Die ersten Erwähnungen von Frauen in frühen masonischen Schriften

 

 

S. Brent Morris: The Post Boy Sham Exposure of 1723

Heredom, Volume 7, 1998, 22-23.

 

 

[17] Q. What's the Reason Women are not admitted into your Society?

A. Because they can't keep a Secret.

 

Only two catechisms contain any reason for limiting masonic membership to men, and both seem designed to hurt the fraternity.One says women are “incapable of Fellowship” and the other that their “innate curiosity” secluded the mysteries of masonry from them.

 

These mean Wretches … are egg’d on by some silly Women, who (because for good Reasons their Sex are by the Constitutions judged incapable of Fellowship) are therefore nettled and seek revenge.

A Mason’s Examination, 1723, EMC pp. 71-2

 

The women, in particular, have a strange Opinion of them [Freemasons]; by them they are concluded utter Enemies to the Fair Sex, who, for the generality, have them in the greatest Abhorence.…

That the Ladies are a little jealous of the Fraternity is natural, from their Innate Curiosity, by reason the Mysteries of Masonry are secluded from that Sex.…

Free-Masons Accusation and Defence, 1726 (EMP, pp. 159, 161)

 

 

EMC =

Douglas Knoop, Gwilym Peredur Jones, Douglas Hamer: The Early Masonic Catechisms (1696-1731). Manchester: Manchester University Press 1943, 2. Aufl. 1963 ergänzt von Harry Carr, erneut 1969.

 

EMP=

Douglas Knoop, Gwilym Peredur Jones, Douglas Hamer (Hrsg.): Early Masonic Pamphlets. 1638-1735. Machester: Manchester University Press 1945; erneut London: Q. C. Correspondence Circle 1978.