Recently I heard a clergyman give the following as his reason for opposing medical, or scientific training of any sort, for women: "Now her whole energy and force of action (outside of the family) must be expended upon religion. If she were allowed other fields of action or thought, her energy, like that of man, would be withdrawn from and fatally cripple the Church."
To me, however, it seems that any organization that finds it necessary to cripple its adherents in order to keep them has a screw loose somewhere.
And it also seems to me that it is time for women to try to find out where the trouble is. They will not want for aid from the men who think—the men who hold self vastly inferior to principle and justice—the rare noblemen of nature, honorable, fair, just, tender, and thoughtful men—men who love to see the weakest share with them the benefits of freedom—men who know that they are not the less men because they are tender, that women are not the less women because they are strong; and no land under the sky holds so many such as ours.
WHAT IT TEACHES.
It seemed to me that the time had come when women should know for themselves what the Bible teaches for them and what the pulpit has upheld; so I have looked it up a little, and although I cannot soil my lips nor your ears with much of it, there is enough, I think, that I may use to make any self-respecting, pure woman blush that she has sustained it by word or act.
The Bible teaches that a father may sell his daughter for a slave,* that he may sacrifice her purity to a mob,** and that he may murder her, and still be a good father and a holy man. It teaches that a man may have any number of wives; that he may sell them, give them away, or change them around, and still be a perfect gentleman, a good husband, a righteous man, and one of God's most intimate friends; and that is a pretty good position for a beginning. It teaches almost every infamy under the heavens for woman, and it does not recognize her as a self-directing, free human being. It classes her as property, just as it does a sheep: and it forbids her to think, talk, act, or exist, except under conditions and limits defined by some priest.
* Ex. xxi. 7.
** Judges xix. 24; Gen. xix. 8
If the Bible were strictly followed, women and negroes would still be publicly bought and sold in America. If it were believed in as it once was, if the Church had the power she once had, I should never see the light of another day, and your lives would be made a hell for sitting here to-night. The iron grasp of superstition would hold you and your children forever over the bottomless pit of religious persecution, and cover your fair fame with infamous slander, because you dared to sit here and hear me strike a blow at infinite injustice.
Every injustice that has ever been fastened upon women in a Christian country has been "authorized by the Bible" and riveted and perpetuated by the pulpit. That seems strong language, no doubt; but I shall give you an opportunity to decide as to its truth. I will now bring my witnesses. They are from the "inspired word" itself, and therefore must be all that could be desired. I will read you a short passage from Exodus xx. 22; xxi. 7-8: