We are told that women owe honorable marriage to Christianity;* that the
more beautiful and tender relations of husband and wife find their root
there; that Christianity protects and elevates the mother as no other
law or religion ever has. Let us see.
* See Appendix I, 1-2.
On this subject I find in Maine's "Ancient Law" these facts:
"Although women had been objects of barter and sale,
according to barbaric usages, between their male relatives,
the later Roman [Pagan] law having assumed, _on the theory
of Natural Law, the equality of the sexes_, control of the
_person_ of women was quite obsolete when Christianity was
born. Her situation had become one of great personal liberty
and proprietary independence, even when married, and the
arbitrary power over her of her male relations, or her
guardian, was reduced to a nullity, while the form of
_marriage conferred on the husband no superiority_."
Thus as a daughter and as a wife had she grown to be honored
and recognized as an equal under Pagan rule.
"_But Christianity tended from the first to narrow this
remarkable liberty...._ The latest Roman [Pagan] law, _so
far as touched by the constitutions of the Christian
emperors, bears marks of reaction against these great
liberal doctrines._"
--Maine.
And again began the sale of women. Christianity held her as
unclean and in all respects inferior; and "during the era
which begins modern history the women of dominant races are
seen everywhere under various forms of archaic guardianship,
and _the husband pays a money price to her male relations
for her_. The prevalent state of _religious_ sentiment may
explain why it is that _modern_ jurisprudence has absorbed
among its rudiments _much more than usual of those rules_
[archaic] _concerning the position of women which belong
peculiarly to an imperfect civilization._"
--Ibid.
Thus it will be seen that from the first, and extending down to the
present, the Church did all she could to cast woman back into the night
of the race from which in a great measure she had been rescued through
the ages when Natural Law and not "revelation" was the guide of man. The
laws which the Church found liberal and just toward women it discarded,
and it searched back in the ages of night for such as it saw fit to
re-enact for her. Of this Maine says: "The husband now draws to himself
the power which formerly belonged to his wife's male relatives, the only
difference being that he no longer pays anything for the privilege."
As Christians grew economical wives came cheaper than formerly, and it
became a dogma that wives were not worth much anyhow, and then, too,
it enabled persons of limited means to have more of them. Of a somewhat
later date Maine says: "_At this point heavy disabilities begin to be
imposed upon wives_."
That was to make marriage honorable and attractive, no doubt, and, says
Maine: "_It was very long before the subordination entailed on women by
marriage was sensibly diminished." And what diminution it received came
from men who fought against Church law_.*
*See Lecky, Maine, Lea, Milman, Christian, Blackstone,
Morley, and others for ample proof of this fact
It was only the crumbs of liberty, honor, and justice extorted by men
who fought the Church on behalf of wives, that lightened their most
oppressive burdens. It was true then, and it is true to-day, that women
owe what justice and freedom and power they possess to the fact that the
best and clearest-headed men are more honorable than our religion, and
that they have invited Moses and St. Paul to take a back seat Moses has
complied, and St. Paul is half-way down the aisle.
Some of the clergy now explain that although Paul may have written
certain things inimical to women, he did not _mean_ them, so it is all
right. Such passages as 1 Cor. xi. 3-9; xiv. 34-35; and Eph. v. 22-24,
are now explained to be intended in a purely Pickwickian sense; and
a Rev. Mr. Boyd, of St. Louis, has even gone so far as to produce the
doughty apostle before a woman-suffrage society, as on their side of
that argument. This second conversion of St. Paul impresses one as even
more remarkable than his first. It took an "angel of God" to show him
the error of his ways in Ephesus, but one little Baptist preacher did it
this time--all by himself. Truly St. Paul is getting easier to deal with
than he used to be.
But to resume, Maine, in tracing the amalgamation of the later Roman
(Pagan) law with the archaic laws of a lower civilization (the result
of which was Christian law), shows that the Church, while it chose the
Roman laws, which had arrived at so high a state, for others, _retained
for women, and particularly for wives, the least favorable_ of the
Roman, eked out with the archaic _Patria Potestas_ and the more
degrading provisions of the earlier civilizations. Maine reluctantly
says that the jurisconsults of the day contended for better laws for
wives, but that the Church prevailed in most instances, and established
the more oppressive ones.
With certain of these laws--the worst ones--I cannot deal here for
obvious reasons; but a few of them I may be permitted to give without
offence to the modesty of any one.
Blackstone says: "By marriage the husband and wife are one person
in law; that is, the very being or legal _existence of the woman
is suspended_ during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and
consolidated into that of the husband. The husband becomes her _baron or
lord_--she his _servant_. Upon this principle of the union of person
in husband and wife depend almost all the legal rights, duties, and
disabilities they acquire by marriage."
That is to say the husband acquires all the rights, and the wife all the
disabilities; and the Church wishing to be fair has made the latter as
many as possible.
"And therefore," continues Blackstone, "it is also generally true, that
all compacts made between husband and wife, _when single, are voided
by the intermarriage_." The working of this principle has been so often
illustrated as to render comment unnecessary. A wife retains no rights
which her husband is bound to respect, no matter how solemn the compact
before marriage, nor what her belief in its strength might have been.
Fortunately for women, happily for wives, men are more decent than their
religion; and the law of custom and public opinion has largely outgrown
this enactment of the Church, made when she had the power to thus
degrade women and brutalize men.
"If the wife be injured in _her person or her property she can bring
no action for redress_ without her husband's concurrence _and in his
name_," and on the basis of loss of _her services_ to him _as a servant.
"But in criminal prosecutions, it is true, the wife may be indicted and
punished separately_." *
* Blackstone.
In the case of punishment the Church was entirely willing to give the
devil his due. It had no ambition to deprive women of any indictments
and punishments that were to be had. In this case, although the husband
and wife were one, she was that one. Where privileges or property-rights
were to be considered, he was the "one." Such grand reversible doctrines
were always on tap with the clergy, and their barrel was always full.
Truly, wives do owe much to the Church.
Some of the provisions of these laws have, of late years, been modified
by the efforts of men who were pronounced "infidels, destroyers of the
Bible, the home, and the dignity of women," aided by women whom the
orthodox deride as "strong--minded, ill-balanced, coarse, impious,"
etc., etc., _ad infinitum, ad nauseam_. A strong mind, whether in man or
woman, has always been to the clergy as a red rag to a bull.
"A woman may make a will, _with the assent of her husband_, by way
of appointment of her _personal_ property. _She cannot even with his
consent devise lands_.... Although our law in general considers a man
and wife as one person, yet there are _some instances where she is
considered separately as his inferior_," and for that trip only.
As I remarked before when it comes to penalties she is welcome to the
whole lot.
"She may not make a deed."
"A man may administer moderate correction to his wife."
"These are the chief legal effects of marriage. Even the disabilities of
the wife," Blackstone naively remarks, "are for the most part _intended
for her protection; so great a favorite is the female sex of the laws of
England!_"
I should think that if this latter point were not quite clear to a
woman, "moderate correction" might convince her that she was quite an
unreasonable favorite--beyond her most eager desires. Where the Pagan
law recognized her as the equal of her husband, the Church discarded
that law, and based the Canon Law upon an archaic invention.
Where Maine speaks of the later growth of Pagan law and of Christian
influence upon it, he says: "But the chapter of law relating to married
women was for the most part read by the light, not of Roman [or Pagan]
but of Canon [or Church] Law, _which in no one particular departs so
widely from the [improved] spirit of the secular jurisprudence as in the
view it takes of the relations created by marriage_. This was in part
inevitable, _since no society which possesses any tincture of Christian
institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty
conferred on them by the middle Roman law_."
Women who support the clergy with one hand, and hold out the other for
the ballot; who one day express indignation at the refusal to them of
human recognition, and the next day intone the creeds, will have to
learn that there is nothing which has so successfully stood, and still
so powerfully stands, in the way of the individual liberty, human
rights, and dignity of wives, as the Church which they support.
Blackstone says: "In times of popery a great _variety_ of impediments
to marriage were made, which impediments might, however, be _bought off
with money_."
You could, for instance, buy a more distant relationship to your future
wife for so much cash down to the Church. If your inamorata were your
first cousin, you could remove her several degrees with five hundred
dollars, and make her no relation at all for a little more. Such little
sleight-of-hand performances are as nothing to a well-trained clergyman.
Slip a check into one hand, and a request to marry your aunt into the
other, let a clergyman shake them up in the coffers of the Church, and
when one comes out gold, the other will appear as a blushing bride
not even related to her own father, and not more than third cousin to
herself.
Of the claim made by the early Christian Fathers, that it was because of
the mental inferiority and incapacity of women that the more unjust and
binding laws were enacted for them, thus doing all they could to create
and intensify by law the incapacity which they asserted was imposed by
God, Maine says: "But the proprietary disabilities of married females
_stand on quite a different basis from personal incapacity_, and it is
by the tendency of their doctrines to keep alive and consolidate the
former, that the expositors of the _Canon Law have deeply injured
civilization_."
He adds that there are many evidences of a struggle between _secular
principles in favor of justice for wives_, and _ecclesiastical
principles against it_, "but the Canon Law nearly everywhere prevailed.
The systems which are _least indulgent_ to married women are invariably
those which have followed the _Canon Law exclusively_.... It enforced
the complete legal subjection of wives."
Lecky says: "Fierce invectives against the sex form a conspicuous and
grotesque portion of the writings of the Fathers. Woman was represented
as the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. She should be
ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman.... Women were even
forbidden, in the sixth century, on account of their impurity, to
receive the Eucharist into their naked hands. Their essentially
subordinate position was continually maintained. This teaching in part
determined the principles of legislation concerning the sex.* The
Pagan laws during the empire had been continually _repealing the old
disabilities_ of women, and the legislative movement in their favor
continued with unabated force from Constantine to Justinian, and
appeared also in some of the early laws of the barbarians. _But in the
whole feudal [Christian] legislation women were placed in a much lower
legal position than in the Pagan empire_."
* See Appendix J.
And he adds that the French revolutionists (the infidel party)
established better laws for women, "and initiated a great reformation of
both law and opinion, _which sooner or later must traverse the world_."
And these reformations, being in Christendom, will be calmly claimed in
the future, as in the present, as due to the beneficent influence of the
Church. The Church always belongs to the conservative party, but after a
good thing is established in despite of her, she says: "Just see what I
have done! 'See what a good boy am I!"'
Not many years ago a few great-souled men who were "heretics" got a
glimpse of a principle which has electrified the world. They said that
individual liberty is a universal right; they maintained that humanity
is a unit, with interests and aims indivisible, and that liberty to use
to the utmost advantage all natural abilities cannot be denied one-half
of the race without crippling both. A few even went so far as to suggest
that the assumption of the inferiority of women, and the imposition
of disabilities upon them, under the claim of divine authority, is the
greatest crime in the great calendar of crime for which the Church has
yet to render a reckoning to humanity.
To one who reads the history of Canon Law, it is not strange that
Christian Judges still decide that women are "incompetent to practice
law," and that they should not be allowed to study it. A woman well
versed in the history of ancient and modern law might easily be an
uncomfortable advocate for such a judge to face. He would probably feel
the need of an umbrella.
It is not strange that Columbia College, with its corps of clergymen,
"fails to see the propriety" of opening its doors to women. The few
clergymen who have for some little time past taken the side of fair-play
in this and like matters have simply deserted their colors and come over
to the side they are worldly-wise enough to see is to be the side of the
future. When it comes to diplomacy the Church is always on deck in
time to gather in the spoils; but she stays safely below during the
engagement, and simply holds back and anchors firm until she sees which
way it is likely to end.
The moment there is an understanding on the part of women of what they
owe to Church Law, that moment will educational clerical monopolists,
such as the champion anchor of Columbia, be compelled to earn an honest
living in some honest business pertaining to this world. It will be a
great day for women when they refuse to longer support these pretenders
to divine knowledge, who are willing, at so much a head, to tell what
they do not know at the expense of the pale, tired needlewoman, who
is in want of almost every comfort that money can buy in this world,
together with the surplus gold of the fashionable devotees who minister
to the vanity of the clergy, and give to the coffers of the Church that
which would save thousands of young girls from degradation and crime,
and put the roses of health on the cheek of innocence.
Every dollar that is paid to support the Church is paid to degrade a
woman. Every collection that is made to spread "revelation" is used to
suppress enlightenment and retard civilization. Every dollar that is
invested in "another world" is a dollar diverted from useful purposes in
this. Every hour that is spent mooning about "heaven" is that much time
taken from needed labor here.
If our energies were wanted in another world we should most likely be in
another world. Since we are in this one it is a pretty strong hint that
we are expected to attend to business right here. We can't do justice to
two worlds at the same time; and since we are assured that we shall have
the whole of eternity to arrange matters in the next one, it leaves very
little time by comparison to devote to our duties in this.
There we are to have nothing to do but sing and be happy--twang a harp
and smile.
Here we have pain to alleviate, ignorance to dispel, innocence to
protect, disease to master, and crime to restrain and prevent. Here we
have the helpless to shield and guard and protect. Here we have homes to
make happy, the hearts of husbands and wives to make glad, the light
of love and trust to kindle in the eyes of children. Here is old age to
cheer and console. Here are orphans to educate and protect, widows to
comfort, and oppression to uproot.
There--nothing to do but look after yourself and manage your harp;
nobody to help--all will be perfect; nothing to learn--all will be wise;
no hearts to cheer--all will be happy. All that a mother will have to do
if she gets a little tired practicing on her lyre and feels gloomy will
be to just take a good look over the wall, and photograph on her eyes
the picture of her husband and children freshly dipped in oil and put
on the griddle, and she will come back to business perfectly satisfied,
take up her song where she left off, and praise the Lamb for his
infinite mercy. All eternity to learn how to fly round in a robe and
keep time with the orchestra! Why a deaf man could learn to do that in
fifty or sixty years, and then have all the rest of the time to spare.
We are here such a little while, there is so much to learn, there is so
much to do, there is so much to _undo_, that no man can afford to waste
his time on an infinite future of time, space, and leisure. Men cannot
afford to lose your best energies. "God" can get on very well without
them. Time is short, and needs are pressing; and this thing you
know--you can keep busy doing good right here. If there is a hereafter,
could there be a better preparation for it than that?