St. Peter exclaims with energy: “Wives, obey your husbands!” St. Paul writes to the Ephesians: “The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church.” And to the Corinthians: “The man is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of the man.”
According to this any fool of a man may deem himself better than the most excellent woman, and as a matter of fact it has been so in practice until this day. Against the higher education of women St. Paul also raises his voice. In the first Epistle to Timothy 2, 11, etc., he says: “Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness”; and in the Epistle to the Corinthians, 14, 34 and 35: “Let the women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak. But let them be in subjection as also saith the law. And if they would learn anything let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church.” St. Thomas of Aquino (1227 to 1274) says: “Woman is a rapidly growing weed, an imperfect being. Her body attains maturity more rapidly only because it is of less value, and nature is engaged less in her making. Women are born to be eternally maintained under the yoke of their lords and masters, endowed by nature with superiority in every respect, and therefore destined to rule.”
Such doctrines are not characteristic of Christianity only. As Christianity is a mixture of Judaism and Greek philosophy, and as both are rooted in the more ancient civilizations of India, Babylon and Egypt, the inferior position alloted to woman by Christianity was common to all the civilized nations of antiquity after the passing of the matriarchate. In the Indian book of laws of Manu we find the following: “The cause of dishonor is woman; the cause of hostility is woman; the cause of worldly things is woman; therefore woman should be shunned.” Beside the degradation of woman, the fear of woman is repeatedly naively expressed. Thus it is further stated in Manu: “Women are ever inclined by nature to seduce men; therefore a man should never, even in the company of his closest female relative, sit in a lonely spot.” The Indian conception, the old testament, and the Christian conception, all unite in declaring woman the seducer. Every condition of oppression entails the degradation of the oppressed. The oppression of woman has been maintained until this day; but among the Oriental peoples, whose social development has been retarded, it has been maintained more rigorously than among the Christian nations. Yet the factor that made for improvement in the position of women among Christian nations was not Christianity itself, but the civilization of the Western countries attained in the struggles against the Christian conception.
Christianity is not the cause that woman’s position is superior to-day to what it had been at the time of the origin of Christianity. Only reluctantly has it been compelled to abandon its true attitude toward woman. They who are enthusiastic over the “redeeming mission of Christianity,” of course, hold a different view. They claim that Christianity has liberated woman from her former degraded position, and they base this claim especially upon the cult of the Holy Virgin, which they consider a token of respect for woman. The Catholic Church which maintains this cult, might hardly share this opinion. The above-quoted sayings of the saints and the fathers of the church which could easily be multiplied, all express hostility to woman and marriage. The Council at Macon during the sixth century, which indulged in serious discussion as to whether woman had a soul, and finally decided in her favor by a majority of one, also disproves the claim that Christianity was favorable to women. The introduction of celibacy of priests by Gregory VII,[28] the purpose of which was to create a power by having an unmarried priesthood that would not be withdrawn from the service of the church by any family interests, was made possible only by that fundamental view of the church, that all desires of the flesh are sinful. Many reformers, especially Calvin and the Scotch ministers, have raved so vehemently against the “lust of the flesh,” that they left no doubt in regard to the hostile attitude of Christianity toward women.[29] By introducing the cult of the Virgin Mary, the Catholic Church, with wise calculation, merely put this cult in place of the cult of the ancient goddesses, that existed among all the peoples who were converted to Christianity at that time. Mary replaced Cybel, Mylitta, Aphrodite and Venus among the Southern nations, and Freia, Frigga and others among the German tribes. She was only endowed with a Christian, spiritual idealism.
[28] Among others the parish priests of the Diocese of Mayence thus protested against this ordinance: “You bishops and abbots possess great riches, elegant hunting outfits and enjoy royal banquets; we poor, simple priests have but a wife for our comfort. Abstinence may be a virtue, but it is forsooth severe and hard.”—Yves Guyot, “Les Théories sociales du Christianisme.”
[29] A great many instances in evidence of this are furnished by Buckle in his “History of Civilization in England.”
[CHAPTER IV.
Woman in the Mediaeval Age.]
[1.—The Position of Women among the Germans.]
The robust, physically healthy, coarse but unsophisticated peoples that during the first centuries after Christ came from the North and East, flooding like mighty ocean waves the enervated Roman empire in which Christianity had gradually come into power, vehemently resisted the ascetic teachings of the Christian preachers, who were obliged to make allowances for these healthy natures. The Romans were surprised to find that the customs of these peoples differed considerably from their own. Tacitus takes note of this fact in regard to the Germans, of whom he thus expresses his approval: “Their marriage laws are severe and none of their customs are more laudable than this one, for they are practically the only barbarians who content themselves with one wife. Among this numerous people one rarely hears of adultery, and when it does occur, it is promptly punished, the men themselves being permitted to inflict the punishment. Naked, her hair clipped, thus the man drives the adulteress out of the village before the eyes of her relatives, for a sin against virtue is not condoned. There nobody laughs over vice and to seduce and being seduced are not considered a sign of good breeding. The youths marry late; therefore they maintain their strength. The maidens, too, are not married off hastily, and they are of the same stature as the men, and present the same healthful glow of youth. Of equal age, equally strong, they wed, and the strength of the parents is transmitted to the children.”