The duty of upbringing the children has been chiefly given to the women. This has been called a privilege for the mother! Shoghi says:

The task of bringing up a Bahā’ī child, as emphasized time and again in Bahā’ī writings, is the chief responsibility of the mother, whose unique privilege is indeed to create in her home such conditions as would be most conducive to both his material and spiritual welfare and advancement.[1]

`Abdu’l-Bahā further iterates that mothers are the primary trainers of children:

O maid-servants of the Merciful! It is incumbent upon you to train the children from their earliest babyhood! It is incumbent upon you to beautify their morals! It is incumbent upon you to attend to them under all aspects and circumstances, inasmuch as God—glorified and exalted is He! —hath ordained mothers to be the primary trainers of children and infants. This is a great and important affair and a high and exalted position, and it is not allowable to slacken therein at all![2]

Upbringing children is a difficult task. If there was supposed to be complete equality between men and women in this creed, then why has this difficult task been imposed on the mother? And if this task is a privilege and a “high and exalted position,” then why give this privilege to the mother? Why not privilege the father? If there is supposed to be equality between the two sexes, why insist that this task is primarily the duty of the mother? Is it that hard to simply say both parents have equal responsibility?

To justify this inconsistency Baha’is claim that the duties are balanced by giving the father the responsibility to support the family:

The training which a child first receives through his mother constitutes the strongest foundation for his future development. A corollary of this responsibility of the mother is her right to be supported by her husband—a husband has no explicit right to be supported by his wife.[3]

This justification is acceptable from anyone but a Baha’i; for Baha’is insist there is absolute equality between men and women and there is no distinction. This justification still fails to address this issue and contradicts the current principle.

[1] Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, A Compilation on Bahā’ī Education (Baha’i World Center, 1976), p. 50.

[2] `Abdu’l-Bahā, Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas (Bahā’ī Publishing Committee, 1909 edition), p. 606.

[3] Helen Bassett Hornby, Lights of Guidance: A Bahā’ī Reference File, chap. XVI, no. 730.