[241] Ecclesiasticus, xxv. 24.
[242] 1 Timothy, ii. 14.
[243] Tertullian, De cultu fœminarum, i. 1 (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, i. 1305). See also Laurent, Études sur l’histoire de l’humanité, iv. 113.
[244] Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, viii. 20.
[245] St. Hilar., Commentarius in Matthæum, xxiii. 4 (Migne, op. cit. ix. 1045 sq.). St. Basil, Homilia in Psalmum cxiv. 5 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, xxix. 488).
Progress in civilisation has exercised an unfavourable influence on the position of woman by widening the gulf between the sexes, as the higher culture was almost exclusively the prerogative of the men. Moreover, religion, and especially the great religions in the world, have contributed to the degradation of the female sex by regarding woman as unclean. During menstruation, or when with child, or at child-birth, she is considered to be polluted, to be charged with mysterious baneful energy, which is a danger to all around her.[246] The cause of this notion seems to lie in the superstitious dread of those marvellous processes which then take place, and it reaches its height where there is appearance of blood.[247] On such occasions woman is shunned not only by men, but in an even higher degree by gods, for the obvious reason that contact with the unclean woman would injure or destroy their holiness. Indeed, the danger is considered so great, that many religions regard women as defiled not only temporarily, but permanently, and on that ground exclude them from religious worship.
[246] Ploss-Bartels, Das Weib, i. 420 sqq.; ii. 10 sqq., 402 sqq. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 325 sqq.; iii. 222 sqq. Crawley, op. cit. p. 165 sqq.; Mathew, Eaglehawk and Crow, p. 144 (Australian aborigines), de Rochas, Nouvelle Calédonie, p. 283. Mooney, ‘Myths of the Cherokee,’ in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xix. 469. Sumner, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 96 (Jakuts). Georgi, Russia, iii. 25 sq. (Samoyedes), 245, sq. (Shamanists of Siberia generally); &c.
[247] Professor Durkheim maintains (‘La prohibition de l’inceste et ses origines,’ in L’année sociologique, i. especially p. 48 sqq.) that the origin of the occult powers attributed to the feminine organism is to be found in primitive ideas concerning blood, any kind of blood, not only menstrual, being the object of similar feelings among savages and barbarians. Mr. Crawley justly remarks (op. cit. p. 212) that there is no flux of blood during pregnancy, when woman is regularly taboo; that her hair, nail-parings, and occupations can hardly be avoided from a fear of her blood; and that there is also the female side of the question to be taken into account.
In the Society Islands a woman was forbidden to touch whatever was presented as an offering to the gods, so as not to pollute it.[248] In Melanesia women are generally excluded from religious rites.[249] Among the Shamanists of Siberia women “are interdicted the worship of the deities, and dare not pass round the common hearth of their habitations, because fire is sacred to the gods.”[250] The women of the Voguls are generally prohibited from approaching idols or holy places.[251] A Votyak woman may not be present at the sacrifices made to the lud, or evil spirit.[252] Among the Lapps a woman was not allowed to touch a noaid’s, or wizard’s, drum; nor, as a rule, to take part in sacrificial rites; nor even to look in the direction of a place where sacrifices were offered.[253] Among the Ainos of Japan, “though a woman may prepare a divine offering, she may not offer it…. Accordingly, women are never allowed to pray, or to take any part in any religious exercise.”[254] In China women are not allowed to go and worship in the temples.[255]
[248] Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 129. Cf. Wegener, Geschichte der christlichen Kirche auf dem Gesellschafts-Archipel, p. 181.