Women Likely More Than Religion

 

Religion is not the chief reason for war. It is probably more likely to be the case that women are more likely to be the reason for war. From something I am publishing soon,  

“What else is war, but the desire to steal, kill and destroy? It may not be true of both sides, at least not initially, but the longer the war goes on the more even the defensive side will find itself seeking to steal, and of course how can it win without seeking to kill and destroy? Violence, rape and pillaging are synonymous with war. Ancient peoples went to war to steal women from other tribes, this is true from the ancient Aryans to the pre-Colonial Indigenous tribes. Indeed, the historian Keith Windschuttle shows in his book The Fabrication of Indigenous History Volume 1324 that the theft of women was one of the primary motivations for war among the various bands of Indigenous tribes in Tasmania. Another primary motivation was revenge on other tribes and bands because they had attacked and stolen their women and children. But this is by no means limited to primitive band level societies.

In the Scriptures, we see that the Benjamites are allowed to attack a fellow Israelite tribe to get wives for their men. The Romans in the classical poetic story The Aeneid are likewise recorded as going to war with a local Latin tribe to get wives for their men. The most famous ancient battle of the B.C. era was the battle of Troy, which was all over a beautiful woman stolen by one man from another. And everyone knows about the Vikings, Scythians, Parthians, Mongols and other raiding peoples who made a speciality of such practices during history. It may even be not very hard to prove that the pursuit of women, in one form or another, is the primary reason for war in history. If not, it certainly is true that theft in the broader sense is, and stealing women was part of this. This is all according to the pattern of how the evil one works. It is done in his image.

There is war over women, war over water, war over arable land, war over grazing land, war over development land, and war over resources to name a few. I can think of several television shows on at this time of writing that are all about this very sort of conflict; war over honour, war over pride, war just because war is what princes and kings did. As scripture describes, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go to battle…”325 This happens on the small scale in counties like the Lincoln County Wars in nineteenth century America, and it happens on a large scale between cities, states, nations and empires.”

Land, riches and women, in any order, were probably the three chief reasons for war in history. And land and riches got a man more access to women, historically. They do today as well. Oh, and of course glory and fame, which had the side benefit of getting a man land, riches and women.  

What is fascinating also about this topic is the fact that it was Christianity, and Christianity alone, that stopped women being the rightful spoils of war, and turned harming or taking women in war into a war crime. This was achieved by medieval monks who forced the Knights of Europe to submit to the codes of Chivalry which made sure they protected women in war, and did not exploit them.

This then spread around the world as a result of European Colonialism and international agreements, based on things like the Geneva convention in modern times, but even earlier with the European Colonial codes of warfare, which included mandates to protect civilians.

Without Christianity every woman in the world would be in danger of being kidnapped or pillaged still. And yet people try to pin war on Christianity in particular and religion in general. The gall of some people.