RELIGION AND WOMAN
_She was the first in the transgression therefore keep her in
subjection._
* * * * *
_Fierce is the dragon and cunning the asp; but woman has the malice
of both._
ST. GREGORY OF NAZIANZUM.
_Thou art the devil's gate, the betrayer of the tree, the first
deserter of the Divine Law._
TERTULLIAN.
_What does it matter whether it be in the person of mother or
sister; we have to beware Eve in every woman._
_How much better two men could live and converse together than a man
and a woman._
ST. AUGUSTINE.
_No gown worse becomes a woman than the desire to be wise._
LUTHER.
_The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in
the way of women's emancipation._
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.
It is noticed in most calculations of churchgoers that women have
remained attached to the churches in a far higher proportion than men.
The proportion of women in the churches is vastly greater than their
proportion in the general population. Most of the men who still
passively attend their churches do so under the pressure of
professional interest or social or domestic influence.
The degree of religiosity has always been associated with the free play
of the emotions and woman being more imaginative and emotional than man,
it seems clear that this strong emotional factor in woman accounts, at
least partly, for the greater proportion of women as churchgoers. And
this, be it noted, lies not in any inherent inferiority in the mental
make-up of woman, but rather in the environmental influences that until
very recently shaped woman's education in such a manner that it was
little adapted to strengthening her reason, but rather calculated to
enhance her emotionalism.
Ecclesiastic historians have a notorious habit of viewing pre-Christian
times for the single biased purpose of only stating the aspects of that
civilization which they deemed inferior to that exerted by Christianity.
Researches have established fairly well the position of women in the
Egyptian community of 4000 years ago. It is no exaggeration to state
that she was free and more honored in Egypt 4000 years ago, than she was
in any country of the earth until only recently. Scholars assure us
that, at a period which the Bible claims the Earth was just coming into
being, the Egyptian matron was mistress of her home, she inherited
equally with her brothers, and had full control of her property. She
could go where she liked and speak to whom she pleased. She could bring
actions in the courts and even plead in the courts. The traditional
advice to the husband was, "Make glad her heart during the time that
thou hast."
Contrast this position of woman in the community and society in general
with the statement given in Mrs. E. Cady Stanton's "History of Woman's
Suffrage," in which she speaks of the status of the female of the
species in Boston about the year 1850. "Women could not hold any
property, either earned or inherited. If unmarried, she was obliged to
place it in the hands of a trustee, to whose will she was subject. If
she contemplated marriage, and desired to call her property her own, she
was forced by law to make a contract with her intended husband by which
she gave up all title or claim to it. A woman, either married or
unmarried, could hold no office or trust or power. She was not a person.
She was not recognized as a citizen. She was not a factor in the human
family. She was not a unit, but a zero in the sum of civilization....
The status of a married woman was little better than that of a domestic
servant. By the English Common Law her husband was her lord and master.
He had the sole custody of her person and of her minor children. He
could punish her 'with a stick no bigger than his thumb' and she could
not complain against him.... The common law of the State [Massachusetts]
held man and wife to be one person, but that person was the husband. He
could by will deprive her of every part of his property, and also of
what had been her own before marriage. He was the owner of all her real
estate and earnings. The wife could make no contract and no will, nor,
without her husband's consent, dispose of the legal interest of her real
estate.... She did not own a rag of her clothing. She had no personal
rights and could hardly call her soul her own. Her husband could steal
her children, rob her of her clothing, neglect to support the family:
she had no legal redress. If a wife earned money by her own labor, the
husband could claim the pay as his share of the proceeds." With such a
contrast in mind, it is indeed difficult to see where the truth of the
assertion lies when it is stated that the status of woman was indeed
pitiful until Christianity exerted its influence for her betterment. And
it is again curious to note that after a period of nearly 2000 years of
Christian influence it was left for a sceptic such as Mrs. Stanton and
her sceptical co-workers to bring about an amelioration of the degrading
position of woman in Christian society.
The degrading picture of womankind as depicted in the Old Testament is
well known to anyone who has glanced through this storehouse of
mythology. It would be well for the multitude of devout female adherents
of all creeds to take the time, just a little of the time they give to
the plight of the poor, benighted heathen and read some of the passages
in the Old Testament dealing with their lot. The entire history of woman
under the administration of these "heaven-made" laws is a record of her
serviture and humility.
In the 24th chapter of Deuteronomy we find the right of divorce given to
the husband. "Let him write her a bill of divorcement and give it in her
hand and send her out of his house." The discarded wife must acquiesce
to "divine justice." But if the wife is displeased, is there any
justice? Under no clause of the Divorce Law could the wife have a
divorce on her part. None but the husband could put her asunder from
him.
In the 22d chapter of Deuteronomy is enacted the law for "Test of
Virginity," which states that, "If any man take a wife, and is
disappointed in her, and reports, 'I found her not a maid,' then, her
father and mother shall bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity
unto the elders of the city in the gate." The gynecological elders then
go into a "peeping Tom's" conference and "If virginity be not found for
the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her
father's house, and the men of the city shall stone her with stones that
she die." Most probably the male partner in her "crime" was the first to
cast the largest stone.
The law laid down in the 12th chapter of Leviticus may have been
intended for hygienic purposes but it is cruel and degrading to women
because it assumes that the parturient woman who has borne a female
child is twice as impure as one who has borne a male child.
The "law of jealousies" as described in the 5th chapter of Numbers is a
good example of the mentality of the writers of this "divine
revelation." God in His infinite wisdom had caused to be written for
Him, that to test whether a woman has laid carnally with another man,
the priest shall, "take holy water in an earthen vessel, and of the dust
that is on the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take and put it
in the water ... the bitter water that causeth the curse, and shall
cause the woman to drink the water." The divine revelation then
continues with, "if she be defiled, her belly shall swell and her thigh
shall rot."
But after all, God did not know that in the dust of the Tabernacle
sprawled the germs of Dysentery, Cholera, and Tuberculosis, and a few
other such mild infections. Or did the Divine Father know that even a
self-respecting germ could not inhabit the filthy floor of the
Tabernacle?
Consequently, it is not to be wondered at that in the "good old days of
the old-fashioned woman," the acme of hospitality was the giving of wife
or daughter to a visitor for the night. It was not religion that put an
end to this barbarous custom; it was the advance of civilization; not
the religious force, but the place rational thinking assumed in the life
of people.
The following is a description of a religious riot which took place in
Alexandria during the early days of the Church: "Among the many victims
of these unhappy tumults was Hypatia, a maiden not more distinguished
for her beauty than for her learning and her virtues. Her father was
Theon, the illustrious mathematician who had early initiated his
daughter in the mysteries of philosophy. The classic groves of Athens
and the schools of Alexandria equally applauded her attainments and
listened to the pure music of her lips. She respectfully declined the
tender attentions of lovers, but, raised to the chair of Gamaliel,
suffered youth and age, without preference or favor, to sit
indiscriminately at her feet. Her fame and increasing popularity
ultimately excited the jealousy of St. Cyril, at that time the Bishop of
Alexandria, and her friendship for his antagonist, Orestes, the prefect
of the city, entailed on her devoted head the crushing weight of his
enmity. In her way through the city, her chariot was surrounded by his
creatures, headed by a crafty and savage fanatic named Peter the Reader,
and the young and innocent woman was dragged to the ground, stripped of
her garments, paraded naked through the streets, and then torn limb from
limb on the steps of the Cathedral. The still warm flesh was scraped
from her bones with oyster-shells, and the bleeding fragments thrown
into a furnace, so that not an atom of the beautiful virgin should
escape destruction." The cruelty of man when spurred on by the mania of
religious zeal!
In more historic times there are numerous instances of the tyranny
exercised over women by the feudal system. Feudalism, composed as it was
of military ideas and ecclesiastical traditions, exercised the well
known "rights of seigniory." These "rights" comprised a jurisdiction
which is now unprintable, and had even the power to deprive woman of
life itself.
A history of the licentiousness of the monks and the early popes would
fill a great number of volumes; and indeed, many are the volumes which
have been devoted to this subject. It will suffice to point out only a
few representative incidents. In 1259, Alexander IV tried to disrupt the
shameful union between concubines and the clergy. Henry III, Bishop of
Liege, was such a fatherly sort of individual that he had sixty-five
"natural children!" William, Bishop of Padreborn, in 1410, although
successful in reducing such powerful enemies as the Archbishop of
Cologne, and the Count of Cloves by fire and sword, was powerless
against the dissolute morals of his own monks, who were chiefly engaged
in the corruption of women. Indeed, the Swiss clergy in 1230, frankly
stated that they "were flesh and blood, unequal to the task of living
like angels." The Council of Cologne, in 1307, tried in vain to give the
nuns a chance to live virtuous lives; to protect them from priestly
seduction. Conrad, Bishop of Wurzburg, in 1521, accused his priests of
habitual "gluttony, drunkenness, gambling, quarrelling, and lust."
Erasmus warned his clergy against concubinage. The Abbot of St. Pilazo
de Antealtarin was proved by competent witnesses to have no less than
seventy concubines. The old and wealthy Abbey of St. Albans was little
more than a den of prostitutes, with whom the monks lived openly and
avowedly. The Duke of Nuremburg, in 1522, was concerned with the
clerical immunity of monks who night and day preyed upon the virtue of
the wives and daughters of the laity.
The Church openly carried on a sale of indulgences in lust to
ecclesiastics which finally took the form of a tax. The Bishop of
Utrecht in 1347 issued an order prohibiting the admittance of men to
nunneries. In Spain, conditions became so intolerable that the
communities forced their priests to select concubines so that the wives
and daughters would be safe from the ravages of the clergy.
"The torture, the maiming, and the murder of Elgira by Dunstan
illustrates further, amongst thousands and thousands of similar bloody
deeds, the diabolical brutality of superstition perpetuated in the name
of Christianity upon women in the earlier centuries of our epoch.
Indeed, religious superstition always has contrived to rob, to pester,
to deceive, and to degrade women." (_Bell: "Women from Bondage to
Freedom."_)
During the Middle Ages, the ages in which the Church was in complete
domination of all forms of endeavor, the status of woman was no better
than the general conditions of the time. This Age of Faith is
characterized by "the violence and knavery that covered the whole
country, the plagues and famines that decimated towns and villages every
few years, the flood of spurious and indecent relics, the degradation of
the clergy and monks, the slavery of the serfs, the daily brutalities of
the ordeal and the torture, the course and bloody pastimes, the
insecurity of life, the triumphant ravages of disease, the check of
scientific inquiry and a hundred other features of medieval life."
(_Joseph McCabe: "Religion of Woman."_)
The Church was chiefly responsible for the terrible persecutions
inflicted on women on the ground of witchcraft and this must be taken
into calculation when one considers what woman owes to religion. The
Reformation reduced woman to the position of a mere breeder of children.
During the sway of Puritanism woman was a poor, benighted being, a human
toad under the harrow of a pious imbecility.
The pioneers in the Modern Woman Movement in this country were, of
course, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Gage, and Miss Susan B. Anthony. In their
"History of Woman Suffrage" they comment on the vicious opposition which
the early workers encountered in New York. "Throughout this protracted
and disgraceful assault on American womanhood the clergy baptised every
new insult and act of injustice in the name of the Christian religion,
and uniformly asked God's blessing on proceedings that would have put to
shame an assembly of Hottentots."
And while the clergy either remained silent or heaped abuse on this
early movement, such freethinkers as Robert Owen, Jeremy Bentham, George
Jacob Holyoake, and John Stuart Mill in England entered the fray
wholeheartedly in behalf of the emancipation of woman. In France it was
Michelet and George Sand that came to their aid. In Germany it was Max
Sterner, Buechner, Marx, Engels, and Liebknecht. In Scandinavia it was
Ibsen and Bjoernson.
The battle was begun by freethinkers in defiance of the clergy and it
was only when the inevitable conquest of this movement was manifest that
any considerable number of clergy came to the aid of this progressive
movement. The righting of the wrongs imposed on womankind therefore had
been started not only without the aid of the churches but in face of
their determined opposition. It was not the clergy that discovered the
injustice that had been done to women throughout the centuries, and when
it was finally pointed out to them by sceptics, it was the rare
ecclesiastic that could see it so and attempt to right the wrong.
R. H. Bell, in tracing this struggle of woman in her publication, "Woman
from Bondage to Freedom," has this pertinent remark to make. "If there
are any personal rights in this world over which Church and State should
have no control, it is the sexual right of a woman to say, 'Yes' or
'No.' These and similar rights are so deeply imbedded in natural
morality that no clear-headed, clean-hearted person would wish to
controvert them.... Enforced motherhood, through marriage or otherwise,
is a mixed form of slavery, voluntary motherhood is the glory of a free
soul."
In the age-long struggle for freedom, woman's most rigorous antagonist
has always been the Church.