New Testament Teachings.
In this enlightened age, the sentiment of the Rabbi Eliezer, that the
law should be burned rather than delivered to women, would be execrated
by the right-minded of every Christian country. But was such a sentiment
any farther from right, either in theory or practice, than are those
held and openly avowed by some of the advocates of the theory of the
inferiority of women; who, while asserting that these inferior creatures
are, by the constitution of their minds, incapable of comprehending the
meaning of a law, yet hold them equally accountable with men--who are
supposed to understand all about it--for any violation of that law? If,
indeed, there is any difference made in the punishment of delinquents,
the greater severity is most frequently meted out to the woman.
Those who insist on the absolute, unqualified subjection of women to the
opposite sex, and place them in a subordinate place in the Christian
Church, persistently quote the writings of St. Paul as authority for the
position which they take. We apprehend that the great apostle to the
Gentiles is as wrongfully misapprehended and misrepresented by certain
classes of believers now, as he was by the Jews at the memorable time
when he was brought before Felix. Paul, therefore, must "answer for
himself in the things whereof he is accused."
In I Cor. xi, 3-5, he says to the Church at Corinth: "But I would have
you know that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman
is the man; and the head of Christ is God. Every man praying or
prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head. But every
woman that prayeth or _prophesieth_ with her head uncovered, dishonoreth
her head." Here is a positive direction given to a _woman_, as to the
manner of her procedure when she either prayed or prophesied in public,
and not a prohibition of either act, as we might expect from the
rendering given by many divines.
Christ is the head of the man, because he is the first-born from the
dead--the Redeemer of mankind--and because "he was before all things,
and by him all things consist." Having made provision for the life of
the world, he is therefore entitled to the love, devotion, and fidelity
of man. Christ is also mentioned under the figure of the vine, of which
his people are the branches.
Man is the head of the woman, because he was before her; and because,
being physically stronger, he has been constituted her protector. A man,
therefore, is to love his wife ever as himself, with an unselfish
intensity, only to be compared with the love which Christ bears to his
Church; and the wife is bound by the same sacred law to be, in heart and
practice, undeviating in her love and fidelity to her husband.
"And the head of Christ is God." Is Christ therefore not equal with God?
Is there superiority and inferiority between the Father and the Son? If
because the apostle declares that the man is the head of the woman, the
proposition is to be taken for granted that, in consequence, she is not
his equal but an inferior, we may, with equal propriety and fairness,
quote the same text to prove, and prove as conclusively, that the Son is
not equal with, but is inferior to, the Father. God may be understood to
be the head of Christ in regard to his manhood, and that only. The
Scriptures amply testify that he is not only co-eternal with the Father,
but coequal with him as well. There is neither inferiority nor
superiority in the Divine nature between the Father and the Son; and so
also, since man and woman are derived from one nature, being both human,
there is neither superiority nor inferiority between them. They are
coequal.
Is there, then, no distinction made between the sexes in the text?
Certainly there is. Men were directed to remove their caps or turbans
when they prayed or prophesied in public, while women, on the contrary,
were to remain with their heads covered; that is, to keep veiled when
they prayed or prophesied in public. The latter, it is evident, was
simply a prudential or local arrangement. Throughout the East, and more
especially in heathen countries, it was the custom for women to be
veiled when they made their appearance in public; but immodest women not
unfrequently violated the usage, appearing in public unveiled. In the
state of society then in Corinth, for a Christian woman to have appeared
in public, or to have taken any prominent part in an assembly with her
head uncovered, would have placed her in a false position before
unbelievers, both Jews and Gentiles. That their liberty under the
Gospel, then, might not be made occasion of offense by gainsayers,
against the cause of Christ, that their good should not be evil spoken
of by the profane multitude, the apostle counseled them to submit to the
usages and restraints which the customs of the times and place imposed
on women, wherever the usages or restraints so imposed were not in
themselves sinful. In the same spirit he returned Onesimus to his
master; not that he thereby gave his sanction to slavery, but in this,
as other directions regarding civil affairs, advising submission to the
existing state of things, "that the Gospel be not blamed." The effecting
of civil or political reforms, however much they might be needed, was
not the immediate object of Paul's preaching or writing. His grand,
all-absorbing business was to proclaim the Gospel in all its fullness,
trusting to its benign influence to right every wrong. There is no
doubt Paul clearly understood and did not intend to controvert the
declaration of the prophet Joel (ii, 28), which was quoted by Peter as
being one evidence of the ushering in of the Christian dispensation
(Acts ii, 17, 18): "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith
God, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your
daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your
old men shall dream dreams. And on my servants and on my handmaidens I
will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy." "The
last days" evidently means the Gospel dispensation; and this text alone,
twice given by inspiration, even if there were no other, would establish
the right of women to all the immunities and ordinances of the Christian
Church.
I Cor. xiv, 34, 35, is always presented by the opponents of women's
privileges as positive proof that women should not take a public part
in religious worship: "Let your women keep silence in the churches, for
it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be
under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any
thing, let them ask their husbands at home, for it is a shame for a
woman to speak in the Church."
In the passage first quoted in this chapter, Paul gives explicit
directions for the manner in which women should be arrayed while
speaking in the Church. Since, then, there can be no contradiction in
the Word of God, and we have positive proof that women did speak in
public assemblies by permission of the apostles, nothing remains but to
reconcile the two texts so apparently contradictory, by ascertaining to
what kind of a public assembly the apostle had reference in the text
last quoted. By reference to the verses preceding this text in the
fourteenth chapter of First Corinthians, it will be seen that the
apostle is pointing out the impropriety and unprofitableness of
speaking in unknown tongues; and of the contention and disorder that
then existed at Corinth. False teachers had caused dissension and
tumults in the Church; and, besides, the whole system of Christianity
was violently assailed by both the Jews and the pagans. The disciples at
Corinth were in the midst of a great controversy. According to Eastern
ideas, it was an outrage upon propriety and decency, not only for a
woman to take part by publicly asking questions, or teaching in any such
disorderly assembly, but even for her to be present therein. To avoid
the very appearance of evil, they were to absent themselves from these
contentious meetings because it was a shame for a woman to speak or
contend in such riotous assemblies. It is more than probable that
Christian women had done so prior to this; and therefore Paul warns them
against such improprieties; not, however, forbidding them to pray or
prophesy in the Church, providing they "covered their heads." The
Gospel proclaims an equal freedom to all; Paul earnestly asserting (Gal.
in, 28), that "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor
free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ
Jesus." Nevertheless, lest the cause of God should be hindered by women
asserting their Christian liberty, by speech or action, he desired them
to comply with the common usages of the society in which they lived,
where those usages were not in themselves immoral or contrary to the
Word of God. Kindred to I Cor. xiv, 34, 35, and referring to the same
thing, is I Tim. ii, 11, 12: "Let the women learn in silence with all
subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor usurp authority over
the man, but to be in silence." For a woman to attempt any thing either
in public or private that man claimed as his peculiar function, was
strictly prohibited by Roman law; and Christian women, as well as men,
were to be submissive to the "powers that be." Those who contend, from
their rendering of these texts, that women are prohibited by them from
taking part in the public worship of God, to be consistent, should also
insist that they must not enter the house of God at all; because they
are as strictly charged by Paul to remain at home and learn in silence
from their husbands, as to refrain from speaking.
Now, if women are to be silent in the Church; that is, if they are
neither to pray, speak, nor sing in public--for singing is certainly one
method of conveying instruction to those who hear, and is therefore
teaching them how to ascribe praise to God--if they are, upon Scriptural
authority, to know nothing but what they may learn from their husbands
at home,--then our whole system of civilized education with regard to
women is out of place; we had better borrow a leaf from the Turks or
Chinese. Girls here are sent to school, and encouraged to exert their
mental energies to the utmost in acquiring knowledge. Both mothers and
daughters are taken to church, and if they have tuneful voices they are
expected to sing; all of which is manifestly improper and unchristian,
if women are to receive all religious instruction from their "husbands
at home" only, and in silence. The taking of women to church, or indeed
out of the house, therefore, is exposing them to the temptation of
hearing and receiving instruction from unauthorized lips; for--fearfully
depraved though it may be in the sight of some--women are quite as prone
as men to listen to what is told them and to remember what they hear,
and--worse still--to reason out difficult problems for themselves.
And what is to be done for widows, or poor women who have never been
blessed with husbands? Are they to go down to death in heathenish
darkness, because the genial light of a husband's countenance has ceased
to shine upon them, or, perhaps, has never done so? Must unmarried
women forever continue in ignorance of the glorious Gospel of Christ,
because they have no husbands to teach them? As girls, according to such
a rendering, they ought not to have learned any thing; for a father's
teaching--if it were proper for him to give it--and a husband's might
differ widely. Besides, what is to be done for those women who are
blessed with husbands incapable of teaching them; or, as is notoriously
so frequently the case, who choose rather to spend their time in places
of disreputable character than at their homes with their families!
Such a rendering of these texts as is frequently given, and the homilies
derived therefrom, are an outrage upon common sense. They are at
variance with the direct teachings of St. Paul, and contrary to what the
Scriptures prove to have been his practice. Surely, none will dare to
accuse the apostle of inconsistency; and yet we have his own testimony
that Phoebe was a "servant of the Church at Cenchrea;" that is, she was
a deaconess, having a charge at Cenchrea. Priscilla, quite as much as
Aquila, was Paul's helper in "Christ Jesus," acknowledged by him as
such. Priscilla was associated with Aquila in "expounding the way of God
more perfectly to Apollos." (Acts xvii, 62.) Strange that the great
Apollos should receive religious instruction from a woman; stranger
still, if it were contrary to the will of God, that she was permitted to
give it! Why was she not severely rebuked for her presumption, and put
in her place, and taught to keep silence, as becometh a woman? On the
contrary, creditable mention is made of the fact that she did instruct
him, and that through that instruction he was made useful to the world;
and all this upon the authority of inspiration, without one word of
censure as to her unwomanliness. Over and over again, Paul names her in
his salutations.
In Philippians iv, 3, he entreats help for certain women, counting them
as fellow-laborers. "Help," says he, "those women which labored with me
in the Gospel." Honorable mention, too, is made by name of Tryphena,
Tryphosa, and of the beloved Persis, who "labored much in the Lord."
Philip had four daughters which "did prophesy" (Acts xxi, 19); and we
nowhere hear of their being forbidden to do so. If Paul, influenced as
he was by the Holy Spirit, had designed to prevent women from attending
religious meetings, or taking a public part therein, when there would he
have allowed all this laboring and prophesying and instructing to go on?
Instead of stopping it, however, he at different times commends Phoebe
and her sister-laborers to the kind regards of other Churches. Let the
utterances of Paul be properly and fairly interpreted, and it will be
manifest that men and women are one in Christ Jesus. Decidedly, it is
wrong for a woman to usurp authority over the man; and just as decidedly
wrong is it for a man to usurp authority over the woman. According to
history, the office of deaconess continued until between the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, when, the midnight of the Dark-Ages having come,
it was abolished in both the Greek and Latin Churches. Which sex usurped
authority in that case?
The next point coming under consideration is Paul's direction to the
Ephesian Church: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as
unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ
is the head of the Church: and he is the Savior of the body. Therefore
as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own
husbands in every thing." (Eph. v, 22-24.)
From the verses preceding this quotation, and those following, it is
evident the apostle had reference to the marriage covenant, and not to
the inferiority of woman or superiority of man. Fidelity of wives to
their husbands was the thing being enjoined; hence the comparison
between the marriage state and the Church of Christ. As the Church was
to be pure from idolatry, acknowledging but one God, even the Father,
and Jesus Christ his Son, so the wife was to be pure, submitting herself
only to her husband. It is not surprising that, in planting the
Christian Church, such directions should be given to its members,
gathered in as they were from a dark, immoral pagan world, where the
marriage tie was so lightly regarded. The husband should be to his wife
the earthly "munition of rocks." It is in this sense that the man is the
head of the woman and the Savior of her body. The apostle continues: "So
ought men to love their wives as their own bodies." "Let every one of
you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see
that she reverence her husband." Not worship him; but treat him with
marked and becoming respect, making his interest her own, loving him
above every earthly object, and seeking his happiness in every possible
manner. It is in this mutual sense that a wife is to be subject to her
husband in every thing. Even the greatest sticklers for the absolute
subjection of women explain the latter clause of the text by adding the
word _lawful_. If a woman's husband is to be her irresponsible lord, to
whom she is to go for instruction, who is the qualified judge of what is
lawful? But the reasoning of the entire question as given in the
chapter, portions of which have been quoted, does not bear out the
assertion that the wife is mentally inferior to her husband, or that he
has any right to treat her as such. She is neither his servant nor his
slave, so far as God's law is concerned. The wife has the same right to
expect fidelity from her husband that he has to expect it from her. The
covenant of marriage is a mutual one, equally binding on both.
The injunction to the Ephesians concerning the relations in the married
state is also given to the Colossians, very evidently relating to the
same thing: love and unwavering fidelity between man and wife. Peter
also enjoins the subjection of wives in his First Epistle, third
chapter, first and second verses; but he also explains that this
subjection is chastity, mild and gentle conversation, that their
husbands, if not Christians, might be won over by them. In this very
injunction there is a supposition by the apostle that the husband and
wife might be of different faith, that she might have learned something
not taught by him, and have been in a position to instruct him; and by
her chastity, her love and gentleness, and her instructions--coupled
with fear for his state out of Christ--might succeed in winning him to
the truth.
Though Christianity greatly purified the moral atmosphere of the world,
and caused those embracing it to renounce polygamy, yet even those who
had become Christian clung to the false assumptions and arbitrary
prerogatives claimed by men while yet in heathen darkness. To reconcile
women to the injustice done them, or to overawe them into submission, it
was sought to make them believe that the disabilities of their condition
were by Divine appointment, though this doctrine the apostles took pains
to correct.
A lamentable amount of infidelity has been engendered by the manner in
which the Scriptures have been distorted to make them seem to sanction
almost every social and civil wrong. They have been quoted as authority
for the absolute subjection of woman; and, with equal fairness, for
servile submission to despotic monarchs, for the use of intoxicating
drinks, for the burning of heretics, and for the justification of
slavery. Within a very few years past, these very Epistles have been
brought forward to prove the "sum of all villainies" a God-given boon to
man, the slave included--Colossians iii, 22, being deemed unanswerable.
Those who advocated the cause of human freedom, who desired the
privilege of worshiping God according to the dictates of their own
consciences, who strove to drive intemperance from the land, or who
pleaded for the liberty of the slave, were alike denounced as advocating
what was contrary to the revealed will of God; and in like manner, now,
are those denounced who advocate the perfect equality of woman with man.
With regard to political and religious freedom, the cause of temperance,
and the slavery question, time has proved that the Lord of Hosts, so far
from being against, was on the side of, those who advocated these great
reforms, and led them on to victory; and there is no reason to doubt
that this last reform will, by the same hand, be led to similar triumph.
It is continually objected, that infidels, immoral men, and women of
ill-repute, array themselves upon the side of equal rights to women: so
do infidels, libertines, and women lost to shame, array themselves
against it; therefore, the one counterbalances the other.
But suppose this were not so, to what would the objection amount? The
cause of human freedom has more than once been advocated by rank
infidels; but did God therefore curse a cause good in itself, because
wicked men and women for once saw clearly, and said they thought that
cause right and reasonable? History answers, No. The children of this
generation were simply wiser than many of the children of light. The
same may be said of each of the other reforms. The abolition of slavery
had its infidel advocates; so had the temperance movement, etc.; and
these advocates have to a certain extent damaged their respective causes
by their advocacy of them; yet the tide of human progress has been
onward. A claim which is based upon justice may be injured by an
extravagant, irreverent, or profane advocacy; but it is still a just
claim, and as such, without respect to its advocates, entitled to
recognition.
Polygamy, slavery, drunkenness, and the doctrine of the inferiority of
woman to man, are all alike the offspring of sin--all alike relics of
barbarism--alike the enemies of God and human freedom.
Long-established prejudices and old usages, no matter how false and
oppressive, are, like the everlasting hills, hard to be removed. But, as
the mountains themselves have been overcome by skill and hard work, and
the valleys are being filled by persevering toil; as the crooked is
being made straight and the rough places plain, so that the people of
this mighty continent may travel with ease in palace-cars from sea to
sea; so must the strong barriers of prejudice, ignorance,
misrepresentation, and indifference, be removed by the force of truth
and sound reason, and women be admitted to their legitimate position in
society, with equal prerogatives accorded to them, that they may thereby
more perfectly exert their natural influence in improving the world.