+WOMAN,
CHURCH
& STATE+
The
Original Exposé
of Male
Collaboration
Against
the Female Sex
by Matilda Joslyn Gage
Original publication date 1893
Contents
Preface 5
_Chapter One_—+The Matriarchate+
Tendency of Christianity from the first to restrict woman’s
liberty. Woman had great freedom under the old civilizations.
The Matriarchate; its traces among many nations; it preceded
the Patriarchate. The Iroquois or Six Nations under
reminiscences of the Matriarchate. Government of the United
States borrowed from the Six Nations. To the Matriarchate or
Mother-rule, is the world indebted for its first conception
of “inherent rights,” and a government established on this
basis. Malabar under the Matriarchate when discovered by the
Portuguese. The most ancient Aryans under the Matriarchate.
Ancient Egypt a reminiscence of the Matriarchal period.
Authority of the wife among the most polished nations of
antiquity. As Vestal Virgin in Rome, woman’s authority great
both in civil and religious affairs. Monogamy the rule of the
Matriarchate. Polygamy, infanticide and prostitution the rule
of the Patriarchate. 7
_Chapter Two_—+Celibacy+
Original sin. Woman not regarded as a human being by the
church. Marriage looked upon as vile. Celibacy of the clergy;
their degrading sensuality. A double Code of Morals. Celibacy
confirmed as a dogma of the church. Many notable consequences
followed. Wives sold as slaves. Women driven to suicide.
Influence of the church unfavorable to virtue. Women of wealth
drawn into monastic life. The church in Mexico. President
Diaz. Protestant Orders. 24
_Chapter Three_—+Canon Law+
The church makes the legitimacy of marriage depend upon its
control of the ceremony. Change from ancient civilization
to renewed barbarism at an early age of the Christian era,
noted by historians, but its cause unperceived. The clergy
a distinct body from the laity; their rights not the same.
A holy sex and an unholy one. Rapid growth of Canon law in
England. Alteration in the laws through the separation of
Ecclesiastical courts from the Civil, recognized by Blackstone
as among the remarkable legal events of Great Britain.
Learning prohibited to women. The oath of seven persons
required to convict a priest. Husbands prohibited by Canon law
from leaving more than one-third of their property to wives;
might leave them less. Daughters could be disinherited; sons
could not be. The Reformation effected no change. Governments
catering to Pope Leo XIII, at time of his Jubilee; the
President of the United States sends a gift. 50
_Chapter Four_—+Marquette+
Feudalism; its degradation of woman. _Jus primae noctis._
Rights of the Lords Spiritual. Peasants decide not to marry.
Immorality of the heads of the Greek and the Protestant
churches. Breton Ballad of the Fourteenth Century. St.
Margaret of Scotland. Pall Mall Gazette’s disclosures. Foreign
traffic in young English girls. West End. Eton. Prostitution
chiefly supported by “Heads of Families.” Northwestern
Pineries. Governmental crime-makers. Rapid increase of child
criminals. The White Cross society. Baptism of nude women in
the early Christian Church. 66
_Chapter Five_—+Witchcraft+
The possession of a pet of any kind dangerous to woman. Black
cats and witches. The fact of a woman’s possessing knowledge,
brought her under suspicion of the church. The three most
distinguishing features of witchcraft. Opposition of the
church to the growth of human will. Persecution for witchcraft
a continuance of church policy for obtaining universal
dominion over mankind. The Sabbat. The Black Mass. Women
physicians and surgeons of the middle ages; they discover
anaesthetics. Their learning; their persecution by the church.
The most eminent legal minds incapable of forming correct
judgment. Three notable points in regard to witchcraft.
Persecution introduced into America by the “Pilgrim Fathers.”
First Synod in America convened to try a woman for heresy.
Whipping half nude women for their religious opinions. Famine
caused by persecution of women. 94
_Chapter Six_—+Wives+
“Usus.” Disruption of the Roman Empire unfavorable to
the personal and proprietary rights of woman. Sale of
daughters practiced in England seven hundred years after
the introduction of Christianity. The Mundium. The practice
of buying wives with cattle or money regulated by law. Evil
fame of Christendom. “The Worthier of Blood.” Murder of a
husband termed petit treason; punished by burning alive.
Mrs. Sanio decapitated in Finland, 1892, for crime of petit
treason. Husbands control wives’ religion. The “Lucy Walker
case;” Judge Dodge decides a husband has a property interest
in a wife. Davenport’s Rules for his wife. Assaulting wives
protected by law. The Ducking Stool; its use in England;
brought to America by the “Pilgrim Fathers.” Salic law.
Gavelkind. Women not permitted to read the Bible. “Masterless
women.” Women not admitted as a surety or witness. The Code
Napoleon. Morganatic marriage. Ibsen’s “Ghosts.” Strindberg’s
“Giftas.” Ancient Slavs. Russia under Greek Christianity.
The Domstroii Marriage forms. Burying wives alive. “Darkest
England.” Advertising wives. An English clergyman offers £100
reward for the capture and return of his wife. Civil marriage
is opposed by the church. Action of the Chilian Republic. 129
_Chapter Seven_—+Polygamy+
Polygamy sustained by the Christian Church and the Christian
State. The first Synod of the Reformation convened to sanction
polygamy. Favoring views of Luther and the other “principal
reformers.” Favoring action of the American Board of Foreign
Missions. Favoring action of a Missionary Conference in India.
Mormons compared to the Puritans. Mormon theocracy similar to
that of other Christian sects. 175
_Chapter Eight_—+Woman and Work+
God’s “curse” upon Adam. Opposition of the church to
amelioration of woman’s suffering as an interference with her
“curse.” Man’s escape from his own “curse.” The sufferings
of helpless infants and children because of woman’s labor.
Innutrition and the hard labor of expectant mothers the
two great factors in physical degeneration and infantile
mortality. Woman’s work in Europe and the United States. Woman
degraded under Christian civilization to labors unfit for
slaves. 191
_Chapter Nine_—+The Church of Today+
Sin killed by sin. Woman’s inferiority taught from the pulpit
today. A Pastoral letter. The See trial. Modern sermons on
women. Lenten lectures of Rev. Morgan A. Dix. The Methodist
General Conference of 1880, reject Miss Oliver’s petition
for ordination on the plea that woman already has all the
rights that are good for her. Resolves itself into a political
convention. The General Conference of 1888, rejects women
delegates. The Catholic Plenary Council of 1884. Mazzini’s
prophecy. The opposition of the church to woman’s education
has killed off the inhabitants of the world with greater
rapidity than war, famine or pestilence. The present forms of
religion and governments essentially masculine. 208
_Chapter Ten_—+Past, Present, Future+
The most important struggle in the history of the church. Not
self-sacrifice, but self-development woman’s first duty in
life. The protective spirit; its injury to woman. Christianity
of little value to civilization. Looking backward through
history; looking forward. 237
+Notes+ 249
+Index+ 289
[Illustration: Matilda Joslyn Gage, 1880]
WOMAN, CHURCH & STATE
The
Original Exposé
of Male
Collaboration
Against
the Female Sex
by Matilda Joslyn Gage
Copyright 1893
By Matilda Joslyn Gage
This Book is _Inscribed_ to the Memory of my Mother, who was at once
mother, sister, friend:
_Dedicated_ to all Christian women and men, of whatever creed or name
who, bound by Church or State, have not dared to Think for Themselves:
_Addressed_ to all Persons, who, breaking away from custom and the
usage of ages, dare seek Truth for the sake of Truth. To all such it
will be welcome; to all others aggressive and educational.
Preface
This work explains itself and is given to the world because it is
needed. Tired of the obtuseness of Church and State; indignant at
the injustice of both towards woman; at the wrongs inflicted upon
one-half of humanity by the other half in the name of religion; finding
appeal and argument alike met by the assertion that God designed the
subjection of woman, and yet that her position had been higher under
Christianity than ever before: Continually hearing these statements,
and knowing them to be false, I refuted them in a slight _resumé_
the subject at the annual convention of the National Woman Suffrage
Association, Washington, D.C., 1878.
A wish to see that speech in print, having been expressed, it was
allowed to appear in _The National Citizen_, a woman suffrage paper I
then edited, and shortly afterwards in “The History of Woman Suffrage,”
of which I was also an editor. The kindly reception given both in
the United States and Europe to that meager chapter of forty pages
confirmed my purpose of a fuller presentation of the subject in book
form, and it now appears, the result of twenty years investigation, in
a volume of over five hundred and fifty pages.
Read it; examine for yourselves; accept or reject from the proof
offered, but do not allow the Church or the State to govern your
thought or dictate your judgment.
_Chapter One_
+The Matriarchate+
Woman is told that her present position in society is entirely due to
Christianity; that it is superior to that of her sex at any prior age
of the world, Church and State both maintaining that she has ever been
inferior and dependent, man superior and ruler. These assertions are
made the basis of opposition to her demands for exact equality with
man in all the relations of life, although they are not true either
of the family, the church, or the state. Such assertions are due to
non-acquaintance with the existing phase of historical knowledge, whose
records the majority of mankind have neither time nor opportunity of
investigating.
Christianity tended somewhat from its foundation to restrict the
liberty woman enjoyed under the old civilizations. Knowing that
the position of every human being keeps pace with the religion and
civilization of his country, and that in many ancient nations woman
possessed a much greater degree of respect and power than she has at
the present age, this subject will be presented from a historical
standpoint. If in so doing it helps to show man’s unwarranted
usurpation over woman’s religious and civil rights, and the very great
difference between true religion and theology, this book will not have
been written in vain, as it will prove that the most grievous wrong
ever inflicted upon woman has been in the Christian teaching that
she was not created equal with man, and the consequent denial of her
rightful place in Church and State.
The last half century has shown great advance in historical knowledge;
libraries and manuscripts long inaccessible have been opened to
scholars, and the spirit of investigation has made known many secrets
of the past, brought many hidden things to light. Buried cities have
been explored and forced to reveal their secrets; lost modes of writing
have been deciphered, and olden myths placed upon historic foundations.
India is opening her stores of ancient literature; Egypt, so wise and
so famous, of which it was anciently said: “If it does not find a man
mad it leaves him mad,” has revealed her secrets; hieroglyph-inscribed
temples, obelisks and tombs have been interpreted; papyri buried
4,000 and more years in the folds of bandage-enveloped mummies have
given their secrets to the world. The brick libraries of Assyria have
been unearthed, and the lost civilization of Babylonia and Chaldea
imparted to mankind. The strange Zunis have found an interpreter; the
ancient Aztec language its Champollion, and the mysteries of even our
western continent are becoming unveiled. Darkest Africa has opened to
the light; the colossal images of Easter Island hint at their origin;
while the new science of philology unfolds to us the history of peoples
so completely lost that no other monument of their past remains. We
are now informed as to the condition of early peoples, their laws,
customs, habits, religion, comprising order and rank in the state, the
rules of descent, name, property, the circumstances of family life,
the position of mother, father, children, their temples and priestly
orders; all these have been investigated and a new historic basis has
been discovered. Never has research been so thorough or long-lost
knowledge so fully given to the world.
These records prove that woman had acquired great liberty under the
old civilizations. A form of society existed at an early age known
as the Matriarchate or Mother-rule. Under the Matriarchate, except
as son and inferior, man was not recognized in either of these great
institutions, family, state or church. A father and husband as such,
had no place either in the social, political or religious scheme;
woman was ruler in each. The primal priest on earth, she was also
supreme as goddess in heaven. The earliest semblance of the family
is traceable to the relationship of mother and child alone. Here the
primal idea of the family had birth.[1] The child bore its mother’s
name, tracing its descent from her; her authority over it was regarded
as in accord with nature; the father having no part in the family
remained a wanderer. Long years elapsed before man, as husband and
father, was held in esteem. The son, as child of his mother, ranked
the father, the mother taking precedence over both the father and
the son.[2] Blood relationship through a common mother preceded that
of descent through the father in the development of society.[3] This
priority of the mother touched not alone the family, but controlled
the state and indicated the form of religion. Thus we see that during
the Matriarchate, woman ruled; she was first in the family, the state,
religion, the most ancient records showing that man’s subjection to
woman preceded by long ages that of woman to man. The tribe was united
through the mother; social, political and religious life were all in
harmony with the idea of woman as the first and highest power. The
earliest phase of life being dependent upon her, she was recognized as
the primal factor in every relation,[4] man holding no place but that
of dependent.
Every part of the world today gives evidence of the system;
reminiscences of the Matriarchate everywhere abound. Livingstone found
African tribes swearing by the mother and tracing descent through her.
Marco Polo discovered similar customs in his Asiatic voyages, and
the same customs are extant among the Indians of our own continent.
Bachofen[5] and numerous investigators[6] agree in the statement that
in the earliest forms of society, the family, government, and religion,
were all under woman’s control; that in fact society started under
woman’s absolute authority and power.
The second step in family life took place when the father, dropping
his own name, took that of his child. This old and wide-spread custom
is still extant in many portions of the globe; the primitive peoples
of Java, Australia and Madagascar are among those still continuing its
practice.[7] By this step the father allied himself to both mother
and child, although still holding an inferior position to both. The
Matriarchal family was now fully established, descent still running
in the female line. Thus, as has been expressed, we find that woman’s
liberty did not begin today nor under modern religions or forms or
government, but that she was in reality the founder of civilization,
and that in the most remote times woman enjoyed superiority of rights
in all the institutions of life.[8] And yet so difficult is it to
break away from educated thought, so slight a hold have historical
facts upon the mind when contrary to preconceived ideas, that we
find people still expressing the opinion that man’s place has always
been first in government. Even under those forms of society where
woman was undisputed head of the family, its very existence due to
her, descent entirely in the female line, we still hear assertion that
his must have been the controlling political power. But at that early
period to which we trace the formation of the family, it was also the
political unit. And when peoples became aggregated into communities,
when tribal relations were ultimately recognized, woman still held
superior position, and was the controlling power in government, and
never was justice more perfect, never civilization higher than under
the Matriarchate. Historians agree as to the high civilization even
today of those nations or tribes still preserving traces of Matriarchal
customs. Even under its most degenerate form, the family, governmental
and religious rights of women are more fully recognized than under any
phase of Christian civilization. In all the oldest religions, equally
with the Semitic cults, the feminine was recognized as a component and
superior part of divinity, goddesses holding the supreme place. Even
at much later periods woman shared equally with man in the highest
priestly offices, and was deified after death. In Egypt, Neith the
Victorious, was worshiped as mother of the gods, and in the yearly
festival held in her honor, every family took part for the time holding
a priestly office. To neglect this duty was deemed an omission of great
irreverence.[9] The most ancient occultism recognized the creative
power as feminine and preceding both gods and men.
Under the Matriarchate, monogamy was the rule; neither polyandry or
promiscuity existed.[10]
For long years after the decline of the Matriarchate we still discover
that among many of the most refined nations, woman still possessed
much of the power that belonged exclusively to her during that early
period. Ancient Egypt, recognized as the wisest nation since the direct
historic period, traced descent even to the throne in the female
line. To this reminiscence of the Matriarchate are we indebted for
the story of Moses and his preservation by an Egyptian princess in
direct contravention of the Pharaoh’s orders, as told by the Bible and
Josephus. She not alone preserved the child’s life but carried him to
the king as her son given to her by the bounty of the river and heir
to his throne. As showing woman’s power in that kingdom, the story
is worthy of being farther traced. Josephus says that to please his
daughter, the king took the child in his arms, placing his crown on
the baby head, but the chief priest at that moment entering the room,
in a spirit of prophecy cried aloud, “Oh King; this is the child of
whom I foretold danger; kill him and save the nation,” at the same time
striving to take the babe from the king. But the princess caught him
away, thus setting both kingly and priestly power at defiance, taking
this step by virtue of her greater authority, protecting him until he
reached manhood and causing him to be educated in all the wisdom of
the Egyptians, in a college under her own control. Nor in the supreme
hour of the nation’s peril, when the king, too old to lead his armies
to battle, demanded Moses as heir to the throne in his place, would she
give him up until she had exacted an oath from her father, the potent
Pharaoh, that he meant the youth no harm.
The famous Iroquois Indians, or Six Nations, which at the discovery of
America held sway from the great lakes to the Tombigbee river, from the
Hudson to the Ohio, and of whom it has been said that another century
would have found them master of all tribes to the Gulf of Mexico on
the south, and the Mississippi on the west, showed alike in form of
government, and in social life, reminiscences of the Matriarchate.
The line of descent, feminine, was especially notable in all tribal
relations such as the election of Chiefs, and the Council of Matrons,
to which all disputed questions were referred for final adjudication.
No sale of lands was valid without consent of the squaws and among the
State Archives at Albany, New York, treaties are preserved signed by
the “Sachems and Principal Women of the Six Nations.”[11] The women
also possessed the veto power on questions of war. Sir William Johnston
mentions an instance of Mohawk squaws forbidding the war-path to young
braves. The family relation among the Iroquois demonstrated woman’s
superiority in power. When an Indian husband brought the products of
the chase to the wigwam, his control over it ceased. In the home, the
wife was absolute; the sale of the skins was regulated by her, the
price was paid to her. If for any cause the Iroquois husband and wife
separated, the wife took with her all the property she had brought
into the wigwam; the children also accompanied the mother, whose right
to them was recognized as supreme. So fully to this day is descent
reckoned through the mother, that blue-eyed, fair-haired children of
white fathers are numbered in the tribe and receive both from state
and nation their portion of the yearly dole paid to Indian tribes. The
veriest pagan among the Iroquois, the renowned and important Keeper
of the Wampum, and present sole interpreter of the Belts which give
the most ancient and secret history of this confederation, is Ephraim
Webster, descended from a white man, who, a hundred or more years
since, became affiliated through marriage with an Indian woman, as a
member of the principal nation of the Iroquois, the Onondagas. As of
yore, so now, the greater and lesser Council Houses of the Iroquois are
upon the “mountain” of the Onondaga reservation a few miles from the
city of Syracuse, New York. Not alone the Iroquois but most Indians of
North America trace descent in the female line; among some tribes woman
enjoys almost the whole legislative authority and in others a prominent
share.[12] Lafitte and other Jesuit missionary writers are corroborated
in this statement by Schoolcraft, Catlin, Clark, Hubert Bancroft of the
Pacific coast, and many students of Indian life and customs. But the
most notable fact connected with woman’s participation in governmental
affairs among the Iroquois is the statement of Hon. George Bancroft
that the form of government of the United States, was borrowed from
that of the Six Nations.[13] Thus to the Matriarchate or Mother-rule
is the modern world indebted for its first conception of inherent
rights, natural equality of condition, and the establishment of a
civilized government upon this basis. Although the reputation of the
Iroquois as warriors appears most prominent in history, we nevertheless
find their real principles to have been the true Matriarchal one
of peace and industry. Driven from the northern portion of America
by vindictive foes, compelled to take up arms in self-protection,
yet the more peaceful occupations of hunting and agriculture were
continually followed. Their history was preserved by means of wampum,
while under their women the science of government reached the highest
form known to the world. Among the Zunis of New Mexico, woman still
preserves supreme religious and political authority; the Paramount
Council consisting of six priests under control of a supreme priestess
who is the most important functionary of the tribe.[14] This form of
government is traceable to their earliest civilization at which period
their cities were grouped in sevens, six of them constructed upon a
uniform plan; the supreme seventh containing six temples clustered
about a supreme central seventh temple. While male priests ruled over
the six primal cities the central and superior seventh was presided
over by a priestess who not alone officiated at the central temple, but
to whom the male priests of the six cities and six inferior temples
were subservient. The ancient Lycians, the Sclavs, the Basques of
Spain,[15] the Veddas of Ceylon,[16] the inhabitants of Malabar, the
aborigines of widely separated lands, all show convincing proof of
woman’s early superiority in religion, in the state, and in the family.
Monogamy was a marked feature of the Matriarchate. Bachofen, who has
written voluminously upon the Matriarchate, recognizes it as peculiarly
characteristic of woman’s government. He also says the people who
possessed the Mother-rule together with Gynaikokraty (girls’ rule)
excelled in their love of peace and justice. Under the Matriarchal
family and tribal system even long after its partial supersedence by
the incoming Patriarchate, the marriage relation was less oppressive to
woman than it has been under most centuries of christian civilization.
Daughters were free in their choice of husbands, no form of a force or
sale existing.[17]
One of the most brilliant modern examples of the Matriarchate was
found in Malabar at the time of its discovery by the Portuguese in
the XV century. The Nairs were found to possess a fine civilization,
entirely under the control of women, at a period when woman’s position
in England and on the Continent of Europe, was that of a household and
political slave. Of Malabar it has been said, that when the Portuguese
became acquainted with the country and the people, they were not so
much surprised by the opulence of their cities, the splendor of all
their habits of living, the great perfection of their navy, the high
state of the arts, as they were to find all this under the entire
control and government of women. The difference in civilization between
christian Europe and pagan Malabar at the time of its discovery was
indeed great. While Europe with its new art of printing, was struggling
against the church for permission to use type, its institutions of
learning few, its opportunities for education meagre; its terrible
inquisition crushing free thought and sending thousands each year to
a most painful death, the uncleanliness of its cities and the country
such as to bring frequent visits of the plague; its armies and its
navies with but one exception, imperfect; its women forbidden the right
of inheritance, religious, political, or household authority;—the
feminine principle entirely eliminated from the divinity—a purely
masculine God the universal object of worship, all was directly the
opposite in Malabar. Cleanliness, peace, the arts, a just form of
government, the recognition of the feminine both in humanity and in the
divinity were found in Malabar. To the question of a Danish missionary
concerning their opinion of a Supreme Being, this beautiful answer was
given.
The Supreme Being has a Form and yet has no Form; he can be
likened to nothing; we cannot define him and say that he is
this or that; he is neither Man or Woman; neither Heaven
or Earth, and yet he is all; subject to no corruption, no
mortality and with neither sleep nor rest, he is Almighty and
Omnipotent without Beginning and without End.[18]
Under the Missionaries sent by England to introduce her own barbaric
ideas of God and man, this beautiful Matriarchal civilization of
Malabar soon retrograded and was lost.
The ancient Mound Builders of America, of whom history is silent and
science profoundly ignorant, are proven by means of symbolism to
have been under Matriarchal rule, and Motherhood religion. Anciently
motherhood was represented by a sphere or circle. The circle, like the
mundane egg, which is but an elongated circle, contains everything in
itself and is the true microcosm. It is eternity, it is feminine, the
creative force, representing spirit. Through its union with matter in
the form of the nine digits it is likewise capable of representing
all natural things.[19] The perfect circle of Giotto was an emblem of
divine motherhood in its completeness. It is a remarkable fact—its
significance not recognized,—that the roughly sketched diameter within
the circle, found wherever boys congregate, is an ancient mystic
sign[20] signifying the male and female, or the double-sexed deity. It
is the union of all numbers, the one within the zero mark comprising
ten, and as part of the ancient mysteries signifying God, the creative
power, and eternal life; it was an emblem of The All.
In many old religions, the generative principle was regarded as
the mother of both gods and men. In the Christian religion we find
tendency to a similar recognition in Catholic worship of the Virgin
Mary. The most ancient Aryans were under the Matriarchate, the
feminine recognized as the creative power. The word _ma_ from which
all descendants of those peoples derive their names for mother, was
synonymous with _Creator_. Renouf, the great antiquarian authority
upon the Aryan’s,[21] gives the songs and ceremonies of the wedding.
In these, the woman is represented as having descended to man from
association with divine beings in whose custody and care she has been,
and who give her up with reluctance. In Sanscrit mythology,[22] the
feminine is represented by Swrya, the Sun, the source of life, while
the masculine is described as Soma, a body. Soma, a beverage of the
gods especially sacred to Indra, was the price paid by him for the
assistance of Vayu, the swiftest of the gods, in his battle against the
demon Vritra. A curious line of thought is suggested. The marriage of
the man to the woman was symbolized as his union with the gods. Soma, a
drink devoted to Indra, the highest god, signified his use of a body,
or the union of spirit and body. In the same manner, woman representing
spirit, by her marriage to man became united with a body. As during
the present dark age, the body has been regarded more highly than the
spirit, we find a non-recognition of the woman, although the union of
spirit and body is symbolized in the Christian church by the sacrament
of bread and wine. During the purest period of Aryan history marriage
was entirely optional with woman and when entered into, frequently
meant no more than spiritual companionship. Woman equally with man was
entitled to the Brahminical thread; she also possessed the right to
study and preach the Vedas, which was in itself a proof of her high
position in this race. The Vedas, believed to be the oldest literature
extant, were for many ages taught orally requiring years of close
application upon part of both teacher and student.
The word _Veda_ signifies “to-know”; the latter from _Vidya_ meaning
“wise.” The English term widow is traceable to both forms of the word,
meaning a wise woman—one who knows man. Many ages passed before the
Vedas were committed to writing.[23] At that early day the ancestral
worship of women—departed mothers—was as frequent as that of departed
fathers, women conducting such services which took place three times a
day. In the old Aryan Scriptures the right of woman to hold property,
and to her children, was much more fully recognized than under the
Christian codes of today. Many of the olden rights of women are still
extant in India. The learned Keshub Chunder Sen vigorously protested
against the introduction of English law into India, upon the ground
that it would destroy the ancient rights of the women of that country.
It was primal Indian law that upon the death of the husband the wife
should heir all his property. Marriage was regarded as an eternal
union, the two, by this act, having so fully become one, that upon the
husband’s death, one half of his body was still living. The property
and the children were held as equally belonging to the husband or the
wife.
Colebrook’s _Digest of Hindoo Law_, compiled from the writings of the
Bengal Pundit Jergunnat, ’Na Tercapanchama, from those of Vasist ha,
Catayana, and other Indian authorities says:
In the Veda, in Codes of Law, in sacred ordinances, the wife
is held as one person with the husband; both are considered
one. When the wife is not dead, half the body remains; how
shall another take the property when half the body of the
owner lives? After the death of the husband the widow shall
take his wealth; this is primeval law.
Though a woman be dependent, the alienation of female
property, or of the mother’s right over her son by the gift of
a husband alone[24] is not valid in law or reason;
The female property of wives like the property of a stranger,
may not be given, for there is want of ownership.
Neither the husband, nor the son, nor the father, nor the
brother, have power to use or alien the legal property of a
woman.
We hold it proper that the wife’s co-operation shall be
required in civil contracts and in religious acts under the
text.
A gift to a wife is irrevocable.
The collection of East Indian laws made under authority of the
celebrated Warren Hastings, 1776, is of similar character. The kinds of
property a wife can hold separate from her husband at her own disposal
by will, are specified.
During long centuries while under Christian law the Christian wife
was not allowed even the control of property her own at the time of
marriage, or of that which might afterwards be given her, and her
right of the disposition of property at the time of her death was
not recognized in Christian lands, the Hindoo wife under immemorial
custom could receive property by gift alike from her parents, or from
strangers, or acquire it by her own industry, and property thus gained
was at her own disposal in case of her death. Another remarkable
feature of Indian law contrasting with that of Christian lands was
preference of woman over man in heirship. In case of a daughter’s
death, the mother heired in preference to father, son, or even husband.
That is called a woman’s property; First. Whatever she owns
during the Agamini Shadee, i. e. Days of Marriage;...
Whatever she may receive from any person as she is going to
her husband’s home or coming from thence.
Whatever her husband may at any time have given her; whatever
she has received at any time from a brother; and whatever her
father and mother may have given her.
Whatever her husband on contracting a second marriage may give
her to pacify her.
Whatever a person may have given a woman for food or clothing.
Whatever jewelry or wearing apparel she may have received from
any person; also whatever a woman may receive from any person
as an acknowledgment or payment for any work performed by her.
Whatever she may by accident have found anywhere.
Whatever she may gain by painting, spinning, needle-work or
any employment of this kind.
Except from one of the family of her father, one of the family
of her mother, or one of the family of her husband, whatever
she may receive from any other person. Also if the father or
mother of a girl give anything to their son-in-law, saying
at the same time: “This shall go to our daughter,” and even
without any words to this purpose at the time of making the
gift, if they merely have it in their intention that the thing
thus given should revert to their daughter, all and every one
of these articles are called a woman’s property.
Her right of final disposal by will is also specified. Her effects
acquired during marriage go to her daughters in preference to her sons,
and possessing no daughters, to her mother.
When a woman dies, then whatever effects she acquired during
the Agamini Shadee, even though she hath a son living, shall
go first to her unmarried daughter; if there is but one
unmarried daughter she shall obtain the whole; if there are
several unmarried daughters, they all shall have equal share.
Property under the three forms of marriage, if no unmarried
daughters and others mentioned here, goes to her mother
before to her father; and if neither, to her husband, and if
no husband to husband’s younger brother, or several younger
brothers, (if several).
The specification of gifts of intention is remarkable in securing
property to the wife that was seemingly given by the parents to the
husband alone. An equally remarkable fact is the father’s heirship in
preference to the husband’s, and the heirship of the daughters and
mother in preference to any male relative however near, and is in
striking contrast to Christian law in reference to woman’s property. If
a husband neglect to provide his wife necessary food and clothing, the
East Indian wife is allowed to procure them by any means in her power.
Maine has not failed to recognize the superior authority of the eastern
wife in relation to property over that of the Christian wife. He says:
“The settled property of a married woman incapable of
alienation by her husband, is well known to the Hindoos under
the name of Stridham.”
It is certainly a remarkable fact that the institution seems
to have developed among the Hindoos at a period relatively
much earlier than among the Romans. The _Mitakshara_, one of
the oldest and most revered authorities of the Hindoo judicial
treatises, defines Stridham, or woman’s property, as that
which is given to the wife by the father, the mother, or a
brother at the time of the wedding, before the nuptial fire.
But adds Maine:
The compiler of Mitakshara adds a proportion not found
elsewhere; also property which she may have acquired by
inheritance, purchase, partition, seizure or finding, is
denominated woman’s property.... If all this be Stridham, it
follows that the ancient Hindoo law secured to married women
an even greater degree of proprietary independence than that
given to them by the modern English Married Woman’s Property
Act.
Property is common to the husband and the wife. The ample support of
those who are entitled to maintenance is rewarded with bliss in heaven;
but hell is the portion of that man whose family is afflicted with pain
by his neglect. Therefore the Hindoo husband is taught to maintain his
family with the utmost care. Maxims from the sacred books show the
regard in which the Hindoo woman is held:
“He who despises woman despises his mother.”
“Who is cursed by woman is cursed by God.”
“The tears of a woman call down the fire of heaven on those
who make them flow.”
“Evil to him who laughs at woman’s sufferings; God shall laugh
at his prayers.”
“It was at the prayer of a woman that the Creator pardoned
man; cursed be he who forgets it.”
“Who shall forget the sufferings of his mother at his birth
shall be reborn in the body of an owl during three successive
transmigrations.”
“There is no crime more odious than to persecute woman.”
“When women are honored the divinities are content; but when
they are not honored all undertakings fail.”
“The households cursed by women to whom they have not rendered
the homage due them, find themselves weighed down with ruin
and destroyed as if they had been struck by some secret power.”
“We will not admit the people of today are incapable of
comprehending woman, who alone can regenerate them.”
The marriage ceremony is of the slightest kind and under three forms:
1. Of mutual consent by the interchange of necklaces or
strings of flowers in some secret place.
2. A woman says, “I am become your wife,” and the man says, “I
acknowledge it.”
3. When the parents of a girl on her marriage day say to the
bridegroom: “Whatever act of religion you perform, perform it
with our daughter,” and the bridegroom assents to this speech.
The comparatively modern custom of suttee originated with the priests,
whose avaricious desires created this system in order thereby to secure
the property of the widow. The Vedas do not countenance either suttee
or the widow’s relinquishment of her property, the law specifically
declaring, “If a widow should give all her property and estate to the
Brahmins for religious purposes, the gift indeed is valid, but the act
is improper and the woman blamable.” An ancient scripture declares that
“All the wisdom of the Vedas, and all that has been written in books,
is to be found concealed in the heart of a woman.” It is a Hindoo maxim
that one mother is worth a thousand fathers, because the mother carries
and nourishes the infant from her own body, therefore the mother is
most reverenced. A Hindoo proverb declares that “Who leaves his family
naked and unfed may taste honey at first, but shall afterwards find it
poison.” Another says, “A wife is a friend in the house of the good.”
Ancient Egypt worshiped two classes of gods; one purely spiritual and
eternal, the other secondary but best beloved, were believed to have
been human beings who from the services they had rendered to humanity
were upon death admitted to the assembly of the gods. Such deification
common in ancient times, is still customary in some parts of the earth.
Within the past few years a countryman of our own was thus apotheosized
by the Chinese to whom he had rendered valuable service at the time of
the Tae-ping rebellion.[25] Ancient Egyptians recognized a masculine
and feminine principle entering in all things both material and
spiritual. Isis, the best beloved and most worshiped of the secondary
gods, was believed by them to have been a woman who at an early period
of Egyptian history had rendered that people invaluable service. She
was acknowledged as their earliest law-maker, through whose teaching
the people had risen from barbarism to civilization. She taught them
the art of making bread[26] from the cereals theretofore growing wild
and unused, the inhabitants at an early day living upon roots and
herbs. Egypt soon became the grain growing portion of the globe, her
enormous crops of wheat not alone aiding herself, but rendering the
long stability of the Roman Empire possible. The science of medicine
was believed to have originated with Isis; she was also said to have
invented the art of embalming, established their literature, founded
their religion. The whole Egyptian civilization was ascribed to the
woman-goddess, Isis, whose name primarily Ish-Ish, signified Light,
Life.[27] Isis, and Nepthys—the Lady of the House—were worshiped as
the Beginning and the End. They were the Alpha and Omega of the most
ancient Egyptian religion. The statues of Isis bore this inscription:
I am all that has been, all that shall be, and none among
mortals has hitherto taken off my veil.
Isis was believed to contain germs within herself for the reproduction
of all living things. The most universal of her 10,000 names was,
“Potent Mother Goddess.”[28] This Egyptian regard for Isis is an
extremely curious and interesting reminiscence of the Matriarchal
period. Her worship was universal throughout Egypt. Her temples were
magnificent. Her priests, consecrated to purity, were required to
bathe daily, to wear linen garments unmixed with animal fibre, to
abstain from animal food, and also from those vegetables regarded as
impure.[29] Two magnificent festivals were yearly celebrated in her
honor, the whole people taking part. During one of these festivals her
priests bore a golden ship in the procession. The ship, or ark,[30]
is peculiarly significative of the feminine principle, and wherever
found is a reminiscence of the Matriarchate. The most sacred mysteries
of the Egyptian religion, whose secrets even Pythagoras could not
penetrate, to which Herodotus alluded with awe, and that were unknown
to any person except the highest order of priests, owed their
institution to Isis, and were based upon moral responsibility and a
belief in a future life. The immortality of the soul was the underlying
principle of the Egyptian religion.
Isis seems to have been one of those extraordinary individuals, such
as occasionally in the history of the world have created a literature,
founded a religion, established a nationality. She was a person of
superior mentality, with power to diffuse intelligence.
Moses, “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” borrowed much
from Isis. The forms and ceremonies used in her worship were largely
copied by him, yet lacked the great moral element—immortal life—so
conspicuously taught as a part of Egyptian religion. The Sacred Songs
of Isis were an important part of the literature of Egypt. Plato, who
burned his own poems after reading Homer, declared them worthy of the
divinity, believing them to be literally 10,000 years old.[31] All
orders of the priesthood were open to women in Egypt; sacred colleges
existed for them, within whose walls dwelt an order of priestesses
known as “God’s Hand,” “God’s Star.” Its ranks were recruited from
women of the principal families, whose only employment was the service
of the gods. “Daughter of the Deity,” signified a priestess.
Women performed the most holy offices of religion, carrying the Sacred
Sistrum and offering sacrifices of milk, both ceremonies of great
dignity and importance, being regarded as the most sacred service
of the divinity. Such sacrificial rites were confined to queens and
princesses of the royal household. Ames-Nofri-Ari, a queen who received
great honor from Egyptians, spoken of as the “goddess-wife of Amun,”
the supreme god of Thebes, for whose worship the wonderful temple of
Karnak was founded by a Pharaoh of the XII dynasty, is depicted on the
monuments as the Chief High Priest—the Sem, whose specific duty was
offering sacrifices and pouring out libations in that temple. By virtue
of her high office she preceded her husband, the powerful and renowned
Rameses II. The high offices of the church were as habitually held by
women as by men; Princess Neferhotep, of the fifth dynasty, was both
a priestess and a prophetess of the goddesses Hathor and Neith, the
representatives of celestial space, in which things were both created
and preserved.
A priestess and priest in time of the XIII Pharaoh represented on a
slab of limestone, in possession of the Ashmolean Library of Oxford,
England, is believed to be the oldest monument of its kind in the
world, dating to 3,500, B.C.
Queen Hatasu, the light of the brilliant XVIII dynasty, is depicted
upon the monuments as preceding in acts of worship the great Thotmes
III, her brother, whom she had associated with herself upon the throne,
but who did not acquire supreme power until after her death.[32] The
reign of Hatasu was pre-eminent as the great architectural period of
Egypt, the engraving upon monuments during her reign closely resembling
the finest Greek intaglio. Egypt, so famous for her gardens and her art
of forcing blossoms out of season, was indebted to this great queen for
the first acclimatizing of plants. Upon one of her voyages she brought
with her in baskets filled with earth several of those Balsam trees
from Arabia, which were numbered among the precious gifts of the Queen
of Sheba to King Solomon. The red granite obelisks erected by Hatasu
before the gates of Karnak, the most magnificent and loftiest ever
erected in Egypt, were ninety-seven feet in height and surmounted by a
pyramid of gold.
As early as the XI Pharaoh, II dynasty, the royal succession became
fixed in the female line. A princess was endowed with privileges
superior to a prince, her brother, her children reigning by royal
prerogative even when her husband was a commoner; the children of
a prince of the Pharaonic house making such marriage were declared
illegitimate.
From the highest to the most humble priestly office, women officiated
in Egypt. A class of sacred women were doorkeepers of temples, another
order known as “Sacred Scribes” were paid great deference. The Pellices
or Pellucidae of Amun were a remarkable body of priestesses whose
burial place has but recently been discovered. They were especially
devoted to the services of Amun-Ra, the Theban Jove. Egypt was indebted
to priestesses for some of its most important literature. To Penthelia,
a priestess of Phtha[33] the God of Fire, in Memphis, Bryant ascribes
the authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer[34] in his travels
through that country, by aid of a suborned priest, having stolen these
poems from the archives of the temples of Phtha where they had been
deposited for safe keeping.