Freemasonry: A Very Short Introduction - Andreas Önnerfors 2017
Organization and development of female freemasonry
Brotherhood challenged
The first signs of female participation in freemasonry are recorded as occurring in France in the 1740s. A contemporary French exposure on masonic rituals, Le Parfait maçon, shows striking similarities to the rituals later used in adoption freemasonry. Finally, in 1745, the publication L’Ordre des Franc-Maçons trahi et le secret des Mopses revelée revealed, besides those of freemasonry, the secrets of the mixed-gender Order of Mopses. Allegedly founded in Vienna in 1738, the Order of Mopses imitated masonic ceremonies with a focus on the pug dog as a symbol of trust, affection, and fidelity. No matter how ridiculous a modern reader may initially find the rituals of this order (which eventually spread across Europe), it allowed a larger group of women to partake in the enlightened associational world that was previously kept almost completely exclusive to men. Women could develop agency in ceremonial functions, engage in the formal organization of sociability, and assume administrative responsibility in a private zone that was free of ordinary conventions. To a certain degree, privileged women already participated in courtly (frequently Arcadian) role-playing enacted within the imagined realm of classical literature. For instance, a mixed-gender Order of Amaranth was established in 1653 at the court of Queen Christina in Stockholm. However, these relaxations of strict etiquette were only extended to a select few among the high aristocracy.
The Order of Abelites, founded in 1746, and the Anti-Masonic Society, established in 1739, had similarities in that both were mixed-gender, emerged in lower social strata in Pietism, and criticized freemasonry for its exclusion of women. The ’Order of Oculists’, dating from the 1740s, argued similarly; their rituals were recently discovered in the ’Copiale’ manuscript, written entirely in cipher. Swedish proto-feminist author Hedvig Charlotta Nordenflycht established her own mixed-gender ’Ordre de la Resemblance’ in 1747, elaborating on the idea of equality and elective affinities among its members. Numerous other examples existed, demonstrating a considerable dynamic in mixed-gender or all-female sociability during the 18th century, promoted by the Enlightenment cult of emancipated friendship.
It is unclear whether the establishment of adoption freemasonry was in response to these earlier groups, but nonetheless from the mid-1760s onwards, well-composed rituals for female masonic lodges were being disseminated in manuscript and print form. Equally, there appeared to exist an affinity between those engaged in the dissemination of higher degrees and those involved in adoption freemasonry. In 1774, the GODF officially recognized adoption lodges and introduced standardized rituals, rules, and regulations for them. The word ’adoption’ was originally used as a synonym for ’initiation’, however in the new French model, female lodges were ’adopted’ by male lodges; male freemasons were allowed to visit adoption lodges where most if not all offices were occupied by women.
Until the French Revolution, court nobility dominated membership in adoption freemasonry. Lodges were also established outside of France, but documentary evidence of a warrant by the GODF has only been found in Stockholm. On his mesmerizing travels through Europe, the infamous mystic Cagliostro founded a lodge of adoption in Courland at the Baltic Sea and initiated women into his own ’Egyptian rite’. Almost at the same time, the masonic Knights Templar of the Strict Observance discussed the establishment of a female branch. Their elaborate plan—which was, however, never implemented—outlines female freemasonry in five degrees. In the supreme degree, the female candidate wears a ceremonial hat, symbolizing that she must be prepared to defend the privileges of the order in times of trouble. Without exaggerating the importance of this element of the ritual, it indicated a crossing of traditional gender roles, albeit a symbolic one. Female higher degrees, such as the Amazonnerie Anglaise, were eventually developed in which women occupied central positions and ritually expressed their casting off of male dominance. The sisters were instructed to study sciences and to use arms. It is possible that the increased tolerance towards women in freemasonry influenced the composition of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (1791), where female characters play a crucial role in the musical initiation drama.
After a hiatus in masonic activities in France due to the French Revolution, adoption masonry was revived under the auspices of the Empress Joséphine, highlighting the general function of freemasonry as an element of bourgeois elite sociability in Napoleonic France (see Figure 7). In general, however, female participation in freemasonry declined in Europe throughout the 19th century. In contrast, a female masonic body was created in the USA in 1850, the still-existing Order of the Eastern Star, with about one million members worldwide. Several other female orders that are closely associated with freemasonry also exist. In Scandinavia and northern Germany, the secretive Order of Maria (established in 1917) contains around 7,000 members and has grown considerably over the last three decades. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, founded by three freemasons in Britain at the end of the 19th century, allowed both female and male membership, since masculinity and femininity were esoterically interpreted as two poles of a single unity. Similar orders were established in Denmark, Sweden, and northern Germany around 1800, demonstrating that the ideas circulating in Western esotericism at that time generally furthered gender equality.
7. ’La Loge d’adoption’ (around 1824).
The largest and most influential mixed masonic order was Le Droit Humain (DH), established in 1893 as a consequence of the initiation of feminist leader Maria Deraismes into a male lodge in Paris. DH worked (and still works) with the male rituals, and expanded its dissemination considerably with the initiation of theosophist, writer, and social activist Annie Besant in 1902. Over the course of fifteen years, Besant founded more than 400 lodges of DH throughout the world. The English-speaking lodges adopted a ritual that was more inspired by Besant’s theosophical ideas than by traditional masonic teachings. In 2001, the British section of DH split into two factions over the issue of ritual conformity. An entirely female Grande Loge Féminine de France was established in 1945 and traces its origins back to 1901. Today, it is the largest all-female grand lodge in the world. At the outset, it worked with the 18th-century adoption ritual, but it changed in the late 1950s to a mainstream version of the male rituals. An Order of Women Freemasons was established in 1953 in Britain and the Frauen Großloge von Deutschland was established in Germany in 1982.