Bloodlines: Purity, Warfare, and the Procreative Family in the Old English Bede

Abstract

Completed in 731, Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica (hereafter HE) is perhaps the magnum opus of its period for both its scope and influence. Not only does the HE provide far and away the most important account of seventh-century Britain—the century in which several English kingdoms converted to Christianity—but it has also shaped how we understand early England. Through his account of the Christian conversion and events of English history from the Roman invasion of Britain in 60 BCE to the ascension of Ceolwulf as King of the Northumbrians in 729 and the death of Archbishop Berhtwold in 731, Bede distinguished himself as the preeminent author in early eighth-century Britain and earned praise on the continent as well. It may be needless to say that Bede constructed and shaped his text with the sources available to him and by the Roman leanings of his home monastery, where he lived from age seven. And this monastic background reminds us that Bede consciously composed a moral history. In fact, Bede makes these moral leanings explicit in a dedicatory letter to King Ceolfrith, in which he promotes history as a genre concerned with the “imitandum bonum . . . deuitando quod noxium est ac peruersum” (imitating of the good . . . [and the] avoiding of the harmful and perverse) as well as the “exsequenda ea quae bona ac Deo digna esse” (pursuit of what is good and worthy with respect to God).1 Given Bede's insistence on history's moral edification, it is no surprise that this function is preserved in the text's translation into Old English.Completed in the late ninth or early tenth century, the Old English Bede (hereafter OEB) offers a vernacular translation of the HE that survives in several manuscripts.2 Given the OEB's dating, many scholars have raised the possibility of the OEB's participation in Alfred's educational program and the promotion of a national English identity. Perhaps most famously, Patrick Wormald argued for a highly political reading of the OEB, in which Alfred translated the HE in order to promote his agenda and concept of a “defining English national identity and national destiny.”3 Several scholars have followed Wormald's thesis, including Sarah Foot, who suggested that the OEB was translated as part of Alfred's program in order to promote a cohesive identity. For Foot, the OEB participates in Alfred's political agenda by figuring the “English as a political community” with a shared Christian history.4 More recently, Nicole Guenther Discenza asserts that the OEB sought to create the illusion of continuity between the two texts in order to support “the same sense of English history, and English pride to which the other translations [of Alfred's program] appealed.”5Recently, others have been less certain. Greg Waite argues that there is little evidence suggesting Alfred commissioned the OEB and follows claims by George Molyneaux and Sharon Rowley that the “translator's abridgements and adaptations indicate his interest in the religious and pastoral potential of the text rather than the historico-political.”6 Further, Molyneaux contends that many arguments aligning the OEB with Alfred's program and national agenda rely on an assumption that the OEB is a faithful and complete translation of the HE.7 In an analysis of the HE and OEB's differences, Molyneaux argues that the translation was likely produced as an educational text for Christian instruction rather than for the promotion of a political English identity.8 Like Molyneaux, we are interested in a comparison of the HE and OEB and what their differences teach us about concerns and ideals of Christian behavior in the late ninth- and the first half of tenth-century England. In adding to the recent turn away from the political and national concerns of the OEB, we examine the religious and moral aspects of the text. The representation of sexual practices, especially procreative sex, offers a productive means of analyzing the texts’ investment in what constitutes proper Christian behavior. We approach the representation of sex as figured through bloodlines—and the procreative practices they imply—in order to interrogate concepts of Christian virtue in the late ninth- and the first half of tenth-century England. While both the HE and the OEB condemn sex and the consequent bloodlines of procreative family, the polemic against procreative sex becomes magnified in the later vernacular translation.In this essay, we wish to consider both texts’ representations of sex and bloodlines and their relationship to concepts of Christian virtue. To be clear, here and elsewhere, we use the term “sex” as a category that “focuses attention on the body, especially the organs and mental processes related to reproduction and sexual desire, as well as the social and emotional attachments that are generated in connection with reproduction.”9 As an understudied aspect of medieval historiography, sex offers a critical category of analysis for thinking about the collective identities in early medieval England; sex and sexual politics are always part of morality, and sexual relations are intricately tied to the well-being of larger institutions and ideologies, especially within the period of Reform Christianity in late ninth- and tenth-century England. The study of sexual practices in historiographies helps us think about collectivities of Christian identity. Texts such as the HE and OEB “were used in Anglo-Saxon England (as they are still used) with the aim of creating community according to a certain vision and, as part of that work shaping sex and sexuality, among other behaviors, identities and ideas.”10 We argue here that while both the HE and the OEB present instruction on Christian behavior, the instruction becomes increasingly prohibitive against procreative sex in the OEB; the OEB shapes a community explicitly against sex and sexual practices deemed incommensurate with Christian virtue. We are not interested in making claims about the OEB's or its translator's master argument, nor are we interested in charting a hierarchy of procreative families and spiritual families. Rather, our goal in writing this essay is to expose the OEB's treatment of bloodlines as a problematic, disruptive product of procreative sex.Bloodlines articulate the relationship of an individual to the family, trace the production of progeny, and provide a basis for inheritance and the expansion of a family's land and power. In early medieval England, two essential elements contributed to the health of bloodlines: warfare and marital contracts—with their implied sexual relations. However, these elements so vital to the health and generation of bloodlines were also incommensurate with early Christian concepts of virtue. While the HE and OEB feature many descriptions of bloodlines, we focus on representations of procreative sex in the OEB and how these representations compare with those in the HE. At the risk of being repetitive, we offer close readings that compare the HE with the OEB in several key moments related to bloodlines and procreative sex in order to lay bare the degree to which the OEB condemns procreative bloodlines.As a political history, Bede's HE necessarily presented the history of powerful families—hence the inclusion of marriages and war—but as an “ecclesiastical” history its main purpose was to present the progress, possibly the triumph, of the Church. Significantly, Bede presents this progress as a process of conversion that includes the rejection of both the blood of procreation and also the blood of warfare. Since conversion often began with kings and queens in Bede's time, and the Church required the financial sponsorship and legal protection of the nobility, the representation of conversion in both the HE and the OEB necessarily involves the intersection of the ecclesiastical and the secular nobility.11 Conversion of the nobility also meant conversion of their moral behavior as defined by Christian concepts of virtue; however, such expectations oppose the very practices that predicate the nobility's influence. The nobility's power relied on marriage, progeny, and property, and the increase in power was often achieved through strategies that included marital alliances rather than strictly monogamous coupling—and, at times, even the retention of a marital alliance by the marriage of a son to his widowed stepmother. Such strategies stand in opposition to Christian values concerning sex and marriage, and we must understand that Bede represents these conflicts and tensions from a monastic's point of view. Specifically, Bede interrelates issues of sexual purity with the difficulties of heterosexual, politically motivated marriages and the territorial desires of kings, and associates bloodlines with compromises and even disasters in political rule. These troubled representations of bloodlines across the HE and OEB are what we wish to emphasize. In doing so, our goal is to lay bare the ways in which the OEB's polemic against procreative families is continuous with the HE—and, at times, even more explicit—in its rejection of bloodlines.In the HE and OEB, kings are necessarily and ironically at the center of the rejection of bloodlines: necessarily, because kings provide political support and physical protection for individuals and institutions of the Church, and their conversions establish the religions of their kingdoms; ironically, because, while kings are expected to make heirs and war, the kings who are Bede's heroes step away from these modes of life by entering monasteries or by dedicating their offspring to the Church. Whether the descriptions of these political rejections of bloodlines signal Bede's conscious plan or the inevitable result of his monastic upbringing and own religious desires is unclear. Certainly, Bede's history includes sons and daughters; Bede cannot tell the stories of dynastic growth and conflicts without including marriages and offspring.12 Nonetheless, Bede employs such narratives surrounding blood relations in order to demonstrate that true conversion includes the recognition that the procreative family is at odds with Christian virtue. This conflict between the secular and spiritual family is first figured in the representation of Saint Alban, the first British martyr. Both the HE and the OEB recount a confrontation between St. Alban and a Roman judge who was persecuting Christians during Diocletian's reign. When the judge asks Alban to identify himself according to his familiae and hiredes, or “family” (HE, I.7.30–31; OEB I.7.36–37),13 Alban declares that his stock does not matter since he is a Christian, as told by the HE: “Quid ad te pertinet qua stirpe sim genitus? Sed si ueritatem religionis audire desideras, Christianum iam me esse Christianisque officiis uacare cognosce” (What concern is it of yours to know my parentage? If you wish to hear the truth about my religion, know that I am now a Christian and am ready to do a Christian's duty) (I.7.30–31, our emphasis). In Alban's response, “genitus” introduces procreation directly as “gigno gignere,” meaning “to beget,” and “sed” opposes “ueritatem religionis”—“the truth of religion”—to the merely physical identity of birth. Here, Alban declares his true identity as “Christian,” inserting “iam me esse” between “Christianum” and “Christianisque.” Finally, Bede suggests that by shedding his birth identity, Alban has freed himself from familial obligations, making himself at liberty—“uacare”—for Christian service. Notably, the OEB preserves Alban's denial of the procreative family, as Alban tells the judge: “þonne wite þu me cristene beon: ⁊ ic cristenum þenungum ðeowian wylle” (then know that I am a christian, and will devote myself to christian services) (I.7.36–37).14 Here, the OEB twice emphasizes Alban's spiritual identity by placing his identifying pronoun—“me” and “ic”—alongside “christian,” even though the grammatical function of the adjective shifts. The intensity of Alban's relationship to his Christian identity magnifies his previous dismissal of his bloodlines in favor of his Christian “family.”Alban's rejection of his family foretells the texts’ continued treatment of bloodlines: purity and pollution oppose each other, and the procreative family is the battleground. One important complex of stories demonstrating this tension between the spiritual and procreative family centers on Oswiu, king of Northumbria, and his brother, the saintly Oswald—who had been killed by the Mercian king, Penda. When Bede first introduces Oswiu as king of the Northumbrians, he describes his reign as laboriosissime, or “troubled” (HE, III.14.254–55), and gewinnesfullice, or “full of conflict” (OEB, III.12.192–93). Immediately following said description is a series of people who have attacked him—a list riddled with kin relationships emphasized by the alliteration of the words of and relating to “brother,” “son,” and “nephew,” as seen in both the HE and OEB: inpugnatus uidelicet et ab ea, quae fratrem eius occiderat, pagana gente Merciorum et a filio quoque suo Alhfrido necnon et a fratruo, id est fratris sui qui ante eum regnauit filio, Oidilualdo. (HE, III.14.254–55, our emphasis)(He was attacked by the heathen people, the Mercians, who had slain his brother, and in addition, by his own son Alhfrith and his nephew, Oethelwald, the son of his brother and predecessor.)Feaht him on ⁊ wonn Penda se cyning ⁊ seo hæðne þeod Mercna; swelce eac his agen sunu Alhfrið⁊Æðelwald his broðor sunu, se ær him riice hæfde. (OEB, III.12.192–93, our emphasis)(King Penda and the heathen people of the Mercians assailed and fought with him, as well as his own son Ahlfrith, and Æthelwald, son of the brother who reigned before him.)Just as the HE's alliterative emphasis on “fratrem,” “filio,” “fratruo,” and “fratris” highlight the familial discord cause by bloodlines, the OEB follows closely, in the juxtaposition of the two phrases “his agen sunu Alhfrið ⁊ Æðelwald his broðor sunu,” in which the emphasis on “sunu” and “broðor sunu” are underlined by the initial assonance of “Alhfrið” and “Æðelwald.” The placing of blood relations in the context of such political hostility signals both texts’ polemic against the family matrix and its incommensurability with spiritual peace.In another story recounting the familial conflicts of Oswiu's reign, Bede illustrates the degree of political treachery possible between cousins. In this episode, it should be noted that the OEB makes visible the familial ties between these cousins whereas the HE neglects to explicitly mention their relationship—instead the HE emphasizes the degraded nature of Oswiu's political acts against Oswine: Habuit autem Osuiu primis regni sui temporibus consortem regiae dignitatis, uocabulo Osuini, de stirpe regis Eduini, hoc est filium Osrici . . . virum eximiae pietatis et religionis, qui prouinciae Derorum septem annis in maxima omnium rerum affluentia, et ipse amabilis omnibus, praefuit. (HE, III.14.256–57)(At the beginning of his reign Oswiu had as a partner in the royal dignity a man called Oswine, of the family of King Edwin, a son of Osric. . . . He was a man of great piety and religion and ruled the kingdom of Deira for seven years in the greatest prosperity, beloved by all.)The designation, “of the family of King Edwin,” is the single indicator of Oswiu and Oswine's blood ties. Oswine was “of the family of King Edwin” because his father's father, Ælfric (also known as Æthelric in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle), was brother to Ælle, Edwin's father. Identifying Oswine as part of Edwin's family places Oswine closer to Oswiu, as Edwin's sister was Oswiu's mother and Edwin's daughter was Oswiu's wife. The HE does not specify these particular relationships, but the text does emphasize the piety and general worthiness of Oswine as a ruler of Deira, Oswiu's difficulty in coexisting peaceably with Oswine, and Oswiu's responsibility for Oswine's murder. The HE clearly sets up the problem as deriving from a desire for power over a wider region. Edwin had ruled over all of Northumbria, as had Oswald, but Oswiu at the beginning of his reign ruled only Bernicia while Oswine had Deira. As Bede explains: “Sed nec cum eo ille qui ceteram Transhumbranae gentis partem ab aquilone, id est Berniciorum prouinciam, regebat, habere pacem potuit; quin potius, ingrauescentibus causis dissensionum, miserrima hunc caede peremit” (But Oswiu, who ruled over the rest of the northern land beyond the Humber, that is the kingdom of Bernicia, could not live at peace with him. The causes of dissension increased so greatly that Oswiu cruelly made an end of him) (HE, III.14.256–57). By contrast, the OEB makes the familial relation between Oswiu and Oswine explicit. The OEB states that Oswine was “æfest ⁊ arfæst, ⁊ forðon eallum his leodum leof” (just and pious, and for this beloved by all his people) (III.14.194–95), but he could not keep peace with his cousin and coruler, creating a state of unsibb, or “strife” (III.14.194–95). While the word “unsibb” can mean “un-peace,” the term also plays on the phrase “un-cousinly” as the root “sibb” also means “related, akin,” “kinsman,” and sibling.15 (Note that the Modern English “sibling” derives from this root.) By foregrounding the bloodlines shared by Oswiu and Oswine, the OEB emphasizes the place of bloodlines within this political conflict.As political troubles mount between Oswiu and Oswine, both the HE and OEB demonstrate that these kings’ shared bloodlines cannot ensure peace. After both kings gather armies and prepare for battle, something remarkable happens: Oswine discovers he is overpowered, and he attempts to withdraw. He sends his troops home and leaves with a thane he considers most faithful in order to hide in the home of a companion who had been loyal; “but,” as both the Latin and Old English versions state, “it was far otherwise.”16 The reeve of the companion, together with the thane, betray Oswine, who dies a “shameful death.”17 Both texts highlight the travesty of the conflict between ruling cousins and also the treachery of Oswine's slaughter through their accounts of Oswiu's consequent penance; the HE and OEB follow Oswine's death with an account of Oswiu's construction of a monastery: in quo pro utriusque regis, et occisi uidelicet et eius qui occidere iussit, animae redemtione cotidie Domino preces offerri deberent. (HE, III.14.256–57)(in which prayers were to be offered daily to the Lord for the redemption of the souls of both kings, the murdered king and the one who ordered the murder.)in þæm for æghwæðres cyninges sawle alesnesse, ge þæs ofslegenan ge þæs þe hine slean het, dæghwamlice Drihtne bene ⁊ gebedo borene beon scoldon. (OEB, III.12.194–95)(in which daily prayer and supplication should be offered to the Lord for the deliverance of the souls of both kings, the one that was slain and the one who ordered his slaying.)Here, both texts figure the death of Oswine as no more a political than a moral victory for Oswiu, for it appears that Oethelwald, Oswald's son and Oswiu's nephew, reigns next over Deira rather than Oswiu.18Bloodlines and the marital relations that contribute to the web of familial ties repeatedly prove dysfunctional throughout the HE and OEB—even in instances in which marital contracts facilitate the spread of Christianity. Perhaps Bede's most famous example of such instances is the marriage between Bertha of Paris and Æthelberht of Kent. As is well known, the marriage of the Frankish princess to the pagan Æthelberht was contingent on the promise she could continue to practice Christianity, creating an auspicious union for the conversion of England. Nevertheless, it takes many years and the mission of Augustine of Canterbury before Æthelberht converts to his wife's faith. Even then, his son, Eadbald, remains pagan for at least some time, marrying his widowed stepmother. Further, when Æthelberht's daughter, Æthelburh, is married off to Edwin of Northumbria, Edwin's path to Christianity takes many years, letters from the Pope, and a miraculously avoided assassination attempt before he converts, along with his kingdom. Even more complicated are the marital relations between the families of the Christian Oswiu and Penda, his pagan, Mercian enemy. In an attempt to create peace between the two feuding families, Oswiu marries off his son Alhfrith to Penda's daughter Cyneburh and his daughter to her brother Peada. However, before Oswiu permits that marriage, he requires that Peada convert to Christianity—a conversion made easier, Bede tells us, because of Peada's friendship with Alhfrith. Despite the promising beginnings of such marriage alliances, peace and Christian brotherhood do not follow.The newly forged familial ties between Oswiu and Peada do not prevent Penda from attacking Oswiu and pursuing Mercian dominance over Northumbria: blood on the battlefield triumphs over the bonds of marital unions. As Penda had already killed Oswiu's brother, the marital contracts between the two families did little to meliorate their military competition and perhaps only complicated their relations. Indeed, when Oswiu and one son, Alhfrith, take on Penda with a very small army, another son—Ecgfrith, Bede tells us—is taken to Mercia as a hostage with Penda's queen, Cynewis. Meanwhile, Oswiu's nephew, Æthelwald, fights against his uncle. This nephew proves particularly problematic: Æthelwald is the son of Oswald, the saintly brother of Oswiu who had been slain by Penda. The HE and OEB make a point of this nephew's problematic loyalties: Oidiluald, qui eis auxilio esse debuerat, in parte erat aduersariorum, eisdemque contra patriam et patruum suum pugnaturis ductor extiterat, quamuis ipso tempore pugnandi sese pugnae subtraxerat, euentumque discriminis tuto in loco exspectabat (HE, III.24.290–91)(Oethelwald, who ought to have helped them, was on the side of his foes and was leading the enemies of his own uncle and of his native land)Æþelwald þonne Oswaldes sunu þæs cyninges, se þe him on fultome beon sceolde, se wæs in þara wiðerweardra dæle ⁊ feaht ⁊ wonn wið his eðle⁊wið his fædran. (OEB, III.18.236–37, our emphasis)(Moreover Æthelwald, son of king Oswald, who should have aided him, was on the side of his adversaries, and fought and strove against his country and his uncle.)Not only ought he have helped, but Æthelwald also fights against fatherland and uncle, an unsavory conjunction emphasized by the HE's alliteration of “patriam” and “patruum” with “pugnaturis.” Here, the corruption signaled by the repetition in “pugnandi” and “pugnae” is coupled with “subtraxerat,” presenting Æthelwald as both traitor and coward.19 As seen above, this travesty of familial relations is preserved in OEB: the “fultome” that should have been is replaced by “feaht,” and the “feaht” is against his “fædran.” However, this familial conflict is magnified through the OEB's repetition of the preposition “wið,” which emphasizes their opposition. These family members that should stand with one another instead fight against one another. According to the story, Oswiu only wins the battle against his nephew and enemies because he had vowed to consecrate his infant daughter to the Church—a strategy to which we return below. Notably, after Oswiu wins the battle and Penda dies, we learn that marital ties between the two kings’ families do, in fact, facilitate the spread of Christianity: Oswiu converts the Mercians and grants his son-in-law, Peada, the kingdom of southern Mercia. But, as the HE and OEB quickly remind us, such bloodlines rarely lead to peace. Once again, the feud between the two families turns bloody at Easter when Peada is killed. While neither text states the identity of Peada's murderer with complete certainty, both imply he suffered betrayal at the hands of his own wife and Oswiu's daughter, Ahlflæd.20In the HE and OEB, the only alternative to the bloody mess of the family and the battlefield is the monastery. Oswiu's abovementioned donation of his infant daughter to the Church offers a perfect example of this point. Once Oswiu believes that Penda's army has overpowered him, and after failing to buy peace through tribute, Oswiu vows to dedicate his daughter in perfect virginity to the Church if granted victory: “Si paganus” inquit “nescit accipere nostra donaria, offeramus ei, qui nouit, Domino Deo nostro.” Vouit ergo quia, si uictor existeret, filiam suam Domino sacra uirginitate dicandam offerret, simul et XII possessiones praediorum ad construenda monasteria donaret.21 (HE, III.24.290–91)(“If the heathen foe will not accept our gifts, let us offer them to Him who will, even the Lord our God.” So he vowed that if he gained the victory he would dedicate his daughter to the Lord as a holy virgin and give twelve small estates to build monasteries.)Ond he þa gehet, gif Drihten him sige sellan wolde, þæt he wolde his dohtor Gode forgeofan ⁊ gehalgian in clænum mægðhade; ond swelce eac twelf boclanda æhte þæt he Gode geaf mynster on to timbrenne. (OEB, III.18.234–37)(And he vowed, if the Lord would give him victory, to present his daughter to God and consecrate her as a pure virgin; and also to give a possession of twelve boclands to God for the erection of a monastery.)Both texts oppose blood relations and warfare with the dedication of a virgin daughter to God. In addition to the donation of Oswiu's infant daughter, both accounts list an accompanying donation of twelve estates for the construction of monasteries, which are described as spiritual havens dedicated to the promotion of peace.22 In the HE and OEB, the monastic life provides an escape from bloodlines and warfare both in point of fact for monks and nuns and also through the belief that dedication to prayer can produce peace for an entire people. Underlying this logic is the social and cultural complex that implicates the production and reproduction of dynastic families with warfare and land: blood on the battlefields merges with bloodlines, as ties of the procreative family are transfigured into the spiritual family of the Church. The monastery provides an alternative within which even family members who are related by blood can be reunited, in effect translating the bloodlines of the political sphere to the monastic sphere. For instance, we are told the infant Ælfflæd was eventually reunited with her mother, Queen Eanflæd, when they became coabbesses of Whitby and later in burial with her father, her mother's father, King Edwin, “and many other nobles.”23The majority of the HE and OEB's accounts of bloody, familial dysfunction appear in Book III, and the major difference between these two texts occurs at the end of Book III. Located after the OEB's accounts of the dangers of bloodlines is the Libellus responsionum (hereafter Libellus)—the pamphlet of answers from Pope Gregory the Great to Augustine of Canterbury, which circulated independently before its inclusion in the HE and also after the completion of OEB.24 In the HE, Bede positioned these letters in Book I, but the OEB's translator relocates the Libellus to the end of Book III—a disruption to a translation that is thus far nearly complete and literal.25 In her early study of the OEB, Dorothy Whitelock suggested the translator placed the Libellus in Book III as an afterthought as “There seems to be no logical reason for their removal from the proper place in Book I to a position between Books III and IV. It would appear that the translator decided to include them after he had already started book iii.”26 Molyneaux's work, however, argues that the inclusion of the Libellus at the end of Book III, “and the omission of other papal letters is consistent with the hypothesis that the OEB was concerned with promoting correct Christian behavior and belief.”27 We follow Molyneaux in reading the relocation of the Libellus to Book III as a purposeful structural change that not only marks the most significant difference between the HE and OEB, but also locates the Libellus in close proximity to the OEB's narratives of bloodlines incommensurate with Christian virtue. As Rowley hypothesizes, the OEB's translator may have intentionally shifted the placement of the Libellus to highlight similar concerns between it and Book III, which include stories of unlawful marriages.28 While we agree, we suggest that the Libellus's placement intends to make visible the ways in which the OEB offers an even more expressed polemic against sex and the procreative family than its Latin predecessor.The Libellus broached a range of issues important to Augustine's mission, including the relation of the new diocese to one in Gaul, the missionaries’ living circumstances, and, most important for our purposes, questions regarding appropriate sexual practice. Such questions on sexual practice include inquiries on whether two sisters can marry two brothers and whether or not is it lawful to marry a stepmother—a practice common among Germanic peoples, which Bede and other ecclesiastical writers object to strenuously. The last two questions of the Libellus—numbers VIII and IX—concern fundamental matters regarding the relationship between the sexual body and sacred ritual and receive far and away the fullest answers. Number VIII addresses the potential for pollution from menstruation, sexual intercourse, and childbirth—largely as aspects of the female reproductive system—and IX discusses what we call today “wet dreams.” Rowley discusses the placement of the Libellus to the end of Book III in depth and focuses especially on the issues of female purity found in question VIII. She interprets the number of women included in Bede's stories of conversion and political relations as emphasizing “wives and daughters” as “agents of conversion.”29 Further, Rowley reads the responses to VIII as consonant with the ability of women to perform this role, “reiterat[ing] the importance of marriage and childbirth in th