Post by Tamrin on Sept 2, 2008 16:27:26 GMT 10
Recovering a Rite
The Amaranth, Queen of the South, and Eastern Star
[/b][/size] The Amaranth, Queen of the South, and Eastern Star
Professors Paul Rich and Guillermo De Los Reyes
(Excerpt)[/center]
Women Masons
Those who claim, to the intense irritation of some Masons, that women were involved in the beginnings of Masonry have evidence (albeit controversial) to sustain their position.l6 It is only in the eighteenth century that the treatment of women Masons begins to be openly contemptuous, which suggests that the rise of the adoptive orders may be related to an increasingly masculine emphasis in mainstream Freemasonry. To describe women as interlopers who become Masons by accident at best and were made members to protect the Masonic secrets seems to be a position adopted at a relatively late time in the history of the Craft.l7 (These female Freemasons "by accident" were not confined to the British Isles: a woman in Canada who eavesdropped on a Lodge was initiated in 1783, was buried under a tombstone with Masonic symbols, and was proudly claimed as an ancestor by a later Grand Master of the Grand Lodge, F.&A.M., of New Brunswick in 1954.18)
Unquestionably Freemasonry and kindred societies played a major role in the life of the American male. But if mainstream Masons are to be described as unwavering in their resolution to keep women out of the lodge, much more research is needed into attitudes over the centuries towards adoptive Masonry.l9 While Freemasonry was interpreted - or, in our opinion, reinterpreted - as masculinity par excellence, it has never been quite so completely the redoubt of male chauvinism that it is often depicted to be.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there seem to be more varieties of women's Masonic groups in the United States than in any other country of the world.20 Notwithstanding much being written today about male initiation and bonding,21 discussion of the place of women in Masonry is at an all-time high. Masons are thinking the unthinkable, which is that someday women may enter the traditional male lodge as equal members.
While so-called mainstream Masonry in America remains a largely male and white organization, Masonry has never lost its Enlightenment roots, which of course includes a view of the equality of the sexes which was submerged in later centuries.22 When this Enlightenment heritage is considered in conjunction with the architecture of at least some of the temples and the beauty of at least some of the degrees, one sees that there is considerable residual sophistication and that the Craft is not just an exercise in male chauvinism.23
The Faithfulness of Prince Hall Adoptive Masonry
It is easy to view the world of adoptive Masonry and of the Amaranth as a sideshow to the Craft. But the lessons of the rite are philosophically worthwhile and the intention of having the degrees coupled together has much merit. The Queen of the South degree involves a dialogue between the Queen of Sheba and no less than Solomon himself about the place of women in Masonry, hardly an irrelevant discussion in these times. A founding notion of the Amaranth and its sister degrees was that in America no king would confer honors, but rather that the people as sovereigns would create their own dignities and confer their own distinctions. None of these lessons are unworthy in the pantheon of Masonic teachings.
The persistence of the original vision of Taylor, Morris, and Macoy, faithfully preserved by our Prince Hall brethren, is an indication that those of us who think we are in the mainstream may have something to learn from other systems in the Masonic universe. The retention of a ladder or rite rather than splintering into single degree organizations has considerable educational value. The preservation of the Queen of the South degree is certainly to be praised.24
The resemblances between the history of the Adoptive Rite and the Scottish Rites are instructive. Both went through considerable controversy over what should be included in the "system" and suffered from considerable debate over the authenticity of specific degrees. Both have counterparts in the world of Prince Hall Masonry as well as in other branches of "Africa-American" Masonry, such as the still little-understood Sons of Light, St. John's, and Hiram movements. Will we find that those groups have demonstrated a faithfulness to the original Scottish Rite degrees similar to the way the Prince Hall Adoptive Rite has been faithful to Rob Morris's original plan for the Eastern Star?
Those who claim, to the intense irritation of some Masons, that women were involved in the beginnings of Masonry have evidence (albeit controversial) to sustain their position.l6 It is only in the eighteenth century that the treatment of women Masons begins to be openly contemptuous, which suggests that the rise of the adoptive orders may be related to an increasingly masculine emphasis in mainstream Freemasonry. To describe women as interlopers who become Masons by accident at best and were made members to protect the Masonic secrets seems to be a position adopted at a relatively late time in the history of the Craft.l7 (These female Freemasons "by accident" were not confined to the British Isles: a woman in Canada who eavesdropped on a Lodge was initiated in 1783, was buried under a tombstone with Masonic symbols, and was proudly claimed as an ancestor by a later Grand Master of the Grand Lodge, F.&A.M., of New Brunswick in 1954.18)
Unquestionably Freemasonry and kindred societies played a major role in the life of the American male. But if mainstream Masons are to be described as unwavering in their resolution to keep women out of the lodge, much more research is needed into attitudes over the centuries towards adoptive Masonry.l9 While Freemasonry was interpreted - or, in our opinion, reinterpreted - as masculinity par excellence, it has never been quite so completely the redoubt of male chauvinism that it is often depicted to be.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there seem to be more varieties of women's Masonic groups in the United States than in any other country of the world.20 Notwithstanding much being written today about male initiation and bonding,21 discussion of the place of women in Masonry is at an all-time high. Masons are thinking the unthinkable, which is that someday women may enter the traditional male lodge as equal members.
While so-called mainstream Masonry in America remains a largely male and white organization, Masonry has never lost its Enlightenment roots, which of course includes a view of the equality of the sexes which was submerged in later centuries.22 When this Enlightenment heritage is considered in conjunction with the architecture of at least some of the temples and the beauty of at least some of the degrees, one sees that there is considerable residual sophistication and that the Craft is not just an exercise in male chauvinism.23
The Faithfulness of Prince Hall Adoptive Masonry
It is easy to view the world of adoptive Masonry and of the Amaranth as a sideshow to the Craft. But the lessons of the rite are philosophically worthwhile and the intention of having the degrees coupled together has much merit. The Queen of the South degree involves a dialogue between the Queen of Sheba and no less than Solomon himself about the place of women in Masonry, hardly an irrelevant discussion in these times. A founding notion of the Amaranth and its sister degrees was that in America no king would confer honors, but rather that the people as sovereigns would create their own dignities and confer their own distinctions. None of these lessons are unworthy in the pantheon of Masonic teachings.
The persistence of the original vision of Taylor, Morris, and Macoy, faithfully preserved by our Prince Hall brethren, is an indication that those of us who think we are in the mainstream may have something to learn from other systems in the Masonic universe. The retention of a ladder or rite rather than splintering into single degree organizations has considerable educational value. The preservation of the Queen of the South degree is certainly to be praised.24
The resemblances between the history of the Adoptive Rite and the Scottish Rites are instructive. Both went through considerable controversy over what should be included in the "system" and suffered from considerable debate over the authenticity of specific degrees. Both have counterparts in the world of Prince Hall Masonry as well as in other branches of "Africa-American" Masonry, such as the still little-understood Sons of Light, St. John's, and Hiram movements. Will we find that those groups have demonstrated a faithfulness to the original Scottish Rite degrees similar to the way the Prince Hall Adoptive Rite has been faithful to Rob Morris's original plan for the Eastern Star?
16. There is for example a record from 1408 where newly initiated Masons swore to obey "the Master, or Dame, or any other ruling Freemason." In the records of the Lodge of Mary's Chapel in Edinburgh, dated 1683, the lodge was actually presided over by a Dame or Mistress. The records of the Grand Lodge of York in 1693 speak about male and female initiates. Neville Cryer, "Women and Freemasonry," News of the Grand Lodge of New York, May 1995, p. 20.
17. A woman who found out the secrets by spying was initiated in a lodge in the English town of Barking in 1714. Another woman who eavesdropped on a lodge ceremony, the Hon. Mrs. Elizabeth Aldworth - the celebrated or infamous daughter of the first Viscount Doneraile - was initiated in 1712 when she was discovered eavesdropping, and the fact is recorded on her tombstone. Cryer.
18. Cryer, p. 21.
19. There are "unrecognized" co-Masonic lodges and (as discussed) there are rare instances of women being initiated into "regular" Masonic lodges, usually after having eavesdropped or overheard the ritual. See A. Bryan Hawkes, "Some Lady Masons," Masonic Square, vol. 12, no.2, Jun. 1986, pp. 60-6z. "The United Grand Lodge of England and, presumably the other Grand Lodges in fraternal association with it, has made no secret of the fact that it is violently opposed to Women's Freemasonry as being alien to its Constitution." Enid L. Scott, Women and Freemasonry (Enfield, England: The author, 1988). "I must make it clear at the outset that this booklet has been compiled entirely for the interest of my fellow women Freemasons." Scott., p. 4. See Harry Carr, "Women and Freemasonry," in Harry Carr's World of Freemasonry: The Collected Papers and Talks of Harry Carr (London: Lewis Masonic, 1983), pp. 280-287.
20. De Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America: "In the United States, political associations are only one small part of the immense number of different types of associations found there. Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types - religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute.... In every case, at the head of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the government or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you are sure to find an association." Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. J.R Mayer, trans. George Lawrence (New York: Harper Perennial, 1988), p. 513.
21. "By the mid-lg70s, men's conferences were being held and organizations formed to respond to a growing list of male concerns, ranging from divorce and alimony rights, parenting, and job situations to sexual fulfillment and, especially, gay rights, which dominated the early movement. A men's liberation movement had been born. The basic focus was a recognition of the shortcomings of playing the traditional masculine role of always getting ahead and staying cool." Joe L. Dubbert, A Man's Place: Masculinity in Transition (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1979), p. 286.
22. Curiously then, Freemasonry is not only representative of the mystical, but also of the scientific and philosophical revolution of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when "The Cartesian concept of matter relegated spirits, whether good or bad, to the purely mental world, conjuration ceased to be a meaningful ambition." Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Penguin, 1988 [1971] ), p. 770.
23. Consider the references to one's mother lodge, the women who adorn engraved Masonic membership certificates, and the women who appear in the adornment of Masonic temples.
24. In some Prince Hall jurisdictions, the Amaranth Degree was used as the working or business degree, although this custom eventually fell into disuse. Arlie C. Robbins, Prince Hall Masonry in Onatario, 1842-1933 (Toronto: Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons for the Province of Ontario and Jurisdiction, 1980), p. 134.
