Another alleged weakness, which will specially interest those who are
entering upon the careful study of non-Christian religions at the
present time, is the relatively low place which the Buddhist system,
at least in theory, gives to women. While in practice, as has been
pointed out, the women of Burma are the better half of the population,
yet in strict theory they are not "human beings" at all: they are less
than human: only he who takes the yellow robe and becomes for a time a
monk reaches the status of full humanity. Yet Gotama said equally
severe things about men; the two sexes, he taught, are a snare to one
another: but women are the worse! A Singhalese Christian pastor
praying for power to resist the Devil added, "and all _her_ works,"
and women are in fact so described in many passages of the Buddhist
Books. Love between the sexes and lust are not distinguished. And
here, perhaps, is the supreme service that Jesus renders to human
society: he makes family life a sacred thing, and safeguards women and
children from abuse, bringing them to honour and sanctity. Buddhism
being concerned chiefly with the monastic life of meditation has not
much to say about the family. It does not, at least in Southern Asia,
teach the Fatherhood of God from whom "all families are named."