Christianity, as the centuries have revealed its practical character,
owes more to Paul than to Jesus. Its dogmas are mostly derived from the
epistles of the great apostle. Many a true believer thinks he is
obeying the carpenter's son, when all the time he is obeying the Tarsus
tent-maker. The Christian road to heaven was laid out and paved, not
by Jesus himself, but by the gentleman he (or a sunstroke) converted
outside Damascus.
Paul was in some respects a better teacher than Jesus. He was more
practical, and with all his misty metaphysics he had a firmer hold on
the realities of life. But with respect to women, he follows dutifully
in his Savior's wake, and elaborates, rather than supplements, the
sexual injunctions we have already dealt with. Like his Master, he looks
down upon marriage, and is evidently of opinion that if men should not
make themselves eunuchs they should live as such, The American Shakers
are only carrying out his policy in this respect. If all the world
imitated them the human race would soon expire. It would then be
impossible to adopt the children of outsiders, families would be
gradually extinguished, and the second coming of Christ would be
prematurely hastened.
Paul was a bachelor, and a crusty one. According to tradition or
calumny, he was jilted by a Jewish woman, and this may account for his
peevish attitude towards the sex. In the seventh chapter of the first
of Corinthians he gives vent to a great deal of nasty nonsense. "It is
good," he says, "for a man not to touch a woman," If he had meant by
this that men were not to thrash their wives we should have thoroughly
agreed with him. But what he means is that there should be no sexual
intercourse. He was especially severe on young widows who contemplated
a second marriage. No doubt if he had seen a young widow whose weeds,
as is generally the case, were arranged coquettishly, he would have
muttered "Anathema Maranatha." As his own constitution was liable to
occasional weaknesses, he might have added, "Get thee behind me, Satan."
A few verses later he expresses himself with greater clearness than
Jesus Christ ever attained to: "I say therefore to the unmarried and
widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot
contain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn." Paul
wished the same end as Jesus. He desired to see every person celibate,
but having a little more common sense than Jesus, he saw that such
preaching would never be extensively practised (especially by young
widows) and he was obliged to make a concession to human frailty. The
very fact, however, shows that his view of the question was radically
wrong. Marriage is not an excusable weakness, but the normal condition
of mankind. Physiologically, mentally, and morally this truth holds
good. Even the highest virtues have never sprung from monasteries and
convents, but from the rude rough world of toiling and suffering men and
women outside.
According to Paul, although marriage was lawful, virginity was a higher
state; that is, to be perfect, a woman must stultify her nature and
trample upon her maternal instincts. It also implies that she is
essentially impure, and that she can only please God by abnegating her
sex. This is the deepest disrespect of womanhood, as every healthy wife
and mother would admit if such stuff were taught by another than Paul.
The great apostle troubled his poor head about the heads of women. If he
lived now when the ladies affect short hair he would go raving mad. It
was a subject on which he felt profoundly. To his mind a woman losing
her long hair, was like an angel falling from glory. He warns the whole
sex against meddling with their tresses. Men, however, are recommended
to crop close, long hair being "shameful." We have a shrewd suspicion
that Paul was bald. Perhaps if hair restorer had been then invented a
successful trial might have considerably changed his views upon this
subject.
Man was not created for woman, says Paul, but woman for man. He is of
course alluding to the old Rib Story. But a similar observation would
have been as sensible about the two halves of a pair of scissors. When
they meet what does it matter which was made for the other? Consistently
with this view he says, "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands
as unto the Lord... as the Church is subject unto Christ so let the
wives be to their husbands in everything." Some men have tried this with
no great success, and many a man thinks he is having his own way
"in everything" when he is sweetly and beautifully led by the nose.
Obedience is a hateful word in marriage. Its introduction makes the wife
a legalised concubine. Besides, if there _must_ be obedience, Paul's
rule is ridiculously sweeping, for some women have more sense and
judgment than their husbands. Every afflicted woman who applies to the
magistrate for relief from the sot who curses her home is flying in
the face of Paul. "My dear woman," the magistrate _should_ say, "your
request is very reasonable, but it is very unorthodox. Go home and read
the fifth chapter of Ephesians, where you will see that wives must obey
their husbands in _everything_."
Paul (1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35; Tim. ii. 11, 12) warns women to keep silence
in church, for "it is not permitted unto them to speak." Having written
this line, Paul must have got up and strutted round the room like a
ruffled cock. "Let the woman," he says, "learn in silence with all
subjection. I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over
the man, but to be in silence." Hear, hear! from the males in the body
of the synagogue. Evidently Paul could bray on occasion as lustily
as Balaam's ass. If the women "will learn anything," which he clearly
thought problematical, "let them ask their husbands at home." Fancy some
women with no other sources of information!
The reason Paul gives for woman's inferiority is that Mrs. Eve was first
tempted by the serpent. And a capital thing too! If Mrs. Eve had not
eaten that apple the human race would still number two, or else, if none
of them died, they would be thicker than barrelled herrings.
Our Church of England marriage service follows the teaching of Paul.
While the husband promises to-love the wife, the wife promises to love,
honor and obey the husband. Many ladies say these words at the altar
with a mental reservation. When they are obliged to do this they tacitly
admit that Paul and the Church are wrong. But if so the Bible is wrong.
The fact is that the "blessed book," instead of being woman's best
friend, is her worst enemy. The Tenth Commandment makes her domestic
property, and Paul winds up by telling her that her sole duty is to play
second fiddle in a minor key.