Being a woman has never been an easy task, although today they have achieved much in all areas of society. Even after so many years, it is still possible to be surprised by the facts of history about being really in the shoes of a woman.
From the beginning, society was governed by men, and women were in the background, taking care of the house or of more fragile tasks. Not being able to vote and not earning the same salary as men were just some of the inequalities previously suffered. Women’s lives were like a real horror movie.
Now check out some of the horrible realities they have been forced to pass through the ages.
10 – Newborn girls were left to die
Being a woman has never been an easy task, although today they have achieved much in all areas of society. Even after so many years, it is still possible to be surprised by the facts of history about being really in the shoes of a woman.
From the beginning, society was governed by men, and women were in the background, taking care of the house or of more fragile tasks. Not being able to vote and not earning the same salary as men were just some of the inequalities previously suffered. Women’s lives were like a real horror movie.
Now check out some of the horrible realities they have been forced to pass through the ages.
10 – Newborn girls were left to die
In Athens, it was common for couples to let their newborn daughters die in wilderness, an act called the “exposition” of the baby. “Everyone rears a child, even if he is poor,” said one Greek writer, “but he exposes a daughter, even if she is rich.”
The practice was more common in Rome, in the poorer families. Records were found of writings that said “women of the day said that the girls were very laborious and therefore could not afford them” and that “if you have a girl, we’re going to have to kill her.”
The poor in Egypt let their children die without guilt. When they traveled they left a note on the letters. “If it’s a boy let him live, but if it’s a girl, kill him.”
9 – Men did not touch menstruating women
Can you believe? Men simply could not bear to touch their wives during their menstrual period. They believed that menstruating women could immediately kill everything they saw. A Roman philosopher wrote: “The woman in such a state produces sour milk.”
Women would spend their isolated menstrual cycles in a special building where men could not enter. The Israelites also did not touch the women during the period, and believed that everything they touched during this period would be unclean.
In Hawaii, men who touched menstruating women could face the death penalty. The natives of Papua New Guinea were worse. If a man touched a menstruating woman, they believed that he would “kill his blood so that it would turn black, would dull the intelligence, and lead to a slow death.”
8 – Losing virginity was a death sentence
If a father in Athens discovered that his single daughter was no longer a virgin, he could legally sell her into slavery. The Samoans should be sure that their wives were virgins. During a wedding, the chief of the tribe should break the bride’s hymen manually in front of the whole crowd.
A woman was already buried alive in Rome for the simple fact that she had lost her virginity before the age of 30. In Israel any woman who had lost her virginity before marriage could be stoned to death.
7 – Men were expected to be sexual predators
Slaves in Rome should be sexually active as part of their jobs. The only problem with sleeping with a slave would be if it were owned by someone else. Women could never file accusations of rape, even if they had suffered abuse.
Women were forced to accept any kind of sex that was imposed upon them. The women were abused and were not allowed to talk about it, and were even judged as liars because according to men they liked abuses.
6 – Brides were often abducted
People were kidnapping brides until the 1940s in Japan. The last case happened in 1959. In 1800, Ireland had a widespread problem with brides.
Even the bible contains stories of stories about men killing entire villages and taking virgin women with them. Legends in Rome were made of hijacked brides. As the story goes, Romulus said that the women were happy to be abducted because they were lucky enough to “live in honorable marriage.”
5 – Women were forced to kill their babies
In almost all countries, when women gave birth to a deformed (handicapped) child, he was forced to kill her. The mother had two options, either to smother the child or abandon her.
On the bank of Israel, archaeologists have found the remains of ten dead babies in the city’s sewers. One in four Roman babies did not get the first year of life.
4 – Women could not speak
In ancient Greece and Rome, women were forbidden to leave the house without a male escort. When a company arrived, they could not speak or sit for dinner, they should return to their rooms if their presence bothered the others.
In Denmark women who dare to criticize or openly express their anger were locked in a place called “musara guitar.” Musara’s guitar was a guitar-shaped wooden trap that lashed the hands and faces of the women. After that she would be ridiculed in public for being openly infuriated.
As if it could not be worse, the British put the quarrelsome women on the reprimand brake, a metal mask with sharp teeth that had a bell attached – to make sure everyone went out and mocked the woman who dared to complain.
3 – Adultery was tortured
If a married woman slept with another man she could be killed. Even the Puritans who colonized America adopted the biblical approach and admitted the murder of adulterers legally.
Middle-aged men were not content to kill their wives, but they also made them suffer. At that time they had a device called a breast burner to use on women who had out-of-wedlock cases.
And it would not stop there, women could be sentenced to death even if they had a miscarriage.
2 – Women were killed with their husbands
Until the 19th century, a woman in India who lost her husband should dig her own grave and burn herself to death near her husband’s body. In wars women used to kill themselves before their husbands returned.
The husbands watched their families burn and the next day they stained the ashes which was considered a motivating act to face the war.
1 – Women have been through this since the beginning of mankind
The older marriages were extremely unilateral. Archaeologists who looked at the prehistoric remains in Africa found that all men remained in one place throughout their lives, but all women were born elsewhere.
Even the cave men had unilateral relationships, making their new wives move to their homes when they started having families. Probably they were kidnapped from their families in other tribes and dragged into the beds of their captors.
Bizarre is not it? Can you believe that women have had to go through so many humiliations over the years?
