ABSTRACT
Admonitions about silence directed at women are many and have a long history in Western as well as non-Western cultures, as is obvious from my opening quotation. Aristotle proclaimed silence as “women’s glory.” The New Testament, by implication directed to a male readership, says: “Let your women keep silence in churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak…. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church” (I Cor. 14:3435). A male audience is also implicit in the medieval handbook written in 1523 by Vives on the topic of Christian female institutions that says, “Let few see her and none at all hear her. There is nothing that so soon
casts the mind of the husband from his wife as does much scolding and chiding, and her mischievous tongue” (Baron, 1986, p. 57). The Bedou-ins describe the ideal woman as having a soft voice and not a long tongue. The Prophet Muhammad says that a woman’s tongue is what keeps her from entering heaven. In medieval woodcuts and paintings the Virtue Prudence is portrayed as a housewife with a padlock on her mouth, and Obedience puts a finger to her lips.
