Can Women be Druids?
This is borrowed from Cathbad's excellent site, his Druidism Guide.Can women become Druids?
Yes! The mythologies record that many Druids were women; in fact Celtic women enjoyed more freedom and rights than women in any other culture of that time, including the rights to enter battle, own and inherit property, trace her kinship matrilinially (through her mother's family line), and choose and divorce her husband. The Irish hero Cu/Chullain was trained by a land-owning warrior queen named Scathach, for whom the Scottish island of Skye is named. In the Welsh myths, there is the powerful sorceress/Goddess Cerridwen, and also Arianrhod who ruled Caer Arianrhod. In Briton, Boudicca was a female chieftain of the Iceni tribe, powerful enough to lead a revolt of united Celtic tribes against the Romans in 61 BCE. Her patron was the Andrasta, a goddess of ravens and of battles, similar in many ways to the Irish war goddess Morrigan. Similarly, Irish women have a heroine in Queen Maeve of Cruachan, who led an army against the province of Ulst er, all to establish her equality in her marriage. Mogh Roith, who was one of the greatest Irish Druids, was taught by a female Druid named Banbhuana, the daughter of Deargdhualach.
Women were also permitted to become Fianna. (see Warriors) Fionn MacCumhall, from the Irish Fenian myths, was trained in poetry and magic by a Druidess. A woman named Asa (Irish for "Gentle") became Fianna and took the name Ni-Asa ("Not Gentle"), which eventually became "Nessa", at the time she became mother to King Conchobar. Her influence was such that her son kept her name instead of his father's name, thus: "Conchobar Mac Nessa", or "Conor, son of Nessa".
Celtic law identified up to nine different types of marriages, some differentiated on the basis of how much property was brought into the marriage by each partner, and some differentiated by the circumstances of meeting her partner. The latter type is ap parently designed to protect the rights of children. Here is a list of nine marriage types from Irish law:
"union of joint property" in which the man and woman contribute the same amount of property. "union of woman on man's property", in which the woman brings little or nothing into the marriage. "union of man on woman's property", in which the man brings little or nothing into the marriage. a less formal partnership in which the man visits the woman who still lives with her own kin. a union in which the wife's kin does not consent to the marriage. an abduction, in which the wife willingly elopes but her kin does not permit her to go. a partnership of secrecy, a one night's stand or "soldier's marriage"; apparently this is to protect the rights of children who might issue from a rape, and finally the marriage of two insane persons. Many of the most powerful gods in Celtic mythology were female. But the gender of deities is not a reliable guide for determining what each deity's area of responsibility is. There are male earth gods, female sun gods, female animal gods, female war gods, and male & female fertility gods, which is very much in contrast with contemporary Western occultism, especially Wicca. There are also female river gods, male smithcraft gods, male & female soverenty gods, and so on which is similar to conventional occultism. Your humble author thinks that this is because the old celts did not view gender as the most defining attribute of a deity. With their shape-changing powers, perhaps species is not a definitive attribute either!
Thus there is no good reason to believe that Druidism was strictly and unilaterally patriarchal in ancient times, and modern Druidism certainly is not remotely patriarchal.
