Editing Dominican Order (section)

==={{anchor|Dominican Sisters}} Religious sisters===
[[File: Relief SS Domenic and Catherine.jpg|thumb|right|Marble relief of SS Dominic and Catherine]]

Women have been part of the Dominican Order since the beginning, but distinct active congregations of Dominican sisters in their current form are largely a product of the nineteenth century and afterward. They draw their origins both from the Dominican nuns and the communities of women tertiaries (laywomen) who lived in their own homes and gathered regularly to pray and study: the most famous of these was the [[Mantellate Sisters|Mantellates]] attached to Saint Dominic's church in Siena, to which Catherine of Siena belonged.{{sfn|Ritchie|Ronald|2001|p=29}} In the seventeenth century, some European Dominican monasteries (e.g. St Ursula's, Augsburg) temporarily became no longer enclosed, so they could engage in teaching or nursing or other work in response to pressing local need. Any daughter houses they founded, however, became independent.{{sfn|Gouws|1978|loc=Ch. 1}} But in the nineteenth century, in response to increasing missionary fervor, monasteries were asked to send groups of women to found schools and medical clinics around the world. Large numbers of Catholic women traveled to Africa, the Americas, and the East to teach and support new communities of Catholics there, both settlers and converts. Owing to the large distances involved, these groups needed to be self-governing, and they frequently planted new self-governing congregations in neighboring mission areas in order to respond more effectively to the perceived pastoral needs.{{sfn|Cleary|Murphy|McGlynn|1997|p=}} Following on from this period of growth in the nineteenth century, and another great period of growth in those joining these congregations in the 1950s, there are currently{{when|date=May 2025}} 24,600 sisters belonging to 150 Dominican religious congregations present in 109 countries affiliated to Dominican Sisters International.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.dsiop.org/index.php/who-are-we |title=Dominican Sisters International |access-date=2016-08-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160823011301/http://www.dsiop.org/index.php/who-are-we |archive-date=2016-08-23 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

As well as the friars, Dominican sisters live their lives supported by four common values, often referred to as the Four Pillars of Dominican Life, they are community life, common prayer, study, and service. Dominic called this fourfold pattern of life "holy preaching". Henri Matisse was so moved by the care that he received from the Dominican sisters that he collaborated in the design and interior decoration of their [[Chapelle du Saint-Marie du Rosaire]] in [[Vence]], France.{{sfn|Billot|1999|p=}}