Saturday November 25, 2017
The story cooked up by the Sadducees leaves a bad taste in the mouth, for it reveals their society’s attitude towards women. In constructing the story, did they ever think how the woman would have felt? Was she a mere object to be bought and sold successively by the brothers? How terrible would the woman have felt at not being able to mother a child! Did anyone ask her if she wanted to go on marrying endlessly? The final question to Jesus—to which of the brothers the woman would be wife, in the resurrection?—smacks of callous attitude towards the woman who is given no say in her life. If someone has any doubt as to how the woman in the story would have felt, it is enough to read in the book of Tobit the suicidal thoughts of Sarah who had been married to seven husbands who died on her (3:7-15).
Thankfully, things are different in the resurrected life. Everyone is a son or daughter of God with equal dignity. There are no marriages forced on anyone. If the Church is a foretaste of the life in heaven, we can perhaps anticipate the heavenly life amidst us by giving greater respect, dignity, and role for women in the Church.
