Introduction
For centuries, a woman's lot was equated to the secondary role of wife, dutiful mother and/or concubine, conceding leadership roles to the male of the species, not least in the Mediterranean Basin. The antique civilisations of Athens and Rome had but a poor notion of women. Yet different perceptions emerge: in the Homeric poems, female figures are given a broadly positive glow whilst in Hellenic mythology, a foundational tale has Pandora, the first female of humankind opening her dreary box of calamities and spreading misery the world over.
The study of the status of women represents an essential element of anthropology. In this chapter, we will consider more specifically women's right to education in the context of two faiths, Catholic Christianity and Sunni Islam, from the angle of the “third Millennium Development Goal” fixed by the United Nations Organisation – one of eight in total, adopted in New York, USA by 193 UN Member States and at least 23 international organisations under the heading of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. Their object is the reduction of extreme poverty and child mortality, the combat of epidemics (AIDS), access to education, gender equality and the implementation of sustainable development, which the signatories had agreed to achieve by 2015.
