The House of
Justice suggests that all statements in the Holy Writings concerning specific
areas of the relationship between men and women should be considered in the
light of the general principle of equality between the sexes that has been
authoritatively and repeatedly enunciated in the Sacred Texts. In one of His
Tablets 'Abdu'l-Baha asserts: "In this divine age the bounties of God have
encompassed the world of women. Equality of men and women, except in some
negligible instances, has been fully and categorically announced. Distinctions
have been utterly removed." That men and women differ from one another in
certain characteristics and functions is an inescapable fact of nature; the
important thing is that 'Abdu'l-Baha regards such inequalities as remain as
being "negligible."
(From a letter dated 24 December 1980
written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer)
