The Jew begins his public prayer with a thanksgiving to his Maker for not having made him a woman. The Moors do not allow women to enter their mosques or places of worship.
Mussulmen hold that there is a separate paradise for women, considering them unworthy to occupy the same as the men, except such beautiful women as are assigned to the male occupants as a reward for a virtuous and religious life on earth. "Sit not in the midst of women," said the son of Sirach, in his wisdom; "for from garments cometh a moth, and from women wickedness."
"It is a bad thing," said Augustine, "to look upon a woman, a worse to speak to her, and to touch her, worst of all." John Bunyan thanked God that he had made him shy of the women. "The common salutation of women, I abhor," said he, "their company alone, I cannot away with." "Look at the very name woman," says another author, "it evidently means woe to man, because by woman was woe brought into the world."
The Turk does not exclude woman from his heaven, but she is there only to minister to his passions and wants. She bears to his lips the golden goblet, filled with the nectar of the gods.
The Indian hunter believes his squaw, as well as his faithful dog, will bear him company to those shadowy hunting-grounds beyond the dark river.
Among all these heathen and degraded nations, polygamy has prevailed. Among them all, woman has been but the slave of the stronger sex. Her feelings have been outraged, her spirit crushed, and her heart broken; or, which is still worse, her nature has become imbruted and insensible to all the finer feelings and nobler impulses of her sex.
But behold the day-star from on high, the lowly Jesus. He came to bring deliverance to the captive, to let the oppressed go free. No longer is woman to be degraded and despised. The holy covenant of marriage which Moses, by reason of the hardness of their hearts, permitted the Jews to break, was henceforth to be kept inviolate. "It hath been said, whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement. But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery; and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced, committeth adultery." And again,—"For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh."
The position of woman, and her duties in life, are well defined in the New Testament Scriptures. If married, she is to direct her household affairs, raise up children, be subject unto her husband, and use all due benevolence toward him; but his duties are equally well defined. He must love his wife, even as Christ loved his church and gave himself for it; and the fourth verse of the seventh chapter of Corinthians distinctly states that the rights and duties of the marriage relation should be reciprocal, granting no exclusive privilege to either. Is not this reciprocity necessarily and entirely destroyed, when the husband brings other wives into the family?
In the face of the direct and positive teachings of Jesus and his Apostles, the "Latter-Day Saints" of Utah, or rather their leaders, have instituted the heathenish and horrible practice of polygamy. And to add to the blasphemy of the scheme, it is all done in the name of the Lord. In this nineteenth century, they have reduced women to the heathen and Jewish standard.
Foremost in the ranks of their oppressors stands Brigham Young. Following in the footsteps of Mohammed, he declares that women have no souls,—that they are not responsible beings, that they cannot save themselves, nor be saved,