was the origin of all this vituperation. Its real cause was of the
same nature as that which laid 30,000 heads low, at St. Bartholomew,
that woman’s voice had been heard in public contrary to the teaching
of the church. It was perhaps foreseen that she might, as really at
a later period was done, draw a vivid illustration of the similitude
between the condition of the white wife and the black slave.[10] The
unity and peace of the World’s Anti-slavery Convention, London, 1840,
was disturbed by the hostility of several clergymen, and a few bigoted
laymen of the same spirit, who objected to the recognition of the women
delegates sent by several American societies, among whom were Lucretia
Mott and Esther Moore, members of the parent organization. After a
spirited discussion their admission was decided to be a violation of
the ordinances of Almighty God, and their credentials were rejected.[11]
In 1843, the Hopkinson Association of Congregational Divines, of
New Hampshire, unanimously enacted a statute in opposition to women
opening their lips in church, even to “sigh” or “groan” in contrition;
doubtless agreeing with Minister Douglas, that they were incapable of
understanding a discourse directed to the brethren, who alone were
allowed to shout “Amen,” “Bless the Lord,” and “Glory.” By a strange
inconsistency women were still allowed to sing “under men as leaders.”
This statute of restriction declared:
But, as to leading men, either in instruction or devotion, and
as to any interruption or disorder in religious meetings, “Let
your women keep silence in the churches;” not merely let them
be silent, but let them keep or preserve silence. Not that
they may not preach, or pray, or exhort merely, but they
may not open their lips to utter any sounds audibly. Let not
your women in promiscuous religious meetings preach or pray
audibly, or exhort audibly, or sigh, or groan, or say Amen, or
utter the precious words, “Bless the Lord,” or the enchanting
sounds, “Glory! Glory!”
In 1888, forty-five years after this statute, Rev. Dr. Theodore L.
Cuyler in the _New York Evangelist_, gave his opinion in regard to
woman’s action in reform work and her demand for a share in making the
laws which govern her, in this wise:
We can say frankly to our temperance brethren, that if they
attempt to lash the wise project of prohibition of saloons,
and the foolish project of female suffrage inseparably
together, they will encounter fatal opposition. They will
repel tenfold more sensible voters than they will win. Their
most eloquent and logical advocate, Dr. Herrick Johnson, is
intensely opposed to the Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton
doctrines of woman suffrage, as I am. Nineteen-twentieths
of our Presbyterian ministers will never cast a vote which
is nominally only for prohibition, and yet is really a vote
for burdening womanhood with civil government. What is true
of our church is true of the Episcopal, Reformed, Baptist,
Congregationalist, and the most influential portion of the
Methodist church.
The same year of President Strong’s opposing sermon, 1878, the United
Presbyterian Assembly passed a resolution to the effect that they
found no sufficient authority in Scripture to warrant the ordination
of women as deacons, yet they might with profit to themselves, and
great advantage to the cause of suffering humanity, and for Christ,
be _allowed to act as assistants to deacons_, thus emphasizing the
dominant church teaching of woman’s irresponsibility and secondary
position to man. The same year, however, an advance step was taken in
Europe, the Synod of Born (Old Catholic), following the example of Pere
Hyacinth, adopted a resolution in favor of the marriage of the clergy
by a vote of 76 to 22. At the same time the Old Catholics were taking
this advance step, the Protestant Episcopal Diocesan Convention of
South Carolina forbade woman’s voting upon church matters, although it
was proven during the discussion that in some parishes that were but
five male members. The Southern Baptist Convention, held in Savannah,
Georgia, 1885, appointed a committee with title of, and whose business
was to decide upon “Representation by Women” in church affairs. This
committee reported in favor of the word “brethren” instead of “members”
being incorporated in the constitution, thus confirming the right of
man alone to take part in church councils. Having thus effectively
closed the lips of women on discussion of church questions, the
convention introduced a resolution on divorce[12] followed by a speech
declaring that but one cause could exist. The convention having shut
off all chance for woman’s opinion upon this question of equal and
even of more vital interest to her, “applaudingly and overwhelmingly
adopted the resolution.” At the annual election for officers of Christ
Church, New Haven, Connecticut, April 1886, a discussion arose upon
the right of women to become members of the society and consequently
voted it in. Several ladies having signified a desire to unite with
the society, Bishop Williams was consulted as to their admission; he
decided the Canon was clearly against them, and on motion of the clerk
their application was rejected, only one member speaking in favor.
The title of the sermons still preached upon woman, illustrate priestly
thought regarding her. Among those of recent date are found, “Blighted
Women;” “Sins of Women;” “Women and Divorce;” “Women and Skepticism;”
“Woman’s Place and Work;” “Our Common Mother;” “The Relation of Husband
and Wife;” “Marriage and Divorce;” “The Sphere of Woman;” “Husband and
Wife;” “A Mission for Women;” “The Church and the Family;” “The Duties
of Wives to Husbands;” these sermons all subordinating woman to man
in every relation of life; all designed to repress woman’s growing
tendency towards freedom, and her claim for the same opportunities
in life conceded to man. That the clerical teaching of woman’s
subordination to man was not alone a doctrine of the dark ages, is
proven by the most abundant testimony of today. The famous See trial
of 1876, which shook not only the Presbytery of Newark, but the whole
Synod of New Jersey, and finally the General Presbyterian Assembly
of the United States, was based upon the doctrine of the divinely
appointed subordination of woman to man, and arose simply because
Rev. Dr. Isaac See admitted two ladies to his pulpit to speak upon
temperance; Rev. Dr. Craven, the prosecutor, declared this act to have
been “an indecency in the sight of Jehovah.” He expressed the general
clinical and church view, when he said:
I believe the subject involves the honor of my God. I believe
the subject involves the headship and crown of Jesus. Woman
was made for man and became first in the transgression. My
argument is that subordination is natural, the subordination
of sex. Dr. See has admitted marital subordination, but
this is not enough; there exists a created subordination; a
divinely arranged and appointed subordination of woman as
woman to man as man. Woman was made for man and became first
in the transgression. The proper condition of the adult female
is marriage; the general rule for ladies is marriage. Women
without children, it might be said, could preach, but they are
under the general rule of subordination. It is not allowed
woman to speak in the church. Man’s place is on the platform.
It is positively base for a woman to speak in the pulpit; it
is base in the sight of Jehovah. The whole question is one of
subordination.[13]
Thus before a vast audience largely composed of women, Dr. Craven
stood and with denunciatory manner, frequently bringing his fists on
his Bible emphatically down, devoted a four hours speech to proving
that the Bible taught woman’s subordination to man. His arguments
were the same as those of the church in the past and were based upon
the same theory, viz. that woman was created inferior _to_ man, _for_
man, and was the first in sin. He referred to the fashions as aid in
his argument, saying, “In every country, under every clime, from the
peasant woman of Naples, with a handkerchief over her hair, to the
women before me with bonnets, every one wears something upon her head
in token of subordination.” Dr. Craven made this statement in direct
contradiction to historical facts which prove that the head covering
is always removed in presence of a superior. To remain bareheaded is
an act of deference to a higher authority. Even the Quaker custom of
men’s wearing the hat in meeting, originated as an act of defiance
to the Anglican Church. Dr. Craven also forgot to state that flowing
hair has always been regarded as an emblem of superiority and freedom;
clipped hair that of a slave or prisoner. Thus Dr. Craven’s appeal to
fashion reacted against him in the minds of all historically informed
persons, yet together with his other statements it was fully endorsed
by most of his brother clergymen present, some of whom enthusiastically
shouted, “Amen!” At the close of his speech several other clergymen
gave their views. Dr. Ballentine considered the subject too simple for
an argument. Dr. Few Smith, although he “admired Miss Smiley, more than
almost any orator he had ever listened to, did not want her or any
other woman to permanently occupy the Presbyterian pulpit.” Dr. Wilson
rejoiced to see so many women crowding in the lecture room; but Brother
See should not take all the glory to himself. He was glad to see the
women take so deep an interest in the subject under discussion; but
as he looked at them he asked himself: “What will all the children do
while these women are away from home?” A decision of censure against
Dr. See, was agreed in by the Synod of New Jersey, and confirmed by the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, in
session at Pittsburg.
Thus we find that the Christianity of today continues to teach the
existence of a superior and an inferior sex in the church, possessing
different rights and held accountable to a different code of morals.
Not alone did Dr. Craven express the idea that woman’s very dress was
typical of her inferiority, but the Right Rev. Dr. Coxe, Bishop of the
Western (Episcopal) Diocese of New York refused the sacrament in 1868
to the lady patients of the Clifton Springs sanitarium whose heads were
uncovered, although the chapel was under the same roof and on the same
floor with the patients’ rooms. This same Right Rev. Dr. Coxe, in a
speech at his installation as first president of the Ingham Seminary
for young ladies, declared “the laws of God to be plainly Salic.” Rev.
W. W. Patten, D.D., president of Howard University, Washington, D.C.,
in a sermon preached at the Congregational church, upon “Woman and
Skepticism,” January, 1885, advanced the proposition that as soon as
they (women) depart from their natural sphere, they become atheistical
and immoral.[14] In March, 1891, a half column editorial in the
“Presbyterian” discussed the ethics and aesthetics of woman’s dress
at communions, not precisely in line with Dr. Coxe, yet of the same
general character as to regulating woman’s dress, in, “Should women
receive the elements at communion with gloved hands?” Some authorities
objected to the practice upon the ground “that nothing might come
between the recipient and the mystic power contained in the bread
and wine after consecration by the priest.” But while, as the editor
remarks, “It is after all a very small matter,” it is in a historical
aspect, a great one, showing such pronounced change from the church
teaching of but a few centuries since, when women were forbidden to
take the eucharist in their naked hands because of their impurity. Rev.
Mr. Denhurst, member of the Connecticut Legislature (House), during a
hearing before a committee upon that question March 10, 1886, while
speaking favorably of woman suffrage still betrayed his belief in the
old theological idea that women brought sin into the world, through
which her subordination to man ensued. But like Dr. See he limited this
subordination to married women, saying:
As a minister of the gospel, I deny that you can find anywhere
in the Bible, woman’s subordination till she sent the curse of
sin upon the world, and that relates only to married women,
and marriage is a matter of choice.
The spiritual and temporal superiority of man over woman is affirmed by
clergymen of the present day as strongly as by those of the dark ages,
and sermons in opposition to her equality of rights are as frequently
preached. The entrance of woman into remunerative industries is as
energetically opposed as is her demand for governmental and religious
freedom. Rev. Morgan Dix, rector of Trinity church, New York, in a
series of “Lenten Lectures”[15] a few years since, made woman the
subject of violent attacks as an inferior and subordinate being, now
attempting to pass beyond the bounds set by God for her restraint.
There is a more emphatic, a more hopeless degradation for her.
It is seen when she seeks to reverse the laws of her nature
and upset the economy of the universe, pushing her way out of
her own sphere into a rivalry with men in their sphere and
in their proper pursuits. On that must follow a degradation,
greatly to be feared. When the claim for rights seems to be
taking the form of a competition with man, on a field which
God has reserved for man only, in a work not suited to the
woman, and in professions already overstocked that must end,
not in enhancing the merit of woman in his eye but in making
her offensive and detestable. There is a point beyond which
patience will not hold out; and of this let the woman be sure:
that if she go too far the end will arise; and man having
long borne her manners and finding that she is becoming a
social nuisance and a general tormentor, will finally lose all
respect for her and thrust her away with loathing and disgust
and bid her behave herself and go back to her old inferiority.
In this series of lectures, Dr. Dix emphatically declared man’s
spiritual supremacy even in the household.
The father is by God's law, priest over his household; to him
should they look as a witness for that God who gave him his
rank and title.[16]
The sects agree in their teachings regarding woman; Rev. A. Sherman, at
one time president of Bacon College, Kentucky, declaring that woman was
first in transgression, that she beguiled man and was therefore put in
bondage under his authority, said:
The wide spreading contempt for this truth exhibited by the
political-religious fashion and infidelity of the age, is one
of the most alarming symptoms of approaching anarchy and the
overthrow of our liberties. The attempt which is being made in
these United States to elevate the wife to a perfect equality
with the husband, or to change in any respect the relation
between them, established by God himself, is rank infidelity,
no matter what specious disguise it may assume.
In a sermon of his Lenten series, entitled “The Calling of a Christian
Woman, and her Training to Fulfill it,” Dr. Dix said:
We, priests, who whatever our personal short comings, have a
commission from above and a message to man from God, and are
the mouth-piece of that church to which his hand-maidens
belong, may be and ought to be able to help occasionally,
by merely stating what the Bible and the church declare on
certain great matters, on which many lower ones depend....
What did Almighty God, the Creator, the wise Father of all,
make woman for? What did he intend her to do? What did he not
mean her to do or try to do?
He answered these questions in a lecture entitled, “A Mission for
Woman,” of the same series.
Looking for a mission, for a work to do, this is the attitude
of many women today.... You hear of the education of women,
of co-education of the sexes, of emancipation of woman from
bonds—what bonds the Lord only knows! Here is a mission worthy
of yourselves, it is of all works that could be rendered the
fittest for a church woman, because she was at the beginning
of all the trouble in the world.... We believe the old story
of the Bible re-affirmed by Christ and his apostles, that
Adam was not deceived by the devil, but that the woman being
deceived, was in the transgression. Now to her with whom the
wrong began, we look for the beginning of the right. Remember
that in the woman are the poles of the good and the evil in
human nature.
When she is good she is the best of all that exists; when bad,
the worst.
Another sermon of this Lenten series, expressed the views of the
reverend gentleman upon the family relation, bearing of children and
divorce, in which he expressed his hatred of modern development saying:
I feel great solicitude about the subject of this evening’s
lecture; I had rather not touch it at all. You may think that
its selection is an instance of that disrespect to which I
have referred. Not so, oh, not so. I hold the old ideas. I
abhor and detest the modern development; before any woman
who fears God, does her duty, and gives us in her life and
acts the picture of a true and beautiful womanliness, I rise
up and bless her and do her reverent homage. It is thus in
no spirit of assumption that I shall say what I have to say
tonight. It is rather in a tone of remonstrance, of wonder,
of expostulation. Why do women err as they do? Why lower
themselves to men’s level? Why should the queens abdicate
their thrones and go down to the ring and act unseemly parts
and lay their honor in the dust? Let us think this evening of
some things done by women which one would have said that no
woman with a woman’s heart and a woman’s sense could, after
due reflection, justify. Sins fall naturally into groups or
classes, and if I speak this evening of only one class of sins
it is because the time does not permit us to take a larger
survey of the field. We shall limit ourselves, then, to these
topics:
The lack of serious views of life and the habit of turning
the thoughts exclusively to enjoyment. The degradation of the
idea of matrimony, as shown by entering into that estate for
low and unworthy motives. The deliberate determination of some
married women to defeat the objects for which marriage was
instituted; to have no real home; to avoid first the pains
and next the cares and duties of maternity. The habit, where
a home exists, of neglecting it by spending most of the time
away from it, running up and down in pursuit of excitement
and turning their children over to the care of servants. The
growing indifference to the chief of all social abominations,
divorce, and the toleration of lax notions about it.
These questions of most vital import to woman, to her material
condition, intellectual development and place in the church, Rev.
Dr. Dix and the great body of the church, deem themselves supremely
competent to adjust without woman’s voice upon them. Wherever she has
shown her views upon the subject of education, industries, the family,
the church, to be in opposition to those of theologians, she has at
once been told to remain in her old position of “inferiority” looking
up to man as her divinely appointed master and spiritual head; Dr. Dix,
in his lectures, but gave the views of priests of all denominations at
the present day. Despite the advancing civilization of the age, and the
fact that in so many avocations woman has shown her capacity for taking
equal part with man, we find theology still unprogressive; a portion
of the press, however, severely criticised these discourses.[17] The
“Lenten Pastoral” 1886, of Rev. A. Cleveland Coxe, bishop of Western
New York, to the laity of his diocese, contained a middle-age reminder
to women of the impurity of motherhood, in the demand made for church
cleansing subsequent to her bringing an immortal being into life:
6. Christian women, active as they often are, above all
comparison with men, are yet sometimes negligent of their
immediate duties as wives and mothers and fail to exert that
healthful influence over the family, which God has made it
the high privilege of woman to exercise in this sphere of her
duty and her glory. The office for “the Churching of Women”
testifies against those who neglect it, as forgetting the
dignity of motherhood and that gratitude to God which every
woman owes to the Christian religion, for enthroning her in
the household, and making the example of the “Blessed among
Women” her peculiar lesson and incentive to piety.
Many portions of this advice is an open insult to woman, and could the
divine but see it, is even from the Christian standard an imputation
upon that being he professes to revere as the Creator of the universe.
A work was recently written by an English bishop, bearing upon the
governmental effort for repeal of the law forbidding marriage with
a deceased wife’s sister or brother. This work was written for the
express purpose of proving that, while it is eminently improper
and sinful for a woman to marry her deceased husband’s brother,
it is eminently proper and right for a man to marry his deceased
wife’s sister, and this upon the same principle that governed the
disinheritance of woman under the Salic law; i.e., because by marriage
a woman becomes merged into her husband’s family. He specifically
declares that the sister of the wife is in no sense the sister of the
husband, therefore it is permissible for a man to marry his wife’s
sisters successively. But he affirms that to the contrary, the widow
cannot marry her deceased husband’s brother, as by the act of her
marriage she became a part of her husband’s family; a second marriage
to such husband’s brother thereby becoming incestuous. This is the
law of England, both religious and civil. A striking evidence of the
incongruity of this law is found in the fact that the illegitimacy of
such brother is held to destroy the relationship, as by law of both
church and state an illegitimate child is not held as related to its
father; he is the son of nobody. A woman can marry two brothers in
succession, one the child of marriage, the other a child of the same
father born outside of the marriage relation. The son of nobody, a
being unfathered in the eye of the law, is the brother of nobody. A
striking instance of the effect of this law occurred in England within
the past few years, when a lady successively married two brothers,
the first a natural son of the Earl of Waldegrave, the second his
legitimate son. The father, although not recognized as such in law,
left the bulk of his property to his natural son; the title, over
which he had no power of alienation, descending to the son born under
authority of the church. The first husband, dying, the lady afterward
married the legitimate son, thus becoming first, “Mrs.” Waldegrave,
and afterwards, “Lady” Waldegrave, securing both fortune and title
by her marriage with the non-recognized and law-recognized sons of
the same father, and breaking neither the law of state or church in
so doing. American clergymen of the Episcopal church have expressed
views in accordance with those of the English bishop. Rev. George
Zabriskie Gray, D.D., dean of the Episcopal Theological School of
Cambridge, Mass., published a work in 1885 entitled “Husband and
Wife,” also suggested by the constantly debated English question of
State, concerning the lawfulness of marriage with a deceased wife’s
sister. Dr. Gray coincides with many of his reverend brethren in the
declaration that with the wife no liberty of divorce is allowable, but
his reasons present somewhat the freshness of novelty. As previously
stated, the non-relationship of husband and wife was at one time the
general Christian belief. While like the English bishop, Rev. Mr. Gray
admits the relationship of the wife to the husband to such extent
that becoming fully absorbed by him his relatives become hers; like
the English bishop he further declares that in consequence of this
absorption, the wife loses her former family relationship, her mother
and father, her sister or brother no longer bearing relationship to
her, but have become to her as strangers. He said: