According to the sacred books of India, “women are considered to have no business with the sacred texts”;[258] and, being destitute of the knowledge of Vedic texts, they “are as impure as falsehood itself, that is a fixed rule.”[259] Although, according to a Vedic ordinance mentioned in the Laws of Manu, husband and wife ought to perform religious rites together,[260] they have, among the present Hindus, no religious life in common; the women are not allowed to repeat the Veda, or to go through the morning and evening Sandhyā services.[261] If a woman, a dog, or a Sûdra, touch a consecrated image, its godship is destroyed; the ceremonies of deification must therefore be performed afresh, whilst a clay image, if thus defiled, must be thrown away. If women should worship before a consecrated image, they must keep at a respectful distance from the idol.[262]
[258] Baudhâyana, i. 5. 11. 7.
[259] Laws of Manu, ix. 18. Cf. ibid. ii. 66; iii. 121.
[260] Ibid. ix. 96.
[261] Monier Williams, Brāhmanism and Hindūism, p. 398.
[262] Ward, View of the History, &c., of the Hindoos, ii. 13, 36.
Islam is chiefly a religion for men. Though Muhammed did not forbid women to attend public prayers in a mosque, he pronounced it better for them to pray in private, as the presence of females might inspire in the men a different kind of devotion from that which is requisite in a place dedicated to the worship of God.[263] Women are absolutely excluded from many Muhammedan places of worship, and are frowned upon if they venture to appear in others, at any rate while men are there.[264]
[263] Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, p. 94.
[264] Pool, Studies in Mohammedanism, p. 39 sq.
In Christian Europe, as ascetic ideas advanced, the women sat or stood in the church apart from the men, and entered by a separate door.[265] They were excluded from sacred functions. In the early Church, it is true, there were “deaconesses” and clerical “widows,” but their offices were merely to perform some inferior services of the church;[266] and even these very modest posts were open only to virgins or widows of a considerable age.[267] Whilst a layman could in case of necessity administer baptism, a woman could never, as it seems, perform such an act.[268] Nor was a woman allowed to preach publicly in the church, either by the Apostle’s rules or those of succeeding ages;[269] and it was a serious complaint against certain heretics that they allowed such a practice. “The heretic women,” Tertullian exclaims, “how wanton are they! they who dare to teach, to dispute, to practise exorcisms, to promise cures, perchance, also, to baptise!”[270] A Council held at Auxerre at the end of the sixth century forbade women to receive the Eucharist into their naked hands;[271] and in various Canons women were enjoined not to come near to the altar while mass was celebrating.[272] To such an extent was this opposition against women carried that the Church of the Middle Ages did not hesitate to provide itself with eunuchs in order to supply cathedral choirs with the soprano tones inhering by nature in women alone.[273]