Lucretia Mott Summary

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Lucretia Mott was fortunate to have been born to have been born into a Massachusetts Quaker family in the late 18th century. The women in this colony were quite independent, and Lucretia grew up with self-sufficiency. Quakers generally saw and treated women as equals in their religious-based society, which was considerable given the time period. This meant that girls were able to receive an education which created many opportunities for them within their organization, and Lucretia took advantage of these. She was selected to be a minister with the Quakers at the age of twenty-eight. Lucretia Mott advocated for women, that they should be treated equally within the Christian church. She used her understanding of religious doctrine to plainly…show more content…
She supports this by mentioning that "many women are there now immolated upon the shrine of superstition and priestcraft, in our very midst, in the assumption that man only has a right to the pulpit, and that if a woman enters it she disobeys God; making woman believe in the misdirection of her vocation, and that it is of divine authority that she should be thus bound" (Mott 3). She speaks about this with great authority as she herself is in a religious leadership position. The Bible is clear on women preaching, women prophesying, and women leading in churches all over Jerusalem and Judea. Many early Christian leaders and preachers were women, such as Mary Magdalene, Nympha and Phoebe. Moreover, Phoebe is described by Paul as a deaconess and she delivered one of Paul's letters to the church in Rome. This evidence does not seem to be taken into account by the age's Christian leaders, and consequently is concealed from general knowledge, as can be seen in Rev. John Chambers address at the World Temperance Convention. Women who aspired to become religious leaders could not fulfill their calling because men had decided that they were not fit for the task. Women had no say on the matter, and their choice on whether or not they wanted to be in that position of authority was taken away from

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