The authorised version of the Bible is here referred to. The euphemisms attempted in the recent revised version as amendments of some of these passages are equally consonant with the argument of this note.
XXV.
1.—“Vicarious punishment ...”
Revolting was the shock to the writer, coming, some years ago, with unprejudiced and ingenuous mind, to the study of the so-called “Diseases of Women,” on finding that nearly the whole of these special “diseases,” including menstruation, were due, directly or collaterally, to one form or other of masculine excess or abuse. Here is a nearly coincident opinion, afterwards met with:—“The diseases peculiar to women are so many, of so frequent occurrence, and of such severity, that half the time of the medical profession is devoted to their care, and more than half its revenues depend upon them. We have libraries of books upon them, special professorships in our medical colleges, and hosts of doctors who give them their exclusive attention.... The books and professors are all at fault. They have no knowledge of the causes or nature of these diseases” (or at least they do not publish it, or act on it), “and no idea of their proper treatment. Women are everywhere outraged and abused. When the full chapter of woman’s wrongs and sufferings is written, the world will be horrified at the hideous spectacle....”—T. L. Nichols, M.D. (“Esoteric Anthropology,” p. 198).
So, again, in speaking of menorrhagia:—“The causes of this disease, whatever they are, must be removed. Thousands of women are consigned to premature graves; some by the morbid excesses of their own passions, but far more by the sensual and selfish indulgences of those who claim the legal right to murder them in this manner, whom no law of homicide can reach, and upon whose victims no coroner holds an inquest.”—(Op. cit., p. 301.)
2.—“... grievous toll ...”
And this in every grade of society, even to the pecuniary loss, as well as discomfort, of the labouring classes of women.
“Statistics of sickness in the Post Office show that women” (these are unmarried women) “are away from their work more days than men.”—(Sidney Webb, at British Association, 1891.)
5.—“... no honest claim.”
The Times of Aug. 3, 1892, reports a paper by Professor Lombroso, of Turin (at the International Congress of Psychology, London), in which occurs the following:—“It must be observed that woman was exposed to more pains than man, because man imposed submission and often even slavery upon her. As a girl, she had to undergo the tyranny of her brothers, and the cruel preferences accorded by parents to their male children. Woman was the slave of her husband, and still more of social prejudices.... Let them not forget the physical disadvantage under which she had to labour. She might justly call herself the pariah of the human family.”