Influence of the Church on women in social life—The twofold conception of womanhood—Canon and Civil Law—Effect of ecclesiastical celibacy.
It has come to be regarded almost as truism that women are more religious than men, that they are, by nature, more devout, more susceptible to spiritual influences. If Matthew Arnold’s definition of religion as “morality touched by emotion” be accepted, it is easy to point to the larger development of the emotional nature in women as a cause for their greater leaning towards religion. But for the present purpose it is only necessary to deal with the manifestations of this impulse; the causes belong to the domain of psychology.
Before considering women’s part in the religious life of the country, it has to be remembered that their part in social life has been largely determined by the Church. For centuries the Church was, practically, the only civilizing influence, the only restraint upon passion and lawlessness, the only protection of the weak against the strong. It was the Church that taught respect for womanhood, that raised the wife from a state of subjection amounting to slavery to a position of dignity in the household. It was in the Church that women sought safety, shelter, protection, livelihood, occupation, when the home was gone, when kindred failed, when life and honour were at stake. The supremacy which the Church exercised over the laity in general was emphasized in the case of women, more prone to render unquestioning obedience to constituted authority.
From the beginning the Church was quick to recognize the value of women’s adherence, and the importance of the services which they could render. By raising women, the Church created a power for its own uses. And women were as quick to respond. They gave themselves freely. Whatever the Church has done for women has been repaid by them tenfold. Their labour, their property, their lives were placed at the disposal of the Church. They gave something more—their freedom of thought, their independence of action. Their minds, as well as their consciences, were in the keeping of the priest.
The Church, while with one hand it raised woman from the abasement into which she had been cast by Paganism, lowered her with the other. When it taught men to pay respect to their wives, when it interfered with the tyranny which placed women in complete subjection to their male relatives, it was that women might come directly under the priestly power. The Church had no intention of setting women free to act independently. It was only a change of masters. This was seen especially about the fourth century, when the clergy had begun to degenerate from their former simplicity.
“Then the men, exiling the women by degrees, took the sole government of the church into their own hands, and assembling together, made what canons they pleased for their own secular advantage. Then were some published against the ordination of priestesses, deaconesses, etc.”[30]
The same thing is observable in the next century.
“Women in most places were denied all ecclesiastical offices, and commanded to be silent in the churches, and so it continued for several centuries even till the ancient faith began to bud forth again (after that great night of apostacy) among the Waldenses, who justified women’s preaching.”
The Church was careful to impress women with a sense of their inferiority. It has even been denied that Christianity—or rather its exponents—did anything to elevate women to a higher social status.
“Das Christenthum brachte der Frau keine Erlösung aus ihrer Erniedrigung. Im Gegentheil! War sie in der heidnischen Welt nur die Sklavin, die Waare, das Hausthier gewesen, so wurde sie jetzt noch ausserdem zum ‘Gefäss der Hölle’ erklärt.”[31]