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

Chapter 3 - Overview of Rites 85
long ago they were not admitted to serve in the army, and as far as mining is
concerned, they are still not allowed to work below ground - for moral as well as
for physical reasons. Other countries have more modern ideas in these sectors. In
1926, a German Mason could published the following - which still is the opinion
of many individual Masons today:
Die Freimaurerei beruht auf der Gleichheit der Mitglieder im Tempel;
dieser Grundsatz könnte bei der Zulassung von Frauen aus Gründen der
feinen Sitte nicht aufrechterhalten bleiben. Zu bedenken ist auch, daß
die Anwesenheit von Frauen bei den unter scharfem Ausschlusse der
Oeffentlichkeit stattfindenden Tempelarbeiten das Gerede über die
Freimaurerei, das ohne dies recht umfangreich ist, noch vergrößern und
vermehren würde. Deshalb glauben wir deutsche Freimaurer das
Vorbild einer Gruppe Franzosen nicht nachahmen zu können, die unter
dem Namen "Droit humain" gemischte Logen [...] gegründet haben. [...]
Wir wissen die Macht des weiblichen Gemütes besonders bei unserer
Wohltätigkeitspflege zu schätzen und wir suchen dazu unsere
Bundesgenossen vorzugsweise in den Reihen unserer Schwestern.
Trotzdem glauben wir sie mit guten Gründen den Arbeiten im Tempel
fernhalten zu müssen. 233
Fluhrer, the author of this quotation, expresses the thought of most of his
contemporaries. He sees the "demureness" of the lodge endangered by the
presence of women. And he fears for its "secrecy." He stresses the giving of
charity, in which he sees the favorite task of women, and which makes them
useful for the male lodge. But generally, their most hindering character trait is
gossiping, and therefore they cannot be allowed to know the secret work of the
order also. The German brethren did not even invent a substitute of lasting
importance for the women. Of course, there have always been attempts in
Masonic history, and also in German Masonic history, to establish clubs, circles,
and orders for women, but they have nothing to do with real Freemasonry.
We can compare this statement to the reasoning of male Masons in our
chapters on mixed American rituals, the Order of the Eastern Star and the
Amaranth. The American brethren have invented androgynous orders to provide
the whining women with a substitute, a kind of Masonry for their own use. They
assigned to the women the role of giving and receiving charity. In the late 1800s,
when these American co-Masonic orders were founded, the state did not provide
social insurance, and therefore it was important for male Masons, who had a
fraternal benefit system, to make sure that their female relatives were equally
well protected. Thus, they gave them some nice Biblical ceremony and some
very secret hand signs and passwords, so that the women "could make
themselves known" to a Masonic brother when they were in distress.
Furthermore, they were pacified and could play their own "ritual." This was
certainly a good thing in those times, but nowadays? We are not arguing that the
233 Fluhrer, p. 12.