_The Scriptural Argument_.
To state our faith more definitely, we believe that in Eden woman
enjoyed an equality with man; that she took advantage of her
privilege, and, transgressing the law of God without consulting her
husband, proved treacherous to her high trust, opened the gate of
perdition to the enemy of souls, and brought upon man and the race
the curse consequent upon sin, and the ruin wrought by the fall. In
consequence of this, God pronounced a curse upon her; gave her sorrow
in child-bearing, as he gave to man fatigue in toil; changed the
relations hitherto subsisting between man and woman, and compelled
her to live henceforth in another; to sink her own individuality, and
merge it in that of her husband. This is the language. Unto the woman
he said, "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in
sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to
thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." This is her portion of the
curse. This portion endures. Man from that moment became ruler. The
wife's desire was to the husband, so that whatever she desires is
naturally referred to him. He became adviser, lawmaker and head. The
right or wrong of God's action it does not become us to discuss. It is
right because God did it. Dispute the right who will, but the curse
lives. The serpent crawls on his belly and eats dust. The wife has
sorrow in conception; her desire is to her husband, and he rules her;
and man, by the sweat of his brow, eats his bread.
But, says some one, did not the coming of Christ change the status of
woman, and place her again on the same equality which she enjoyed
when Adam led the beautiful Eve to her nuptial bower, and found it
impossible to exist without what the poet describes as
"Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self,
Thy wish exactly to thy heart's desire?"
If we have not mistaken the relations subsisting even in Eden between
the original pair, woman was not the ruler even there. Milton has
truthfully said,--
"For well I understand in the prime end
Of Nature her the inferior, in the mind
And inward faculties which most excel,
In outward, also, her resembling less
His image who made both, and less expressing
The character of that dominion given
O'er other creatures; yet when I approach
Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,
And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best:
All higher knowledge in her presence falls
Degraded; wisdom in discourse with her
Loses discountenanced, and like folly shows;
Authority and reason on her wait,
As one intended first, not after made
Occasionally; and to consummate all,
Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat
Build in her, loveliest, and create an awe
About her, as a guard angelic placed."
With woman, as God made her, we are not acquainted. Glimpses of her
pristine beauty, and characteristics of her former excellence, shine
forth; but sin has marred the original picture, and defaced the model
fashioned by the Creator's hand. The ruin wrought by the fall brought
Christ to earth. He opened a way back to Eden--not on earth, but in
heaven. The curse remains. The race is under it, because sin is in the
world. The law, formed after the fall, is the expressed will of God.
Christ did not come to do away with it, but to fulfil it. Then, as
now, it was a law of love, of good will, of peace. When Christ came,
woman's condition was deplorable. She was the abject slave of man in
nearly all the world. Yet Christ made no attempt to break down their
original arrangements. He knew that without a change in woman herself,
no external changes in her condition could be of any benefit to her.
He recognized the great fact that she herself must be educated to a
better life, that she must have a character which in itself would
command respect, and make her worthy of a higher place and a larger
liberty. Truly has it been said, "Institutions, of themselves, can
never confer freedom upon a people. They must be free men, capable
of liberty, and then they will be able not only to make their own
institutions, but keep and defend them also. So the emancipation of
woman can be effected only by breaking the bonds of her ignorance,
frivolity, and vice. A character must be given her, and then the iron
door of her prison-house will open to her of its own accord, and
she will find that the angel of liberty has been leading her forth
indeed." In this direction Jesus labored. Paul, in his Epistles, gave
emphasis to the teachings of the Old Testament, and so he wrote, "Let
your women keep silence, in the churches, for it is not permitted them
to speak; but they are to be in subjection, as the law also says; and
if they will to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home;
for it is a shame for women to speak in the church,"--I Cor. xiv. 34,
35.
Against this command many arguments have been brought to bear, and
despite this apostolic command, some women insist upon their right to
preach. It is a significant truth, that whoever does this, enters upon
a conflict with public sentiment born of God, and subjects herself to
terrible mortification. The refusal of lending Universalist divines to
share the exercises of an ordination with a woman, illustrates this
principle. The recognition given to man as the head of the household,
involves the loss of woman's individuality, and of her right to a
support. It opens a window to life, and shows why our higher nature
revolts against woman being compelled to labor in the field. That is
man's place, and the labor elevates him. It degrades a woman. The
praises of agricultural toil for man find a place in song and story;
but labor in the field is destructive of womanhood, of motherhood, and
of wifehood.
We have seen that the Scriptures declare, 1. That it is not well for
man to be alone. He is not complete until woman is joined to him in
marriage. 2. Woman was made for man. Manliness is an attribute that
belongs to man; it disgraces a woman. To be womanly, is the noblest
tribute that can be paid to woman; but it disgraces a man, because
God, the Creator, placed this characteristic within the heart and soul
and nature, just as he gave a difference of nature, mould, and form,
to the outward appearance of man and woman. He made them for a
particular purpose, and not for the same purpose. They were not made
in the same manner, nor of the same material. If woman be the weaker
vessel, she is of the finer mould. God made man in his own image, and
woman was created to be his helpmeet.
3. We have noticed the change in the relations which was the product
of the curse. Woman in Eden was the source of influence. After it, man
became the head, and her desire was unto him.
4. Since the fall, labor has been multiplied to man, sorrow to woman;
but such is the kindness of God, that these two facts are sources of
perpetual joy in the home. The wife is proud of her toiling husband,
the man is tender of his suffering wife; and in the bliss of childhood
happiness both find their reward.
These statements shrine all the facts of the separate histories of man
and woman. It were easier to change earth to water, and sea to land,
than it is to make a womanly woman consent to appear manly. Her God
made her a woman. It is not a fault. It is a glory. The bird that
skims the wave would not exchange places with the bird that goes to
meet the sun; but this is not to bring a charge against the eagle or
the swan.
One more truth, and then we will pass to the consideration of
the lessons discoverable in woman's nature. All the Scripture
requirements, such as refer to the plaiting of the hair, to being
uncovered in public, are said to refer to the customs of the East, and
not to bind woman in this age of progress. The principle covered by
those requirements then, rules now. Paul said, Let not a Christian
woman break through any of the restraints of womanhood, and so appear
as do the harlots, with uncovered faces and with plaited hair, who
mingle freely with men, and are shorn of that modesty and weakness so
becoming woman. Woman's right to be a woman implies the right to be
loved, to be respected as a woman, to be married, to bring forth to
the world the product of that love; and woman's highest interests are
promoted by defending and maintaining this right.
There are those who object to the word _service_, and claim that those
who take the Bible as authority wish to reduce woman to slavery. No
charge could be more absurd; and God's care for woman is manifest,
both in the teachings of the Bible and in the constitution of the
race. Woman owes to Christianity all she enjoys. Leave her to be
subject to the conditions imposed on her by unregenerated manhood or
womanhood, and you leave her to become either a thing in society, or
else reduce her to a level with the beasts of burden. In old savage
and pagan tribes the severest burdens of physical toil were laid upon
her. She was valued for the same reason that men prize their most
useful animals, or as a means of gratifying sensual and selfish
desires. Even in the learned and dignified forms of modern paganism,
the wife is the slave rather than the companion of her husband. She
is kept apart from him. The education of her mental faculties is
neglected. She is not allowed to walk with him; she must walk behind
him. She must not eat with him, but eat after he has done, and eat
what _he leaves_. She must not sleep until he is asleep, nor remain
asleep after he is awake. If she is sitting down, and he comes into
the room, she must rise up. She must bow to no other god on the earth
besides her husband. She must worship him while he lives, and when he
dies she must be burned with him. In case she is not burned, she is
not allowed to marry, and is considered an outcast. There is little
social intercourse between the sexes, little or no acquaintance of the
parties before marriage, and, consequently, little mutual attachment.
Women are not allowed to learn to read, because there can be no solid
foundation laid for future influence.
Under the Crescent the condition of woman is worse rather than better,
for in pagan India she is permitted to share in the hope of religion;
but in Mohammedan countries it is a popular tradition that women are
forbidden paradise; and it requires some effort for the imagination to
conceive how debased and wretched must be the condition of the
female sex to originate and sustain such a horrible and blasphemous
tradition.
Even in the refined and shining ages of Greece and Rome, where the
cultivation of letters and the graces of polished style, the charms
of poetry and eloquence, the elegances of architecture, sculpture,
painting, and embroidery, the glory of conquest and the pride of
national distinction, were unsurpassed,--even then and there, woman
was but the abject slave of man, the object of his ambition, avarice,
lust, and power.
Truly has it been said that nothing more surely distinguishes the
savage state from the civilized, the East from the West, Paganism from
Christianity, antiquity from the middle ages, the middle ages from
modern times, than the condition of woman.
In China, she is used as a beast of burden. The Chinese peasant woman
goes to the field with her male infant on her back, and ploughs, sows,
and reaps, exposed to all the changes of the weather. In Calcutta,
women are the masons, and maybe seen daily conveying their hods of
cement, and spreading it on the tops of their houses.
In a country where no European man can labor, where the native rests
until compelled by his conqueror to work, seven thousand of these
women might have been seen, in 1859, climbing to the edge of ravines,
with baskets of stone on their heads, to fill, with these tedious
contributions, thousands of perpendicular feet, in order that a
railroad might wind among the mountains.
In Australia, she carries the burden which man's indolence refuses;
and in Great Britain, the condition of women among the lower classes,
revealed by the statistics of her mines and of her manufacturing
districts, is such as to make a moralist blush. Behold her, with a
strap around her waist, dragging the coal-cart in the mine, and so
ignorant, that when asked if she knew Jesus, replied, "He never worked
in our shaft."
Do we turn to America, we find that in the providence of God her
fortune has been advanced and improved by the extension of the era of
free government, and by the diffusion of the principles of the gospel
of Christ.
True, in the past, throughout the South, a negro woman worked in the
field as a beast of burden; but emancipation and the diffusion of the
principles of Christianity changes all this in the South, as it has
changed it in Turkey and in the East. The colored man builds for his
wife a house, and toils for her in the field or shop, while she keeps
the house, and beautifies the sanctuary of the heart.
Now, in all this land, woman's right to be a woman is recognized, and
"woman's right to be a man" is opposed, though eloquent orators of
either sex may declaim in its behalf. God's law, natural and revealed,
is against it. Woman's nature will be woman's nature no longer when
she shall desire it.
An illustration of this fact was recently furnished. A female orator
had just left the platform for the horse-car. She was tired, and,
doubtless, needed a seat. She had been speaking in favor of woman's
rights, and had berated the opposite sex for their unwillingness to
grant them. Worn out with fatigue, and excited, her lace red, her eyes
flashing, she looked around for a seat. The car was full, and among
the number sitting down was a workingman.
She spoke so that all could hear her, saying, "You are not gentlemen,
or you would not let a woman stand." The workingman looked up, and
replied, "Did I not just hear you speak in behalf of woman's
rights?" The woman, supposing she had found a friend, replied in
the affirmative. "Well," said he, "I will stand up any time, with
pleasure, for a housewife or a kitchen girl; but you contend for an
equality of rights with men; take it, and stand up among them." The
shout of approbation proved that the argument was not on the side of
woman. She did not herself believe in the theory advanced. Down in her
heart she felt that, because she was a woman, she was entitled to be
treated with love and respect, with honor and consideration.
The right which exempts her from certain things which men must endure,
_grows out of her right to be a woman_. We feel that it is her
privilege and her right to be relieved from the necessity of working
in the field, from doing many things which it is manly in man to do.
We do not object to woman's sharing in the toil of the store, the
shop, or the factory. Better this than idleness and want; yet there is
a reason for pondering the question whether woman is wise in trying to
displace man for her own advantage. If any one must be idle, let it be
woman, and not man. It has been well said, "There are in Massachusetts
over seventy thousand more females than males, and probably twice
that number in the State of New York. It is an unnatural condition of
things. At the West the number of men greatly preponderates."
"Our young men go off early in life, leaving fathers, mothers, and
sisters behind them. The prospect for their sisters to marry, then, is
lessened by every emigration." Now, what shall be done in behalf of
these thousands of virtuous, educated, and noble girls? The cry is,
make them into clerks, and bookkeepers, and bankers, and give them all
the employments of men. Think it over. Suppose now we make these
girls into clerks in stores and counting-rooms, say ten thousand in
Massachusetts, and twenty thousand in New York--don't we displace
so many young men; drive them off to the West; prevent so many new
families from being established here; take away thirty thousand
chances of marriage from these females, and enhance the evil we are
trying to remedy?
Is it a blessing to woman to lessen her opportunities of marriage?
Again, a woman can be idle, and not be lost. Whereas man, if left
unemployed, runs to mischief, if not to crime.
The history of those manufacturing districts in England, so eloquently
described by Charlotte Elizabeth, where woman is preferred because of
the cheapness and skill of her labor, proves this position correct.
The husband lives in idleness, and has the care of the house. The
result is, that comfort and neatness are at an end. The children are
reared in crime, in indolence; the men pass their time in drinking and
in gambling, prostitution abounds, and the health of the community,
socially, physically, mentally, and morally, is destroyed.
On the other hand, enter one of those manufacturing towns where the
skilled labor of man is rewarded, and where women keep the house with
thrift and care, and you behold order, virtue, and prosperity. This is
not poetry. It is fact. It proves that God's laws must be heeded and
obeyed. "Marriage," said Gail Hamilton, "is a friendship of the sexes
so profound, so comprehensive, that it includes the whole being. The
inflow of the divine life,
"'Bright effluence of bright essence increate,'
"blends the man nature and the woman nature into an absolute oneness,
which shapes itself ever thereafter into the only perfect symmetry.
Thus alone comes humanity in the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of
the stature of the fulness of Christ. Thus marriage forever tends to
its own annihilation,--not the annihilation of a stream swallowed up
in desert sands, but of a river broadening to the boundless sea. The
more perfect its substance, the more yielding its form. As it gathers
power it diminishes pomp, till, by a pathway which the vulture's eye
hath not seen and never can see, marriage itself leads to the land
where they neither marry nor are given in marriage.
"Wherever man pays reverence to woman,--wherever any man feels the
influence of any woman, purifying, chastening, abashing, strengthening
him against temptation, shielding him from evil, ministering to his
self-respect, medicining his weariness, peopling his solitude, winning
him from sordid prizes, enlivening his monotonous days with mirth, or
fancy, or wit, flashing heaven upon his earth, and mellowing it for
all spiritual fertility,--there is the element of marriage. Wherever
woman pays reverence to man,--wherever any woman rejoices in the
strength of any man, feels it to be God's agent, upholding her
weakness, confirming her purpose, and crowning her power,--wherever
he reveals himself to her, just, upright, inflexible, yet tolerant,
merciful, benignant, not unruffled, perhaps, but not overcome by the
world's turbulence, and responding to all her gentleness, his feet
on the earth, his head among the stars, helping her to hold her
soul steadfast in right, to stand firm against the encroachments of
frivolity, vanity, impatience, fatigue, and discouragement, helping to
preserve her good nature, to develop her energy, to consolidate
her thought, to utilize her benevolence, to exalt and illumine her
life,--there is the essence of marriage. Its love is founded on
respect, and increases self-respect at the very moment of merging
itself in another. Its love is mutual, equally giving and receiving
at every instant of its action. There is neither dependence nor
independence, but inter-dependence. Years cannot weaken its bonds,
distance cannot sunder them. It is a love which vanquishes the grave,
and transfigures death itself into life."
These laws are varied by God's word, and written indelibly upon the
nature of man. Surely nothing can be more manifest than that they must
be obeyed.