A feminist reaction to the parable of the Prodigal Son

The story of the prodigal son from the Gospel of Luke is one of many encounters with a male-centered parable told by Christ. This furthers the overall masculist ethos of scripture. Christian scripture was written by men toward a male-dominant society featuring a male incarnation of Christ which presents problems for women who study and encounter the Bible. As Rosemary Radford Ruether points out:

“A Christology that identified the maleness of the historical Jesus with normative humanity and with the maleness of the divine Logos must move in an increasingly misogynist direction that not only excludes woman as representative of Christ in ministry but makes her a second-class citizen in both creation and redemption.”1

The theme of redemption found in the parable of the prodigal son is directly related to the fact that the story uses three male characters as the primary players. What if the prodigal child was a daughter and not a son? The society around which scripture was built would never have seen a daughter even consider demanding an inheritance because she would not be entitled to one. If the daughter were to leave sans inheritance then return, the interaction between father and daughter would have possibly looked something like this:

“When she had spent what little money she had, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and she began to be in need. No one would hire her because she was a woman from a foreign land, even though she was well versed in the tasks of daily life. So she was forced to sell herself into prostitution because her body was the only thing the men around her saw as having worth. She was beaten, abused, and raped for a poor pittance. And eventually she thought, were she to return home, at the very least she would be welcomed into her father’s house as the lowest of servants.

But as she approached the house, she saw no sign of her father, for he was not waiting daily for her return. When finally she approached the door of her father’s home and knocked, a maidservant answered. The daughter asked to speak to her father, her head hung in shame. Her father appeared and she fell to the ground before him and cried out, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your daughter. I have lived in debauchery and have sold my body to save my life time again.’ Her father stood in silence before her, his eyes narrowed and his arms crossed. ‘Let me be as one of your hired maidservants. I will work your fields and tend your home.’ But her father no longer saw his daughter but a harlot who had given herself up, and he called for her to be stoned immediately in accordance with the law.”

A woman may be able to see the lesson of redemption being presented through the parable today, but the concept of redemption by a father for sins such as those implied of the prodigal son would be unimaginable for a woman during the time of Jesus. There would be no inheritance. There would be no forgiveness.

There is, however, redemption of a different kind. Mary Ann Beavis reminds us of a passage earlier in the Gospel of Luke where a woman of ill repute comes to Jesus and anoints him with oil.2 Even if the story was told about a prodigal daughter who was stoned upon her return, I believe Jesus would have been able to reframe that story as one of empowerment for women. When the woman comes to anoint Jesus in the seventh chapter of Luke, he lifts her up before all the men around and anoints her with his words of affirmation. This outpouring of love shows that God is not like the father in my story but rather the father that girl deserved. Whether the prodigal child is male or female, the divine Parent waits with outstretched arms and runs to meet the long lost child.

[1] Rosemary Radford Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 134-135.

[2] Mary Ann Beavis, “’Making Up Stories’: A Feminist Reading of the Parable of Prodigal Son,” in The Lost Coin: Parables of Women, Work and Wisdom, ed. Mary Ann Beavis (New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 99.