But, as to leading men, either in instruction or devotion, and as to any interruption or disorder in religious meetings, “Let your women keep silence in the churches;” not merely let them be silent, but let them keep or preserve silence. Not that they may not preach, or pray, or exhort merely, but they may not open their lips to utter any sounds audibly. Let not your women in promiscuous religious meetings preach or pray audibly, or exhort audibly, or sigh, or groan, or say Amen, or utter the precious words, “Bless the Lord,” or the enchanting sounds, “Glory! Glory!”
In 1888, forty-five years after this statute, Rev. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler in the New York Evangelist, gave his opinion in regard to woman’s action in reform work and her demand for a share in making the laws which govern her, in this wise:
We can say frankly to our temperance brethren, that if they attempt to lash the wise project of prohibition of saloons, and the foolish project of female suffrage inseparably together, they will encounter fatal opposition. They will repel tenfold more sensible voters than they will win. Their most eloquent and logical advocate, Dr. Herrick Johnson, is intensely opposed to the Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton doctrines of woman suffrage, as I am. Nineteen-twentieths of our Presbyterian ministers will never cast a vote which is nominally only for prohibition, and yet is really a vote for burdening womanhood with civil government. What is true of our church is true of the Episcopal, Reformed, Baptist, Congregationalist, and the most influential portion of the Methodist church.
The same year of President Strong’s opposing sermon, 1878, the United Presbyterian Assembly passed a resolution to the effect that they found no sufficient authority in Scripture to warrant the ordination of women as deacons, yet they might with profit to themselves, and great advantage to the cause of suffering humanity, and for Christ, be allowed to act as assistants to deacons, thus emphasizing the dominant church teaching of woman’s irresponsibility and secondary position to man. The same year, however, an advance step was taken in Europe, the Synod of Born (Old Catholic), following the example of Pere Hyacinth, adopted a resolution in favor of the marriage of the clergy by a vote of 76 to 22. At the same time the Old Catholics were taking this advance step, the Protestant Episcopal Diocesan Convention of South Carolina forbade woman’s voting upon church matters, although it was proven during the discussion that in some parishes that were but five male members. The Southern Baptist Convention, held in Savannah, Georgia, 1885, appointed a committee with title of, and whose business was to decide upon “Representation by Women” in church affairs. This committee reported in favor of the word “brethren” instead of “members” being incorporated in the constitution, thus confirming the right of man alone to take part in church councils. Having thus effectively closed the lips of women on discussion of church questions, the convention introduced a resolution on divorce[12] followed by a speech declaring that but one cause could exist. The convention having shut off all chance for woman’s opinion upon this question of equal and even of more vital interest to her, “applaudingly and overwhelmingly adopted the resolution.” At the annual election for officers of Christ Church, New Haven, Connecticut, April 1886, a discussion arose upon the right of women to become members of the society and consequently voted it in. Several ladies having signified a desire to unite with the society, Bishop Williams was consulted as to their admission; he decided the Canon was clearly against them, and on motion of the clerk their application was rejected, only one member speaking in favor.
The title of the sermons still preached upon woman, illustrate priestly thought regarding her. Among those of recent date are found, “Blighted Women;” “Sins of Women;” “Women and Divorce;” “Women and Skepticism;” “Woman’s Place and Work;” “Our Common Mother;” “The Relation of Husband and Wife;” “Marriage and Divorce;” “The Sphere of Woman;” “Husband and Wife;” “A Mission for Women;” “The Church and the Family;” “The Duties of Wives to Husbands;” these sermons all subordinating woman to man in every relation of life; all designed to repress woman’s growing tendency towards freedom, and her claim for the same opportunities in life conceded to man. That the clerical teaching of woman’s subordination to man was not alone a doctrine of the dark ages, is proven by the most abundant testimony of today. The famous See trial of 1876, which shook not only the Presbytery of Newark, but the whole Synod of New Jersey, and finally the General Presbyterian Assembly of the United States, was based upon the doctrine of the divinely appointed subordination of woman to man, and arose simply because Rev. Dr. Isaac See admitted two ladies to his pulpit to speak upon temperance; Rev. Dr. Craven, the prosecutor, declared this act to have been “an indecency in the sight of Jehovah.” He expressed the general clinical and church view, when he said:
I believe the subject involves the honor of my God. I believe the subject involves the headship and crown of Jesus. Woman was made for man and became first in the transgression. My argument is that subordination is natural, the subordination of sex. Dr. See has admitted marital subordination, but this is not enough; there exists a created subordination; a divinely arranged and appointed subordination of woman as woman to man as man. Woman was made for man and became first in the transgression. The proper condition of the adult female is marriage; the general rule for ladies is marriage. Women without children, it might be said, could preach, but they are under the general rule of subordination. It is not allowed woman to speak in the church. Man’s place is on the platform. It is positively base for a woman to speak in the pulpit; it is base in the sight of Jehovah. The whole question is one of subordination.[13]
Thus before a vast audience largely composed of women, Dr. Craven stood and with denunciatory manner, frequently bringing his fists on his Bible emphatically down, devoted a four hours speech to proving that the Bible taught woman’s subordination to man. His arguments were the same as those of the church in the past and were based upon the same theory, viz. that woman was created inferior to man, for man, and was the first in sin. He referred to the fashions as aid in his argument, saying, “In every country, under every clime, from the peasant woman of Naples, with a handkerchief over her hair, to the women before me with bonnets, every one wears something upon her head in token of subordination.” Dr. Craven made this statement in direct contradiction to historical facts which prove that the head covering is always removed in presence of a superior. To remain bareheaded is an act of deference to a higher authority. Even the Quaker custom of men’s wearing the hat in meeting, originated as an act of defiance to the Anglican Church. Dr. Craven also forgot to state that flowing hair has always been regarded as an emblem of superiority and freedom; clipped hair that of a slave or prisoner. Thus Dr. Craven’s appeal to fashion reacted against him in the minds of all historically informed persons, yet together with his other statements it was fully endorsed by most of his brother clergymen present, some of whom enthusiastically shouted, “Amen!” At the close of his speech several other clergymen gave their views. Dr. Ballentine considered the subject too simple for an argument. Dr. Few Smith, although he “admired Miss Smiley, more than almost any orator he had ever listened to, did not want her or any other woman to permanently occupy the Presbyterian pulpit.” Dr. Wilson rejoiced to see so many women crowding in the lecture room; but Brother See should not take all the glory to himself. He was glad to see the women take so deep an interest in the subject under discussion; but as he looked at them he asked himself: “What will all the children do while these women are away from home?” A decision of censure against Dr. See, was agreed in by the Synod of New Jersey, and confirmed by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, in session at Pittsburg.
Thus we find that the Christianity of today continues to teach the existence of a superior and an inferior sex in the church, possessing different rights and held accountable to a different code of morals. Not alone did Dr. Craven express the idea that woman’s very dress was typical of her inferiority, but the Right Rev. Dr. Coxe, Bishop of the Western (Episcopal) Diocese of New York refused the sacrament in 1868 to the lady patients of the Clifton Springs sanitarium whose heads were uncovered, although the chapel was under the same roof and on the same floor with the patients’ rooms. This same Right Rev. Dr. Coxe, in a speech at his installation as first president of the Ingham Seminary for young ladies, declared “the laws of God to be plainly Salic.” Rev. W. W. Patten, D.D., president of Howard University, Washington, D.C., in a sermon preached at the Congregational church, upon “Woman and Skepticism,” January, 1885, advanced the proposition that as soon as they (women) depart from their natural sphere, they become atheistical and immoral.[14] In March, 1891, a half column editorial in the “Presbyterian” discussed the ethics and aesthetics of woman’s dress at communions, not precisely in line with Dr. Coxe, yet of the same general character as to regulating woman’s dress, in, “Should women receive the elements at communion with gloved hands?” Some authorities objected to the practice upon the ground “that nothing might come between the recipient and the mystic power contained in the bread and wine after consecration by the priest.” But while, as the editor remarks, “It is after all a very small matter,” it is in a historical aspect, a great one, showing such pronounced change from the church teaching of but a few centuries since, when women were forbidden to take the eucharist in their naked hands because of their impurity. Rev. Mr. Denhurst, member of the Connecticut Legislature (House), during a hearing before a committee upon that question March 10, 1886, while speaking favorably of woman suffrage still betrayed his belief in the old theological idea that women brought sin into the world, through which her subordination to man ensued. But like Dr. See he limited this subordination to married women, saying:
As a minister of the gospel, I deny that you can find anywhere in the Bible, woman’s subordination till she sent the curse of sin upon the world, and that relates only to married women, and marriage is a matter of choice.