Female Scripture Biography, Volume I

by F. A. Cox

"while universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Led on th' eternal spring--"

the favoured lord of this unrivalled dominion was ALONE. The inanimate creation spread before his view its unparalleled beauties, and nature furnished a table to supply all his wants; the animal world acknowledged his superiority, and went to him to receive their names: his Maker condescended to hold communion with this excellent and intellectual creature, admitting him to that sacred intercourse, and imparting some of that divine knowledge which will no doubt constitute the future felicity of emparadised believers: still he had no COMPANION, no one to share his pleasures, no one upon equal terms to whom he could communicate his sentiments. Endowed with a social nature, he had at present no social means; he seemed as if placed in that solitary point, that fair, but desolate region, where he saw thousands of creatures below him and above him, but none upon that pleasing level which conduces to a delightful and profitable familiarity.

This defect, however, scarcely existed before the goodness of his Maker supplied it. "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him." The process by which this merciful intention was accomplished appears truly wonderful: Adam was put into a profound sleep, and the Lord God took out one of his ribs, from which he made a woman, and closed up the flesh. What must have been the emotions of our great progenitor, when, upon awaking from his supernatural slumber, this help meet was presented to him! He had, it seems, an intuitive perception of the kind purpose for which this female companion of his future days was made; or some immediate revelation disclosing both the manner of her formation, and the reason of his being presented with this invaluable gift. In the first transports of gratitude he exclaimed, "This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman (or Ishah,) because she was taken out of man." This name was afterwards changed by him to Havah, or EVE; assigning, as a reason, that "she was the mother of all living." This name we have placed at the head of the list of female characters in the present work; and while her brief history is replete with instruction, it possesses an additional interest, from the consideration of her being the first woman. We are conducted back to the infancy of time, to the origin of human being, to the cause of the present degradation of our race, to an impressive exhibition of the evil of sin, and to the dawn of redeeming mercy upon this world of transgressors. In this history we shall perceive reasons both for humiliation and triumph; we shall see human nature in ruins, and provision made for its reparation; we shall witness the effects of infernal agency, the loss of primeval glory, the power of female influence; and, above all, the INFINITE GOODNESS of our Creator.

It very much enhances the dignity of the female character to reflect, that of all created things the woman was selected as the only suitable companion of the first and fairest of men; she was made expressly to contribute to his mental and social pleasures, and not to be the slave of his will; if the mother, she was intended also as the instructor of his children; his assistant, at least, in the "delightful task" of "rearing the tender thought," and "teaching the young idea how to shoot:" she was qualified to counsel and co-operate with him in his daily occupations, to aid in the investigation of those laws which regulated the new-made world, to unite with him in acts of worship, and to enliven, as well as to participate, his devotional hours.

Revelation is the only system that assigns to woman her natural and proper elevation in the scale of being, and inspires a consciousness of her real dignity. The moment that an intelligent being is by any injurious treatment, or by any prevailing error, induced to form a degrading estimate of itself, that moment it begins to approximate a state of meanness which was hitherto only imaginary. Let such an one be conscious of being held in no esteem, or prized solely as the tool of servitude or the food of appetite, and all majesty of character is lost; all aim or wish to rise above the brute, to aspire after a station or character, to the occupation of which a tyrannic impiety has opposed an insurmountable barrier, is gone; and those great principles which confer a superiority upon the human kind, and point to a noble pre-eminence, cease to operate, and expire for want of action. This state of things is unnatural, contrary to the original purpose of creation, and in fact, more dishonorable to the usurper than to the degraded sufferer. In Mahometan and Pagan countries the rights of women have been sacrificed to the caprices of men; and, having plucked this fair flower of creation from its original and highly elevated situation, its beauty has faded, its glory been lost in the sacrilegious hands of its barbarian possessor. Abject slavery or base flattery have existed where woman has been displaced from her proper and original character, and the most mischievous consequences have ensued. [[4]]

The first woman is said to have been formed out of man; hence, as a part of himself, it seems the law of creation, that man should cherish the most affectionate sentiments for the woman:--"Therefore," says the inspired history, "shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh."

It is observable, that the woman was neither taken out of the head, nor from the feet, but from the side, and near the heart! If, therefore, on the one hand, she ought not to assume pre-eminence, on the other she is not to be trampled on and despised, but received as an equal and a friend.

As the original arrangements of Infinite Wisdom were the most perfect in their respective kinds, the appropriation of one woman only, as the companion and wife of the first created man, indicates both the will of the Creator respecting marriage, and the circumstances in which it is most likely to produce the greatest sum of domestic felicity. Man is neither to live alone, nor to indulge that depravity of taste, which, by seeking enjoyment in diversity, not only ensures disappointment, but generates discord.

The advocates for celibacy and for plurality, equally betray an ignorance of Scripture and of human nature, and can find few supporters, except amongst the infidel or the barbarian classes of mankind. "They that will not connect their interests, lest they should be unhappy by their partner's fault, dream away their time without friendship, without fondness, and are driven to rid themselves of the day, for which they have no use, by childish amusement or vicious delights. They act as beings under the constant sense of some known inferiority, that fills their minds with rancor and their tongues with censure; they are peevish at home, and malevolent abroad; and, as the outlaws of human nature, make it their business and their pleasure to disturb that society which debars them from its privileges. To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude: it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures." [[5]]

The original law is enforced in the New Testament by an infallible commentator: "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." Thus Jesus Christ sanctions marriage by his authority, virtually interdicts polygamy, and absolutely prohibits divorce.