Patriarchy is immensely good for society…as long as it’s practiced under the Fatherhood of God & the loving, servant-leadership style of Jesus! Godless patriarchies lead to oppression. God designed male leadership for order, provision & protection, reflecting His own nature, which is conveyed in masculine terms (King, Husband, Father). God specifically entered into this world as a son, not as a daughter.
In the Bible, inheritance & lineage were passed through males. You see many lists of fathers “begetting” sons. Jesus’ lineage was traced through men on both Joseph’s side & Mary’s side. Matthew 1 records all the fathers (with a handful of wives also noted) & their male descendents, ending with Joseph, not “begetting” Jesus, but being the “husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born.” Meanwhile, Luke 3 records all the men through Mary’s side, noting that it was only “supposed” that Jesus was the son of Joseph. Since He was conceived supernaturally by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, Jesus had no biological male descent. Instead, he was “adopted” into Joseph’s family.
How wonderful it is to adopt (James 1:27)! Not everyone is called or prepared to adopt, but for those who are considering it, cost can be a major obstacle. So our church has an Adoption Fund to help remove that barrier for Christian couples. With more than 120,000 children awaiting adoption in the US, the need for adoptive parents remains great.
Jesus’ adoption by Joseph also made Him a legal heir to the Davidic throne, as well as a blood heir through Mary. Inheritance laws prioritized male descendants, especially the firstborn. That was the position of prominence. So when Jesus is referred to as “firstborn,” it’s not that He had a beginning, or was created as cults say, but that He has the highest rank & fullest inheritance (Col. 1:15).
He was firstborn physically to Mary because she did have other children later with Joseph, despite the Roman Catholic Church’s insistence that she remained a virgin perpetually (Matt. 13:55-56, 1 Cor. 7:3-5). But spiritually, every privilege we have as God’s children flows to us because Jesus occupies the position of eternal Firstborn Son.
Jesus’ lineage is traced all the way back to “Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38). God created a man first, & then charged him with headship of his family. That continues down through today (1 Cor. 11:3, 7). God also chose men to lead his people–from the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac & Jacob) to the 12 Tribes of Israel, to Moses & Aaron (whose male descendants were the priests), to the kings of Israel.
But apart from God, patriarchy slides into raw power dynamics that treat women as disposable & exploitable. It’s like democracy is a great form of government, as long as it’s practiced under the God-given rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. Democracy doesn’t work without acknowledging God as the true ruler. As President John Adams confessed: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral & religious people [which, of course, meant Christianity]. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” That’s why democracy doesn’t work when we don’t honor God. Instead, we get tyranny by the godless majority.
The preference for sons remains strong in many parts of the world where land & wealth are passed through the male line. But what that leads to is skewed sex ratios with more boys born than girls. How is that possible? Sex-selection infanticide. Baby girls are far more likely to be killed than baby boys. Abortion is the most misogynistic practice in the world!
Confucian cultures of East Asia featured female infanticide, wife-beating, foot-binding, widows committing suicide, & females being barred from education & inheritance. In Hindu caste society, we find widow-burning, child marriage, & honor killings. In the Greco-Roman world, the father held the power of life & death over family members, with routine female infanticide, & wives as little more than property. In Viking & Anglo-Saxon Germanic tribes, women were the spoils of war & sold as slaves. Aztec & Mesoamerican societies sacrificed & enslaved women. Some African animist societies practiced female genital cutting.
In Islamic cultures, with sharia law, which is absolutely incompatible with a nation founded on Christian principles, daughters receive only half the inheritance as sons. Common are control, coercion, compulsory veiling, honor killings, child marriage, polygamy, & women not allowed to travel or work without a male guardian’s permission. According to their Quran, a husband is permitted to “lightly” beat a disobedient wife (4:34).
Where Christianity is introduced, it shames these practices with the correcting principle, “You will answer to a higher Father than yourself.” The Bible teaches that in the same way that the Father & Son are equal but have different roles, so are men & women. Yet, both receive the promised inheritance through Christ. So in that sense, there is neither male nor female in Christ (Gal. 3:28-29, 4:7).
The spread of biblical Christianity is the single biggest force to systematically dismantle the worst institutionalized forms of misogyny & female oppression across continents & centuries. Christianity values & elevates daughters, rescuing exposed baby girls left out to die, ending abortion, raising the age & requiring female consent for marriage. Christians banned forced widow killing & suicide, honor killings, wife-beating, & polygamy. The first schools for girls in most of the world were opened by Christian missionaries. The concept of women owning property in their own name was preserved & expanded earliest & most consistently in Christian Europe. Godly patriarchy is actually beneficial & liberating for women!