“Clearly the Scripture quoted was not a command in either case. We cannot throw upon God all the fearful consequences that have grown out of and resulted from the construction so often put upon these words. Read them as prophecy, substitute ‘wilt’ for ‘shalt’—as I am told the original fully warrants—and they become clear enough. In both cases it was a prophetic declaration of what was to follow, and the prophecy as we all know has been fulfilled to the letter.
“But read this Scripture as we may, I do not believe it has any binding force at this day. However much the first Adam may have ruled his wife, other Adams can derive no warrant from his case for ruling their wives, except in the evil nature they have inherited from him. The Adams still abound in the land, and will abound until woman fully asserts her individuality and compels men to acknowledge her equal right with themselves to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
“The passages from the New Testament so frequently quoted have lost their terrors. We all know that in the early days when they were written woman’s position was one of ignorance and subjection. Peter and Paul were imbued with the prevalent sentiment of the times, and wrote of things as they found them. In writing of woman they followed the law and custom of the day in which they lived. They thought woman’s name was ‘submission’ just as many men think now, and wrote of her just as they write now.
“Barnard, in his ‘History and Progress of Education’ tells us that: ‘In India it was a terrible disgrace for a woman to learn to read, and the avowal of that knowledge was sufficient to class her with the most abandoned of her sex. Her duties and attainments were only such as would conduce to the mere physical comfort of her lord and master.’ Again, in writing of the ancient Persians, he says: ‘Female education was utterly neglected. The wife was the slave of the husband, and every morning must kneel at his feet and nine times ask the question, What do you wish that I should do? and, having received his reply, bowing humbly, she must withdraw and obey his commands.’
“Of Greece he says: ‘The female children were not allowed any instruction except such as they might receive at home. The condition of the female sex, except the abandoned portion of it, at Athens was pitiable. Secluded from society and all intellectual improvement, their lives must have been gloomy, dull and hopeless.’
“When we consider the condition of woman in the early ages we cannot be surprised at the injunction laid upon her by the apostles. But would John have her remain in that position? Clearly he would; but not so her Creator. He has called her out of former bondage and pointed out to her a higher mission.
“It is worthy of note that the writers of the New Testament did not give us a ‘Thus saith the Lord’ with any of the injunctions to women, nor did our Saviour enjoin any such rules upon her. So while we admit that the words of the apostles may have been proper at the day and under the circumstances of their utterance, we claim that the condition of woman has been so changed and her mind so educated since that time that they are not applicable to her now. We are told by some that her condition thousands of years ago was her natural condition, that in which God placed her and intended her to remain. If this be so, a great wrong has been done her by taking her out of the condition of ignorance and depravity in which she then existed. An educated mind cannot be kept in slavery. Our system of education is all wrong if God intended her to remain the ignorant slave of man she then was. How comes it that, if that was her natural God-ordained position, we find her condition so different at the present day? Whether right or wrong, that condition has greatly changed ever since the introduction of Christianity. And this work, this change, is not of herself, not of man. We must recognize in her course the direction and guidance of a Higher Power. If this change, this progress, tend to evil (as its opponents predict), then He who rules and overrules is for some wise purpose of His own bringing the evil on the world. But if, as we believe, it is for the good not only of woman but of humanity then, too, we should recognize the Higher Power that so orders it and do what we may to help forward His work. In any case we cannot by opposition, Bible argument, or indifference stay His work and will.
“Woman had a part to play in life that St. Paul never dreamed of, and he who lives in the next generation will see greater changes than the past has produced. As well say that men should be and do as they were and did in the days of Abraham, as to say that women should be kept in the state of bondage in which she existed thousands of years ago. The world moves and woman must move with it. She inherits the same blood, the same spirit of liberty, that descends to her brother and for which her fathers bled and died. To fight against this progression is like fighting against the emancipation of the slaves. As the chains of the latter were broken and the oppressed set free, in spite of opposition and Bible argument, so will the All-Father, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of woman and make her the equal with man in power and dominion that He proclaimed her to be at the creation, that we may have—
“‘everywhere
Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,