chosen by their father, which had been the case in ancient times. This also allowed them to marry later. Because of Paul’s teachings, husbands started seeing their wives as partners, both spiritually and practically. Today, women in the Western world are no longer compelled to marry someone they don’t want to, neither can they be legally compelled to marry as child brides—as still happens in some places in our world.
During Jesus’ lifetime, and before, many ancient societies, especially in the Middle East, allowed polygyny (a man being married to more than one woman at the same time). Many of the Jewish patriarchs and kings such as Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon, and others had multiple wives. When Jesus spoke of marriage, however, it was invariably in the context of monogamy. Jesus said, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?” (Matthew 19:5).
Several early Church Fathers in the second and third centuries wrote against polygamous marriage, and when marriage is mentioned in the New Testament, it is understood to refer to monogamous marriage. The Christian view of marriage as comprising a monogamous relationship has permeated the laws of Western society.
In the Gospels, we see that Jesus had compassion for women who were widows. He raised a widow’s son from the dead (Luke 7:11–15), denounced the Pharisees for taking financial advantage of widows (Mark 12:40), and commended the poor widow who sacrificially gave two mites as an offering to the temple (Luke 21:2–3). The apostle Paul in his writings instructed the Ephesian church to honor widowed mothers (1 Timothy 5:3–4), and in the Epistle of James we read, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (James 1:27).
Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and the salvation it brought to those who believe in Him has made a monumental difference in countless lives over the centuries. His example and teaching caused His disciples and the early church to accord a higher level of dignity, freedom, and rights to women. Therefore, women today in countries which have been influenced by Christianity for the most part have more freedom, opportunity, and human worth than in countries without that influence.
Originally published April 2019. Adapted and republished October 2025. Read by Reuben Ruchevsky.
1 Points from this article were taken from How Christianity Changed the World, by Alvin J. Schmidt (Zondervan, 2004).
2 Leopold Zscharnack, Der Dienst der Frau in den ersten Jabrhunderten der christlich Kirche (Gottingen: n.p., 1902), 19.
