Society, Patriarchy And The Church In The Subjugation Of The Woman In Worship: The Case Of Trousers In Full Gospel Churches, Mumias

ABSTRACT

The world of the twenty first century today has many achievements yet as the saying

goes; the more things change the more they remain the same. This seems to be the

case in matters of dress especially in reference to women‟s attire. The society seems

to dictate on who dons in what. The Christian scriptures do not seem to give a

normative direction in matters of donning in general and women‟s dress in particular.

The main objective of this study was to examine the extent to which the attitude

towards donning trousers among women in Mumias sub-county Full Gospel Churches

of Kenya was a gender negation rather than a Biblical position. To achieve this, the

study examined the Biblical teaching on donning generally, and for women in

particular. The study further evaluated the relationship between the church and the

larger society, on the one hand, and the Biblical position on the other hand, towards

trousers as worn by women in Church during worship. The literature review was

carried out using themes drawn from the objectives. The study was guided by the

liberal feminism theory. This theory was used to establish if there were individual

rights and equal opportunities as a basis for social justice and reform in Mumias Full

Gospel Churches. This study adopted descriptive survey design to present data thus it

was involved in studying the situation as it is in an attempt to explain why the

situation is the way it is. The sampling techniques were stratified random sampling,

purposive and simple random sampling. Purposive sampling was used to select the

clergy and their spouses, stratified random sampling was used to select the

representative sample from the target population of the general faithful and the simple

random technique was used to sample respondents for the Focus Group Discussion.

The study instruments were interview schedule, questionnaires, Focus Group

Discussions and document review. The validity of the instruments was established

through content validity by experts from the school arts and religious studies,

Masinde Muliro University. The study found out that there is gender bias against

women in church. Patriarchy of the African society had been carried to, and

perpetuated by the church through formulation of rules and erroneous interpretation of

the Bible to favor paternalistic positions on issues of donment translating to a church

that is oppressive to the womenfolk. The study recommended that Mumias FGCK

should initiate training programs for the clergy and other leaders in hermeneutics and

exegesis for better leadership and training skills on matters of donment, women

should be allowed freedom of choice according to the constitution and that Mumias

FGCK should expose its adherents to the church constitution by making it easily

accessible and practice its contents especially on matters of donment. This study shall

add to the existing pool of knowledge in Religious and Gender studies, assist in

FGCK policy formation and bring about liberation to oppressed women