The Magdalene figure as the wife of Jesus got rejected because there is simply no direct evidence for it.
Mary Magdalene, along with Mary the mother of Jesus, were not rejected whatsoever from veneration or high status in the church. Of all the saints, it is a woman who is most widely esteemed. I think that kind of nullifies your argument that Mary of Magdala was rejected on grounds of being female.
i based my argument on the following:
""A group of scholars have suggested that for one early group of Christians Mary Magdalene was a leader of the early Church and maybe even the unidentified Beloved Disciple, to whom the Fourth Gospel commonly called Gospel of John is ascribed. The most familiar of the scholars is Elaine Pagels.
Ramon K. Jusino, an internet writer, offers an explanation of this view, based on the textual researches of Raymond E. Brown in "Mary Magdalene, author of the Fourth Gospel?", 1998, available on-line. Ann Graham Brock (see ref.) summarized this reading of the texts in 2003. She demonstrated that an early Christian writing portrays authority as being represented in Mary Magdalene or in the church community structure.
These scholars also observe that the Mary Magdalene figure is consistently elevated in writings from which formal leadership roles are absent. In certain texts, while either the Peter or the Paul figure is more involved, Mary Magdalene's role is often diminished, while in other texts, the opposite occurs. A tug-of-war is evident between these two opposing systems of church government, revealing debates regarding the importance of the key roles of women in Biblical texts.
Scholars of the Mary who appears in the Nag Hammadi Gnostic texts have identified her with the Magdalene, even though she is merely given the (Coptic) equivalent of "Mary". However, Stephen J. Shoemaker thinks that this Mary is actually the Blessed Virgin Mary (Shoemaker 2001), that this fits in better with the notions that Mary was intimate with Jesus, was his greatest disciple, and was to be the center of Jesus' religion; Shoemaker has made a study of Marian liturgies and devotion in Early Christianity.
Further attestation of Mary of Magdala and her role among some early Christians is provided by the gnostic, apocryphal Gospel of Mary Magdalene which survives in two 3rd century Greek fragments and a longer 5th century translation into Coptic. In the Gospel the testimony of a woman first needed to be defended. All of these manuscripts were first discovered and published between 1938 and 1983, but as early as the 3rd century there are Patristic references to the Gospel of Mary. These writings reveal the degree to which that gospel was despised and dismissed by the early Church Fathers. In the fragmentary text, the disciples ask questions of the risen Savior (a designation that dates the original no earlier than the 2nd century) and are answered.
Then they grieve, saying, "How shall we go to the Gentiles and preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of the Son of Man? If even he was not spared, how shall we be spared?" And Mary bids them take heart: "Let us rather praise his greatness, for he prepared us and made us into men." She then delivers ” at Peter's request ” a vision of the Savior she has had, and reports her discourse with him, which shows Gnostic influences.
Her vision does not meet with universal approval:
"But Andrew answered and said to the brethren, 'Say what you think concerning what she said. For I do not believe that the Savior said this. For certainly these teachings are of other ideas."
"Peter also opposed her in regard to these matters and asked them about the Savior. "Did he then speak secretly with a woman, in preference to us, and not openly? Are we to turn back and all listen to her? Did he prefer her to us?"
Karen King of Harvard Divinity School has observed, "The confrontation of Mary with Peter, a scenario also found in The Gospel of Thomas, Pistis Sophia, and The Greek Gospel of the Egyptians, reflects some of the tensions in second-century Christianity. Peter and Andrew represent orthodox positions that deny the validity of esoteric revelation and reject the authority of women to teach." (introduction, The Nag Hammadi Library)""
taken from
Mary Magdalene - Wikipedia
....and yes she appears to be a prominent woman, while others tried to reject her. The question remains why? This is something i also learnt from a NG documentary, unfortunately i don't remember the title. Certain early church fathers just wouldn't want her to take an important place and what better way to do it then to call her unchaste and adulterous. I never stated she got rejected because of her gender and the subject still remains open for discussion. You can't simply avoid the suspicious similarities in how women were viewed back then, starting with Asherah as a goddess.
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