Women and Religion

The comment on yesterday's blog was surprising, not for its conclusion, but for its juxtaposition with comments about religion. But, it  made me think more about women and religion than I usually do, since it's usually not a pleasant trip.
I have often thought that one of the differences between Islam and Christianity lies in their respective ages. Islam is approximately 600 years younger than Christianity. If we subtract 600 from the 2000 years of Christianity, we arrive at 1400 A.D., smack in the middle of the European transition from the middle ages to the renaissance. It was a period rife with contradiction and turmoil in philosophy and culture caused by an increasing level of international trade with its requirement for transaction cash instead of a land-based economy, and a questioning of the Catholic Church's practices (selling pardons, forcing religious uniformity through the inquisition and the eradication of "heretical" views, and the rise of Protestantism).
Custom and practice were loosening up, religious fervor was being challenged by humanists, and aristocratic women were being "sold" as wives to princes and kings as part of deals concerning political and military alliances. Ordinary women were most often dead early, victims of childbirth fever or just plain exhaustion. But, some women were educated, reading Greek and Latin and writing poetry and essays, a circumstance not seen since the fall of the Roman Empire.
In the 600 years since 1400 A.D., European Christianity has burned women at the stake as witches (the last was circa 1750), denied them the right to be priests or pastors, kept them from voting, taken away their real property rights, and generally made them "economic slaves". It took Elizabeth I, the Queen of England from 1553 to 1604, who is generally considered one of the most important women of European history, most of her adult life to prevail in her desire not to marry. The pressure upon her was to put the succession in male hands.
So, Christianity, which today is still fighting over whether women can be priests or pastors and which is still trying to decide if women have the right not to bear children, does not have a completely pretty story to tell in its treatment of women.
Now, if we think of the 1400 years that Islam has existed, we could compare its treatment of women today to the treatment Christian women received in 1400 A.D. and we can begin to put things into perspective.
Does this excuse the maltreatment of women in the 21st century by any religion or political entity? Most certainly not. But, it can give us hope for the future, although one could also expect that "man"kind has learned a lot since 1400 A.D., and much of that learning is related to becoming better social beings, being more tolerant, and accepting the ideal that every human being is equal in the eyes of God and has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.