These were moments of clarity, of revolution, and of also an era where the woman's place was beyond that of a second-class citizen. She held no power or esteem or even hope:.
They became the property of men, were excluded from most professions, and were subjected to the sometimes-draconian control of their husbands in some of the ancient law code. Elite women managed to hold on to some shreds of power, but in the Axial countries women suffered a further loss of status at about the time that the Buddha was preaching in India (Buddha, p.155).
To say the least, as much as the Western mind may abhor the virtual abandonment by Gautama of his family, during the Axial Age, it was far from unusual and may even have been given a glint of the approving eye.
Reports and interpretations abound as to whether or not the Buddha truly meant for women to be able to attain Nirvana or whether or not women could even be decent disciples. Once females became monks or, bhikkhunis,.
the Buddha praised their spiritual attainments, said that they could become the equals of the monks, and prophesied that he would not die until he had enough wise monks and nuns, lay men and lay women followers. (Buddha, p.153).
On the other hand, Gautama was not enthralled always with the prospect of having a woman monk or follower. Initially, according to Karen Armstrong as she writes in Buddha, a family member begged to join and he refused. She was persistent and still Gautama refused to allow her to join. Finally she begged one of Gautama's greatest pupil's Ananda to persuade Gautama for her to enter. Finally, the Buddha relented upon her accepting eight pathetically strict rules, all of which portrayed the attitudes of the Axial Age toward women and women's subservient role in Buddhist society:.