continuance of the species, looked upon it with more favor, attributing
the fall to another cause, yet throwing odium upon the relation by
maintaining that the marriage of Adam and Eve did not take place until
after they had been driven from Paradise. This doctrine was taught by
the Father Hieronymus.[6] Thus with strange inconsistency the church
supported two entirely opposing views of marriage. Yet even those who
upheld its necessity still taught woman’s complete subordination to man
in that relation; also that this condition was one of great tribulation
to man, it was even declared that God caused sleep to fall upon Adam
at the creation of Eve in order to prevent his opposition.[7] Lecky
speaking of the noxious influences of ascetics upon marriage, says it
would be difficult to conceive anything more coarse and repulsive than
the manner in which the church regarded it; it was invariably treated
as a consequence of the fall of Adam and regarded from its lowest
aspect.[8] But having determined that evil was necessary in order to
future good, the church decided to compel a belief that its control of
this contract lessened the evil, to this end declaring marriage illegal
without priestly sanction; thus creating a conviction of and belief
in its sacramental nature in the minds of the people. Despite the
favoring views of a class regarding marriage, celibacy was taught as
the highest condition for both man and woman, and as early as the third
century many of the latter entered upon a celibate life, Jerome using
his influence in its favor. Augustine, while admitting the possibility
of salvation to the married, yet speaking of a mother and daughter in
heaven, compared the former to a star of the second magnitude, but the
latter as shining with great brilliancy. The superior respect paid to
the celibates even among women is attributed to direct instruction of
the apostles. The “Apostolic Constitutions” held even by the Episcopal
church as regulations established by the apostles themselves, and
believed to be among the earliest christian records, give elaborate
directions for the places of all who attend church, the unmarried being
the most honored. The virgins and widows and elder women stood or sat
first of all.
The chief respect shown by the early fathers towards marriage was that
it gave virgins to the church, while the possibility of salvation to
the married, at first recognized, was denied at later date even to
persons otherwise living holy lives. The Emperor Jovinian banished
a man who asserted the possibility of salvation to married persons
provided they obeyed all the ordinances of the church and lived good
lives.[9] As part of this doctrine, the church taught that woman
was under an especial curse and man a divinely appointed agent for
the enforcement of that curse. It inculcated the belief that all
restrictions placed upon her were but parts of her just punishment for
having caused the fall of man. Under such teaching a belief in the
supreme virtue of celibacy—first declared by the apostle Paul,—was
firmly established. To Augustine is the world indebted for full
development of the theory of original sin, promulgated by Paul as a
doctrine of the Christian Church in the declaration that Adam, first
created, was not first in sin. Paul, brought up in the strictest
external principles of Judaism, did not lose his educational bias or
primal belief when changing from Judaism to Christianity.[10] Neither
was his character as persecutor changed when he united his fortunes
with the new religion. He gave to the Christian world a lever long
enough to reach down through eighteen centuries, all that time moving
it in opposition to a belief in woman’s created and religious equality
with man, to her right of private judgment and to her personal freedom.
His teaching that Adam, first created, was not first in sin, divided
the unity of the human race in the assumption that woman was not part
of the original creative idea but a secondary thought, an inferior
being brought into existence as an appendage to man.
Although based upon a false conception of the creative power, this
theory found ready acceptance in the minds of the men of the new
church. Not illiterate, having received instruction at the feet
of Gamaliel, Paul was yet intolerant and credulous, nay more,
unscrupulous. He was the first Jesuit in the Christian church,
“Becoming all things to all men.” The Reformed church with strange
unanimity has chosen Paul as its leader and the accepted exponent
of its views. He may justly be termed the Protestant Pope, and
although even among Catholics rivalling Peter in possession of the
heavenly keys, yet the Church of Rome has accepted his authority as
in many respects to be more fully obeyed than even the teachings of
St. Peter.[11] Having been accepted by the Church as the apostolic
exponent of its views upon marriage, it was but to be expected that
his teachings should be received as divine. That Paul was unmarried
has been assumed because of his bitterness against this relation, yet
abundant proof of his having a wife exists. For the membership of the
Great Sanhedrim, marriage was a requisite. St. Clement of Alexandria
positively declared that St. Paul had a wife. Until the time of
Cromwell, when it was burned, a MS. letter of St. Ignatius in Greek was
preserved in the old Oxford Library; this letter spoke of “St. Peter
and Paul and the apostles who were married.” Another letter of St.
Ignatius is still extant in the Vatican Library. Tussian and others
who have seen it declare that it also speaks of St. Paul as a married
man.[12] But tenderness toward woman does not appear in his teachings;
man is represented as the master, “the head” of woman. In consonance
with his teaching, responsibility has been denied her through the ages;
although the Church has practically held her amenable for the ruin of
the world, prescribing penance and hurling anathemas against her whom
it has characterized as the “door of hell.”
At a synod in Winchester in the eighth century, St. Dunstan, famed for
his hatred of women, made strenuous effort to enforce celibate life. It
was asserted to be so highly immoral for a priest to marry, that even
a wooden cross had audibly declared against the horrid practice.[13]
Although in the third century marriage was permitted to all orders
of the clergy,[14] yet the very ancient “Gospel of the Egyptians,”
endorsed as canonical by Clement of Alexandria, taught celibacy. These
old christian theologians found the nature of woman a prolific subject
of discussion, a large party classing her among brutes without soul
or reason. As early as the sixth century a council at Macon (585),
fifty-nine bishops taking part, devoted its time to a discussion of
this question, “Does woman possess a soul?” Upon one side it was argued
that woman should not be called “homo”; upon the opposite side that she
should, because, first, the Scriptures declared that God created man,
male and female; second, that Jesus Christ, son of a woman, is called
the son of man. Christian women were therefore allowed to remain human
beings in the eyes of the clergy, even though considered very weak and
bad ones. But nearly a thousand years after this decision in favor of
the humanity of the women of Christian Europe, it was still contended
that the women of newly discovered America belonged to the brute
creation, possessing neither souls nor reason.[15] As late as the end
of the sixteenth century an anonymous work appeared, arguing that women
were no part of mankind, but a species of intermediate animal between
the human and the brute creation. (Mulieres non est homines, etc.)
Mediaeval christian writings show many discussions upon this point, the
influence of these old assertions still manifesting themselves.
Until the time of Peter the Great, women were not recognized as human
beings in that great division of Christendom known as the Greek church,
the census of that empire counting only males, or so many “souls”—no
woman named. Traces of this old belief have not been found wanting
in our own country within the century. As late as the Woman’s Rights
Convention in Philadelphia, 1854, an objector in the audience cried
out: “Let women first prove they have souls; both the Church and the
State deny it.”
Everything connected with woman was held to be unclean. It is stated
that Agathro desired the Sophist Herodes to get ready for him the next
morning a vessel full of pure milk, that is to say which had not been
milked by the hand of a woman. But he perceived as soon as it was
offered to him that it was not such as he desired, protesting that the
scent of her hands who had milked it offended his nostrils. In the
oldest European churches great distinction was made between the purity
of man and woman. At an early date woman was forbidden to receive the
Eucharist into her naked hand on account of her impurity,[16] or to
sing in church on account of her inherent wickedness. To such an extent
was this opposition carried, that the church of the middle ages did not
hesitate to provide itself with eunuchs in order to supply cathedral
choirs with the soprano tones inhering by nature in woman alone. One
of the principal charges against the Huguenots was that they permitted
women to sing in church, using their voices in praise of God contrary
to the express command of St. Paul, Catherine de Medicis reproaching
them for this great sin.[17] The massacre at St. Bartholomew, when
30,000 men, women and children lost their lives, and the entire
destruction of many families of purest character took place, with an
additional great loss to France from the self-imposed banishment of
hundreds more, may be traced to the teaching of St. Paul that woman
should keep silence in the church. This doctrine also crossed the
ocean with the Puritan Fathers, and has appeared in America under many
forms.[18]
The Christianity of the ages teaching the existence of a superior and
inferior sex, possessing different rights under the law and in the
church, it has been easy to bring man and woman under accountability to
a different code of morals. For this double code the church is largely
indebted to the subtle and acute Paul, who saw in the new religion but
an enlarged Judaism that should give prominence to Abraham and his seed
from whom Christ claimed descent. His conversion did not remove his
old Jewish contempt for woman, as shown in his temple service, the law
forbidding her entrance beyond the outer court. Nor could he divest
himself of the spirit of the old morning prayer which daily led each
Jew to thank God that he was not born a heathen, a slave or a woman.
He brought into the new dispensation the influence of the old
ceremonial law, which regarded woman as unclean. The Jewish exclusion
of forty days from even the outer court of the sanctuary to the woman
who had given birth to a son, and of twice that period, or eighty
days, if a daughter had been born, was terminated in both religions
by a sin-offering in expiation of the mother’s crime for having, at
the peril of her own, brought another human being into life.[19] This
Old Testament teaching degraded the life-giving principle exemplified
in motherhood, and in a two-fold way lessened the nation’s regard for
womanhood. First, through the sin-offering and purification demanded
of the mother; second, by its doubling the period of exclusion from
the temple in case a girl was given to the world.[20] The birth of
girls even under Christianity has everywhere been looked upon as an
infliction, and thousands have been immured in convents, there to die
of despair or to linger through years,[21] the victim alike of father
and of priest.
The influence of Judaism extended through Christendom. The custom of
purification after maternity inherited by the church from Judaism
brought with it into Christianity the same double restriction and
chastening of the mother in case her infant proved a girl, a gift as
propitiation or expiation being required. Uncleanliness was attributed
to woman in every function of her being; the purification of the Virgin
Mary, who was not exempt, when after the birth of a God, being used as
an incontrovertible argument in proof. A festival of the purification
of the Virgin Mary, adopted from paganism, was introduced into Rome
at an early date, thus perpetuating a belief in the uncleanliness
of motherhood. The Church in the Roman Empire soon united with
the State[22] in imposing new restrictions upon women. Since the
Reformation the mother’s duty of expiation has been confirmed by the
Anglican Church, and is known in England as “churching.” Directions
as to the woman’s dress at this time was early made the subject of a
canon.[23] She was to be decently appareled. This term “decently,”
variously interpreted, was at times the occasion of serious trouble. In
1661, during the reign of James I, the Chancellor of Norwich ordered
that every woman who came to be churched should be covered with a white
veil. A woman who refused to conform to this order was excommunicated
for contempt. She prayed a prohibition, alleging that such order was
not warranted by any custom or Canon of the Church of England. The
judges of the civil court, finding themselves incompetent to decide
upon such a momentous question, requested the opinion of the archbishop
of Canterbury. Not willing to trust his own judgment, that dignitary
convened several bishops for consultation. Their decision was against
the woman, this Protestant Council upon woman’s dress declaring that it
was the ancient usage of the Church of England for women who were to be
churched to come veiled, and a prohibition was denied.
The doctrine that woman must remain covered when in the sacred church
building shows itself in the United States.[24] In many instances under
Christianity, woman has been entirely excluded from religious houses
and church buildings. When Pope Boniface[25] founded the abbey of Fulda
he prohibited the entrance of women into any of the buildings, even
including the church. This rule remained unbroken during the tenth and
eleventh centuries, and even when in 1131 the Emperor Lothair went to
Fulda to celebrate Pentecost, his empress was not permitted to witness
the ceremonies. When Frederick Barbarossa, 1135, proposed to spend
his Easter there, he was not even allowed to enter the house because
of having his wife with him. In 1138 Boniface IX, at the request of
the abbot, John Merlow, relaxed the rule and permitted women to
attend the services of the church. Shortly afterwards the building was
destroyed by lightning, which was looked upon as evidence of the divine
displeasure at the desecration. The monastery of Athos under the Greek
church, situated upon an island, does not permit the entrance of a
female animal upon its confines. Even in America woman has met similar
experience.[26]
At certain periods during the middle ages, conversation with women was
forbidden. During the Black Death, the Flaggellants, or Brotherhood of
the Cross, were under such interdict.[27] In this last decade of the
XIX century, the Catholic church still imposes similar restrictions
upon certain religious houses. Early in 1892 the queen-regent of
Spain visited the monastery of Mirzaflores; its rules not allowing
a monk to speak to a woman, the queen was received in silence. Her
majesty immediately telegraphed to the pope asking indulgence, which
was granted, and during four hours the monks were permitted the sin
of speaking to a woman. It is curious to note that the first sentence
uttered by one of the monks was a compliment upon the simplicity of her
majesty’s attire. But the most impressive evidence of the contempt of
the church towards all things feminine was shown in a remark by Tetzel
the great middle-age dealer in indulgences. Offering one for sale he
declared it would insure eternal salvation even if the purchaser had
committed rape upon the mother of God.[28]
A knowledge of facts like these is necessary in order to a just
understanding of our present civilization, especially as to the origin
of restrictive legislation concerning woman. The civilization of today
is built upon the religious theories of the middle ages supplemented by
advancing freedom of thought. Lea, declares thus:
The Latin church is the great fact which dominates the history
of modern civilization. All other agencies which molded the
destinies of Europe were comparatively isolated or sporadic in
their manifestations.
The influence of church teaching is most strikingly manifested in the
thought of today. Without predetermined intention of wrong doing, man
has been so molded by the Church doctrine of ages and the coordinate
laws of State as to have become blind to the justice of woman’s demand
for freedom such as he possesses. Nor is woman herself scarcely less
bound, although now torn by the spirit of rebellion which burned in the
hearts of her fore-mothers, so cruelly persecuted, so falsely judged,
during past ages, when the most devout Christian woman possessed no
rights in the church, the government or the family. The learning which
had been hers in former periods, was then interdicted as an especial
element of evil. Her property rights recognized in former periods then
denied; as a being subordinate to man she was not allowed a separate
estate or control over the earnings of her own hands. Her children were
not her own but those of a master for whose interest or pleasure she
had given them birth. Without freedom of thought or action, trained
to consider herself secondary to a man, a being who came into the
world not as part of the great original plan of creation but as an
afterthought of her Creator, and this doctrine taught as one of the
most sacred mysteries of religion which to doubt was to insure her
eternal damnation, it is not strange that the great body of women are
not now more outspoken in demanding equal religious and governmental
rights with man. But another phase of heredity shows itself in the
eagerness with which women enter all phases of public life which does
not place them in open antagonism with Church or State. Education,
industries, club life and even those great modern and religious
organizations which bring them before the public, throwing active work
and responsibility upon them, would be entirely unexplainable were it
not for the tendency of inherited thought to ultimately manifest itself.
The long continued and powerfully repressing influence of church
teaching in regard to the created inferiority of women, imposed upon
millions of men and women a bondage of thought and action which even
the growing civilization of the nineteenth century has not yet been
able to cast off. To this doctrine we can trace all the irregularities
which for many centuries filled the church with shame; practices
more obscene than those of Babylon or Corinth dragged Christendom to
a darkness blacker than the night of heathendom in the most pagan
countries—a darkness so intense that the most searching efforts of the
historian but now and then cast a ray of light upon it;—a darkness so
profound that in Europe from the seventh to the eleventh centuries no
individual thought can be traced, no opinion was formed, no heresy
arose. All Christendom was sunk in superstition. Lange[29] says “The
disappearance of ancient civilization in the early centuries of the
Christian era is an event the serious problems of which are in great
part still unexplained.” Had Lange not been influenced by the subtle
current of heredity which unwittingly influenced nations and systems
equally with individuals, he could easily have discovered the cause
of this disappearance of olden civilization, to be in the degradation
of the feminine element under Christianity. While this darkness of
Christian Europe was so great that history knows less of it a thousand
years since than it does of Egypt 5,000 years ago, one corner of that
continent was kept luminous by the brilliance of Mohammedan learning.
The Arabs alone had books from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries
of the Christian era. The Moors of Spain kept that portion of Europe
bright, while all else was sunk in darkness. Universities existed,
learning was fostered and women authors were numerous. For many
hundred years Rome possessed no books but missals and a few Bibles in
the hands of priests. Men were bound by church dogmas looking only
for aggrandisement through her. The arts ceased to flourish, science
decayed, learning was looked upon as a disgrace to a warrior,[30] the
only occupation deemed worthy of the noble.
The priesthood who alone possessed a knowledge of letters, prostituted
their learning to the basest uses; the nobility when not engaged
against a common foe, spent their time battling against each other;
the peasantry were by turns the sport and victim of priest and noble,
while woman was the prey of all. Her person and her rights possessed
no consideration except as she could be made to advance the interest
or serve the pleasure of priest, noble, father, husband; some man-god
to whose lightest desire all her wishes were made to bend. The most
pronounced doctrine of the church at this period was that through
woman sin had entered the world; that woman’s whole tendency was
towards evil, and had it not been for the unfortunate oversight of her
creation, man would then be dwelling in the paradisal innocence and
happiness of Eden, with death entirely unknown. When the feminine was
thus wholly proscribed, the night of moral and spiritual degradation
reached its greatest depth, and that condition ensued which has alike
been the wonder and the despair of the modern historians, whose
greatest fault, as Buckle shows, has been the reading of history from
a few isolated facts rather than building up its philosophy from an
aggregation of events upon many different planes.
Under all restrictions woman did not fail to show her innate power
even within the fold of the church. She founded devout orders,[31]
established and endowed religious institutions, and issued her
commands to the pope himself, in more than one instance seating that
holy personage in the papal chair.[32] From St. Paulina, whose life
was written by St. Jerome, to the promulgation of the dogma of the
Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary by the Ecumenical Council
under Pius IX, and the later canonization of Joan of Arc, woman has
not failed to impress even the Christian world with a sense of her
intellectual and spiritual power. Yet despite the very great influence
exerted by so many women in the affairs of the church—notwithstanding
the canonization of so many women, she has only been able to show her
capacity at an immense expenditure of vital force against constant
priestly opposition and the powerful decrees of councils. Subtle and
complex as are the influences that mould thought and character, we
cannot comprehend the great injustice of the church towards woman in
its teaching of her mental and spiritual inferiority without a slight
examination of the great religious institutions that have been under
her charge. Of these none possess more remarkable history than the
Abbey of Fontervault,[33] founded in 1099, for both monks and nuns.
It belonged in the general rank of Benedictines, and was known as the
Order of Fontervault. It was ruled by an abbess under title of General
of the Order, who was responsible to no authority but that of the
pope himself. Forming a long succession of able women in thirty-two
abbesses from the most eminent families of France, woman’s capacity
for the management of both ecclesiastical and civil affairs was there
shown for six hundred years. It was the abbess who alone decided the
religious fitness of either monk or nun seeking admission to the
order. It was the abbess who decreed all ecclesiastical and civil
penalties; who selected the confessors for the different houses of the
order throughout France and Spain; who managed and controlled the vast
wealth belonging to this institution; it was the abbess who drew up
the rules for the government of the order, and who also successfully
defended these privileges when attacked. For neither the protection of
the pope, the wealth of the order, or the family influence connected
with it, prevented priestly attack,[34] and no argument in favor of
woman’s governing ability is stronger than the fact that its abbesses
ever successfully resisted these priestly assaults upon the privileges
of their order. The abbey of Fontervault, with its grounds of forty or
fifty acres, was surrounded by high walls; its soil was tilled by the
monks of the abbey, who received even their food as alms from the nuns,
returning all fragments for distribution to the poor.[35]
The authority of women was supreme in all monasteries of the order.
The ecclesiastical power maintained by these abbesses is the more
remarkable, as it was in direct contravention of the dictates of the
early councils, that of Aix-la-Chapelle, 816, forbidding abbesses to
give the veil or take upon themselves any priestly function; the later
council of Paris A.D. 824, bitterly complained that women served at the
altar, and even gave to people the body and blood of Jesus Christ.