The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American

by Andrew L. Seidel

To question woman’s place was to question “God’s plan.” As with slavery, religion might not have been the root cause, but it provided an unassailable moral justification for diminishing half the population. For instance, when Myra Bradwell decided she wanted to practice law, the Illinois Supreme Court told her that, as a woman, she was unfit. This 1872 decision rested partly on the fact “that God designed the sexes to occupy different spheres of action, and that it belonged to men to make, apply, and execute the laws.” When it upheld the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision, the US Supreme Court quoted this “axiomatic truth.”27 Concurring in that decision, Justice Joseph Bradley added, “The family organization, which is founded in the divine ordinance…is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband…. The paramount destiny and mission of woman are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator.”28