"The silliest man who ever lived," wrote Fanny Fern once, "has always known
enough, when he says his prayers, to thank God he was not born a woman."
President ---- of ---- College is not a silly man at all, and he is
devoting his life to the education of women; yet he seems to feel as
vividly conscious of his superior position as even Fanny Fern could wish.
If he had been born a Jew, he would have thanked God, in the appointed
ritual, for not having made him a woman. If he had been a Mohammedan, he
would have accepted the rule which forbids "a fool, a madman, or a woman"
to summon the faithful to prayer. Being a Christian clergyman, with several
hundred immortal souls, clothed in female bodies, under his charge, he
thinks it his duty, at proper intervals, to notify his young ladies, that,
though they may share with men the glory of being sophomores, they still
are in a position, as regards the other sex, of hopeless subordination.
This is the climax of his discourse, which in its earlier portions contains
many good and truthful things:--
"And, as the woman is different from the man, so is she relative to
him. This is true on the other side also. They are bound together by
mutual relationship so intimate and vital that the existence of
neither is absolutely complete except with reference to the other.
But there is this difference, that the relation of woman is,
characteristically, that of subordination and dependence. This does
not imply inferiority of character, of capacity, of value, in the
sight of God or man; and it has been the glory of woman to have
accepted the position of formal inferiority assigned her by the
Creator, with all its responsibilities, its trials, its possible
outward humiliations and sufferings, in the proud consciousness that
it is not incompatible with an essential superiority; that it does
not prevent her from occupying, if she will, an inward elevation of
character, from which she may look down with pitying and helpful
love on him she calls her lord. Jesus said, 'Ye know that the
princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that
are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among
you; but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your
minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your
servant, even as the Son of man came, not to be ministered unto, but
to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.' Surely woman
need not hesitate to estimate her status by a criterion of dignity
sustained by such authority. She need not shrink from a position
which was sought by the Son of God, and in whose trials and griefs
she will have his sympathy and companionship."
There is a comforting aspect to this discourse, after all. It holds out the
hope, that a particularly noble woman may not be personally inferior to a
remarkably bad husband, but "may look down with pitying and helpful love on
him she calls her lord." The drawback is not only that it insults woman by
a reassertion of a merely historical inferiority, which is steadily
diminishing, but that it fortifies this by precisely the same talk about
the dignity of subordination which has been used to buttress every
oppression since the world began. Never yet was there a pious slaveholder
who did not quote to his slaves, on Sunday, precisely the same texts with
which President ---- favors his meek young pupils. Never yet was there a
slaveholder who would not shoot through the head anybody who should attempt
to place him in that beautiful position of subjection whose spiritual
merits he had just been proclaiming. When it came to that, he was like
Thoreau, who believed resignation to be a virtue, but preferred "not to
practice it unless it was quite necessary."
Thus, when the Rev. Charles C. Jones of Savannah used to address the slaves
on their condition, he proclaimed the beauty of obedience in a way to bring
tears to their eyes. And this, he frankly assures the masters, is the way
to check insurrection and advance their own "pecuniary interests." He says
of the slave, that under proper religious instruction "his conscience is
enlightened and his soul is awed;... to God he commits the ordering of his
lot, and in his station renders to all their dues, obedience to whom
obedience, and honor to whom honor. _He dares not wrest from God his own
care and protection._ While he sees a preference in the various conditions
of men, he remembers the words of the apostle: 'Art thou called being a
servant? care not for it; but if thou mayest be free, use it rather. For he
that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman:
likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.'"[1]
I must say that the Rev. Mr. Jones's preaching seems to me precisely as
good as Dr.------'s, and that a sensible woman ought to be as much
influenced by the one as was Frederick Douglass by the other--that is, not
at all. Let the preacher try "subordination" himself, and see how he likes
it. The beauty of service, such as Jesus praised, lay in the willingness of
the service: a service that is serfdom loses all beauty, whether rendered
by man or by woman. My objection to separate schools and colleges for women
is that they are too apt to end in such instructions as this.
[Footnote 1: _Religious Instruction of the Negroes._ Savannah, 1842, pp.
208-211.]