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Article
What’s God Got to Do with It? Church and State Collaboration in the Subordination of Women and Domestic Violence
Rutgers Law Review (1999)
  • Linda L. Ammons
Abstract

n this Article, Professor Ammons explores the role of Judeo-Christian institutions, ideology, and doctrine in promoting women's subordination and in condoning domestic violence. Professor Ammons traces how the dogma of male supremacy is construed from Biblical narratives, becomes part of church codified hierarchical gender roles, particularly within the marital relationship, and how religion was used to endorse the submission of women to men through brute force, if necessary.

Ancient secular myths and theories recasted as Divine imperatives in Canon law and Christian tradition, which the State accepted as custom and law, shaped the courts' acceptance of violence against women in private and in some instances public spheres. Despite the criminal and civil justice system's modification of laws concerning domestic violence, Professor Ammons argues that many religious communities have been slow to reevaluate their traditions, to acknowledge their culpability in tolerating domestic violence, and to actively challenge the ideological assumptions that support violence against women within the belief structures of such religious communities. Battered women who hold traditional religious views on male supremacy remain vulnerable because of their need to reconcile the tensions of their legal rights of bodily integrity and autonomy with their understanding of what their faiths require.

Keywords
  • domestic violence,
  • women,
  • church,
  • religion
Publication Date
1999
Citation Information
Linda L. Ammons. "What’s God Got to Do with It? Church and State Collaboration in the Subordination of Women and Domestic Violence" Rutgers Law Review Vol. 51 (1999)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/linda_ammons/9/