Economics and Gender

With the issue of economics, I find that you can not separate them from gender. We find that Anabaptists were predominantly members of merchant class. Women were as much a part of the economic scene as perhaps they were in the 1950's. Women were weavers, grocers, writers, bakers. Marriage from very on was an economic union. During the time period dowrys were still en vogue, and many of the women who were put into convents were only allowed to do so with large dowrys.

Women were help mates to their husbands but as their husbands were taken off to face charges they were left to run the family business and raise their children. Women were prophetic voices in their community. They were not allowed to be preachers but they were allowed to bring to work of the Holy Spirit to the community and question its decision making.

The Anabaptist did pay taxes but with concern to war bonds and taxes supporting war they did not. This led to imprisonment. The anabaptist believed in radical discipleship and part of that discipleship was the sharing of what one had. According to the Anabaptist Network,

"Having ‘all things in common’ was not, in fact, the normal expression of economic discipleship among Anabaptists. The Moravian Hutterites developed ‘common purse’ communities, initially through necessity and increasingly on the basis of theological conviction and biblical interpretation (especially of Acts 2-4). The short-lived and disastrous Anabaptist uprising at Münster, which so alarmed English and other authorities, also imposed common ownership. But Swiss Brethren, Mennonites and most other Anabaptists practised ‘mutual aid’, continuing to own property but gladly making their resources available to brothers and sisters in need."

Would this work today? It has been tried especially int the 60's with issue of the commune. However, they didn't last. People seem capable to live in community only in spurts and often times out of desperation. The family seems to be the infrastructure that can last, not spiritual synthetic one, no matter how hard we try.