If we must, therefore, conclude that man in primitive and ancient
times was unable to feel that love of which adoration is an essential
ingredient, how is it with women? From the earliest times, have they
not been taught, with club and otherwise, to look up to man as a
superior being, and did not this enable them to adore him with true
love? No, for primitive women, though they might fear or admire man
for his superior power, were too coarse, obscene, ignorant, and
degraded--being as a rule even lower than the men--to be able to share
even a single ingredient of the refined love that we experience. At
the same time it may be said (though it sounds sarcastic) that woman
had a natural advantage over man in being gradually trained to an
attitude of devotion. Just as the care of her infants taught her
sympathy, so the daily inculcated duty of sacrificing herself for her
lord and master fostered the germs of adoration. Consequently we find
at more advanced stages of civilization, like those represented by
India, Greece, and Japan, that whenever we come across a story whose
spirit approaches the modern idea of love, the embodiment of that love
is nearly always a woman. Woman had been taught to worship man while
he still wallowed in the mire of masculine selfishness and despised
her as an inferior. And to the present day, though it is not
considered decorous for young women to reveal their feelings till
after marriage or engagement, they adore their chosen ones:
For love's insinuating fire they fan
With sweet ideas of a god like man.
In this respect, as in so many others, woman has led civilization.
Man, too, gradually learned to doff his selfishness, and to respect
and adore women, but it took many centuries to accomplish the change,
which was due largely to the influence of Christ's teachings. As long
as the aggressive masculine virtues alone were respected, feminine
gentleness and pity could not but be despised as virtues of a lower
grade, if virtues at all. But as war became less and less the sole or
chief occupation of the best men, the feminine virtues, and those who
exercised them, claimed and received a larger share of respect.
Christianity emphasized and honored the feminine virtues of patience,
meekness, humility, compassion, gentleness, and thus helped to place
women on a level with man, and in the noblest of moral qualities even
above him. Mariolatry, too, exerted a great influence. The worship of
one immaculate woman gradually taught men to respect and adore other
women, and as a matter of course, it was the lover who found it
easiest to get down on his knees before the girl he worshipped.