Women and Freemasonry

There have been a few reported cases of a woman being admitted to a regular masonic lodge. These cases are rare and are debated by masonic historians.

Elizabeth Aldworth: The one documented account of a woman being admitted to Freemasonry in the 18th century is the case of Elizabeth Aldworth (born St Leger), who is reported to have surreptitiously watched the proceedings of a Lodge meeting held at Doneraile House, the private house of her father, first Viscount Doneraile, a resident of Doneraile, County Cork, Ireland.

Upon discovering the breach of their secrecy, the Lodge resolved to admit and oblige her, and thereafterwith pride she appeared in public in Masonic clothing. In the early part of the 18th century, it was quite habitual for Lodges to be held in private houses. This Lodge was duly warranted as Lodge number 150 on the register of the Grand Lodge of Ireland.

Mainstream Masonic Grand Lodges rationalize the exclusion of women from Freemasonry for various rationalities. The structure and customs of modern day Freemasonry is founded from the operative medieval stonemasons of Europe. These operative masonic guilds did not permit women to join, because of the culture of the time. Many Grand Lodges are of the opinion that changing this structure would entirely change Freemasonry.

What is more, mainstream Grand Lodges stick to the masonic landmarks represented in the early 18th century, which are considered to be unchangeable. One of these landmarks determines that a woman is not to be made a mason.

Finally, in many jurisdictions masons swear “not to be present at the making of a woman a Mason” in their obligations. A lot of masons believe that irrespective of their opinions of women in masonry, they cannot break their obligation.

The study of women and Freemasonry is complicated and without an easy explanation. Traditionally, only men can be made Freemasons in Regular Freemasonry. Many Grand Lodges do not allow in women because they consider it would break the ancient Masonic Landmarks. Nevertheless, there are many non-mainstream Masonic bodies that do admit both men and women or exclusively women. What is more, there are many female orders associated with regular Freemasonry, such as the Order of the Eastern Star, the Order of the Amaranth, the White Shrine of Jerusalem, the Social Order of Beauceant and the Daughters of the Nile.

The United Grand Lodge of England (UGLE), and others concordant in that regular tradition, do not formally acknowledge any Masonic body that accepts women. The UGLE has stated since 1998 that two English women’s jurisdictions are regular in practice (The Order of Women Freemasons and The Honourable Fraternity of Ancient Freemasons), except for their inclusion of women, and has indicated that, while not officially recognized, these bodies may be looked upon as part of Freemasonry, when describing Freemasonry in general. In North America, neither “mainstream” Freemasonry nor Prince Hall Freemasonry accept women, but rather have associated separate bodies, which are “Masonic” in character, but not Masonic in their substance.