And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is shameful for women to speak in the church.
Read Chapter 14
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
It is shameful because it is contrary to discipline for them to presume to speak about the law in the house of God, who has taught that they are subject to their husbands, when they know that men have the primacy there and that for them it is more fitting to be free to pray while holding their tongues. If they dare to speak in church, it is a disgrace, because they are veiled in order to appear humble. Moreover, women like this show that they are immodest, which is a disgrace to their husbands too. For when women are insolent, their husbands receive the blame as well. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home. Hence Primasius says that men ought to be well taught enough to teach their wives in matters of faith. But what if they are themselves untaught, as is often the case? Who, then, is to teach the woman? Primasius answers that they have preachers, confessors, and teachers to instruct them. Again, it is better for them to be ignorant of some things that are not essentials than to ask and learn about them in public, to their own shame and the scandal of the Church.
You may say that it is recorded in S. Luke 2:38 that Anna the prophetess spoke in the Temple to all concerning Christ. The answer is that she spoke to all in private, and one by one, not in a church assembly, nor in the Temple properly so called, for neither man nor woman, but the priests alone, were allowed to enter the Temple at Jerusalem. Anna, then, spoke to the women singly in the court of the women; for, as Josephus says, the women had a court distinct ...
I wish to see each man’s earnestness and each woman’s devotion. Burn out impiety from your mind, put your soul on the anvil and your stubborn infidelity under the hammer… Then let the gate of paradise be opened to each man and each woman among you.
A woman is softer of mind than a man and more subject to being flooded with emotion. Thus he sets husbands as protectors for the benefit of both. Paul calls for husbands to be attentive and for women to be orderly. In this way husbands would have to communicate with their wives about exactly what they heard.
Thus, not only, as it seems, are they not allowed to speak, says he, at random, but not even to ask any question in the church. Now if they ought not to ask questions, much more is their speaking at pleasure contrary to law. And what may be the cause of his setting them under so great subjection? Because the woman is in some sort a weaker being and easily carried away and light minded. Here you see why he set over them their husbands as teachers, for the benefit of both. For so he both rendered the women orderly, and the husbands he made anxious, as having to deliver to their wives very exactly what they heard.
Further, because they supposed this to be an ornament to them, I mean their speaking in public; again he brings round the discourse to the opposite point, saying, For it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church. That is, first he made this out from the law of God, then from common reason and our received custom; even when he was discoursing with the women about long hai...
