The Universal Language of Freemasonry - ArchiMeD - Johannes ...

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Chapter 7 - Rituals
The necessity of creating an order affiliated with the Craft and open for
women is explained in Macoys Manual of the Order of the Eastern Star,
published in 1869, in an address to the ladies:
Ladies, you are connected with Masonry by ties far more intimate and
tender than you are aware of [...]. The widow and orphan daughter of a
Master Mason takes the place of the husband and father in the affections
and good deeds of the Lodge. [...] Females cannot be made Masons.
This is a rule that has been handed down with the other rules of
Masonry for thousands of years. [...] Therefore we cannot invite you to
visit our Lodges. [...] ... how is a lady, traveling among strangers, and
finding herself in want of friends, to make herself known as the wife,
widow, sister or daughter of a Master Mason? [...] The country is full of
impostors [...]. Almost every charitable person has been imposed upon
[...]. The lady, therefore, who has the relationship to Masonry that you
possess needs, in such a case, some particular means of recognition;
some means of making herself known to Master Masons [...]. 1441
Here, we see that it was the language, the secret mode of recognition which
the female relatives of Master Masons lacked. This has to be seen in the
historical and social context; today, with our well-developed system of social
security, it may sound a little funny when Macoy speaks of "impostors" who try
to abuse the charity of the Masons, pretending relationship to them. However, in
the second half of the 19 th century, this was really the case and, due to the
insufficient insurance system, a means of survival for certain people,
characterized in our chapter on technical terminology as "tramping Masons."
There were also women of that kind. In our time, where we even have female
Freemasons which was unthinkable 130 years ago, it might be difficult to accept
that the establishment of the OES was not in the first place an achievement of
emancipation of women who wanted their own Freemasonry, but a simple
necessity to make sure that the real widows and orphans of Master Masons
received the social aid from Masonry which they were entitled to. The OES was
exactly matched with the needs of these women, and also contained the moral
code of these times. What today may sound like an insult or at least as if the
Masons were treating the women like a child, was actually a way of supporting
them by the creation of an easy ritual:
Are there any means, long tried and proved, which a lady can learn, and
by due practice remember, so that, if suddenly called upon, she can put
it into use with confidence that it will prove effectual? I answer there is
just such a method [...]. The Order is called the EASTERN STAR. It has
signs and pass-words, and means of recognition which have been tried
in a thousand instances, and proved to be exactly what a lady needs in
cases I have mentioned. The signs which are for a lady's use are easily
1441 Macoy, Manual of the Order of the Eastern Star, p. 15-18.