“As the church is subject unto Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (Eph. v, 24).
“Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church” (1 Cor. xiv, 34, 35).
“Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.... For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands; even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord” (1 Peter iii, 1–6).
“Let woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression” (1 Tim. ii, 11–14).
Oh! the unspeakable outrage that woman has suffered because of that old Jewish fable!
The teachings of the Bible respecting marriage are an insult to every married woman. Christ discouraged marriage (Matt. xix, 10–12), while a more despicable dissertation on marriage than Paul gives in the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians was never penned.
In contracting matrimonial alliances, woman’s rights and choice are not consulted. The father does his daughter’s courting, and sells or gives her to whom he pleases. A father is even allowed to sell his daughter for a slave (Ex. xxi, 7). In the Decalogue the wife is classed with slaves and cattle as a mere chattel.
Kidnapping is commanded for the purpose of obtaining wives.
“Therefore they [God’s priests] commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie in wait in the vineyards; and see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.... And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives according to their number of them that danced whom they caught” (Jud. xxi, 20–23).
The Levitical law makes motherhood a sin that can be expiated only by offering a sin offering at the birth of every child. The degree of sinfulness depends upon the sex of the child; giving birth to a daughter being esteemed a greater sin than giving birth to a son (Lev. xii).