Woman, Church & State / The Original Exposé of Male Collaboration Against the Female Sex

by Matilda Joslyn Gage

Under this form of reasoning, both Dr. Gray and the English bishop dispose with ease of the state obstacle to marriage with a deceased wife’s sister. Inasmuch as by marriage the husband forms no ties of consanguinity with the wife’s family, she having become a member of his family without his having become a member of hers, marriage with his deceased wife’s sister would be the same as marriage with an entire stranger, saying:

As the husband enters into no connection with the wife’s family, her sisters are no more his sisters than they had been before. Therefore he may marry one of them as freely as any one else, as far as any real principle involved in matrimony is concerned.

The Christian Register, of Boston, commenting upon Dr. Gray’s work, although itself a recognized organ of the Unitarian church, yet in a spirit more in accord with modern thought, carefully corrected the size of type in the word “wife” upon the title-page and outside of the book, thus: HUSBAND AND wife:[19] also facetiously referring to the late Artemus Ward, who at time of the late civil war was ready to sacrifice all his wife’s relations.[20] These two works of the English bishop and the American dean are consistent with the teaching of the Christian ages in reference to woman. Not held as belonging primarily to herself, but ever to some man, her very relationship to the mother who brought her into life destroyed by law, she once again through the church is presented to the world as a being without a birthright, not even receiving for it Esau’s mess of pottage, or a father’s shorn blessing, after its loss. She is held up to view as without father, mother, or individual existence. Rev. Knox-Little, a high church clergyman of England, traveled in the United States in the fall of 1880. During his stay in Philadelphia, he preached a “Sermon to Women,” in the large church of St. Clements. As reported in the Times of that city, its chief features were a representation of woman’s inferior intellect, her duty of unqualified obedience to her husband, however evil his life, the sinfulness of divorce and the blessedness of a large family of children. He said:

God made himself to be born of a woman to sanctify the virtue of endurance; loving submission is an attribute of woman; men are logical, but women lacking this quality, have an intricacy of thought. There are those who think woman can be taught logic; this is a mistake, they can never by any power of education arrive at the same mental status as that enjoyed by man, but they have a quickness of apprehension, which is usually called leaping at conclusions, that is astonishing. There, then, we have distinctive traits of a woman, namely: endurance, loving submission and quickness of apprehension. Wifehood is the crowning glory of a woman. In it she is bound for all time. To her husband she owes the duty of unqualified obedience. There is no crime which a man can commit which justifies his wife in leaving him or applying for that monstrous thing, divorce. It is her duty to subject herself to him always, and no crime that he can commit can justify her lack of obedience. If he be a bad or wicked man, she may gently remonstrate with him, but refuse him, never. Let divorce be anathema; curse it; curse this accursed thing, divorce; curse it, curse it! Think of the blessedness of having children. I am the father of many and there have been those who have ventured to pity me; “keep your pity for yourself,” I have replied. “They never cost me a single pang.” In this matter let women exercise that endurance and loving submission, which with intricacy of thought are their only characteristics.

Such a sermon as the above preached to women under the full blaze of nineteenth century civilization, needs few comments. In it woman’s inferiority and subordination are as openly asserted as at any time during the dark ages. According to Rev. Knox-Little, woman possesses no responsibility; she is deprived of conscience, intelligent thought, self-respect, and is simply an appendage to man, a thing. As the clergy in the Middle Ages divided rights into those of persons and things, themselves being the persons, the laity things, so the Rev. Knox-Little and his ilk of today, divide the world into persons and things, men being the persons, and woman the things. Rev. Dr. T. De Witt Talmage, of Brooklyn, New York, joins his brethren in preaching of “the first, fair, frail woman; her creation, her fall and her sorrow.” Speaking of the trials of housekeepers, he said:

Again, there is the trial of severe economy. Nine hundred and ninety-nine households out of the thousand are subject to it, some under more, and some under less stress of circumstances. Especially if a man smokes very expensive cigars and takes very costly dinners at the restaurants, he will be severe in demanding domestic economics. This is what kills thousands of women; attempting to make five dollars do the work of seven. How the bills come in. The woman is the banker of the household; she is the president, and cashier, and teller, discount clerk, and there is a panic every four weeks. This thirty years war against high prices; this perpetual study of economics, this lifelong attempt to keep the outgoes less than the income exhausts millions of housekeepers. O, my sister, this is part of divine discipline.

It should require but little thought upon woman’s part to see how closely her disabilities are interwoven with present religious belief and teaching as to her inferiority and pre-ordained subordination. If she needs aid to thought, the Cravens, the Knox-Littles, the Talmages, will help her. The spirit of the priesthood, Protestant equally with Catholic, is that of the early and middle ages. The foundation being the same, the teaching is of similar character. From the sermons referred to, we can justly declare they express the opinions of the priesthood as a body; we meet no protest against them. Not a single church has denied these degrading theories; no clergyman has preached against the doctrines mentioned, blasphemous as they are against the primal rights of the soul. These sermons stand as representatives, not only of high church theology in regard to woman, but as expressing the belief of all churches in her creation and existence as an inferior and appendage to man. All her suffering, material or spiritual, her restrictions, her sorrows, her deprivation of the right of unrestricted conscience are depicted as parts of her divine discipline, which she must accept with endurance and loving submission. Even from the criminal, she is not to free herself, or refuse him obedience. Scarcely a Protestant sect that has not within a few years, in some way, placed itself upon record as sustaining the doctrine of woman’s subordination. The Pan-Presbyterian Council that assembled in Edinburg a few years since refused to admit a woman even as a listener to its proceedings although women constitute at least two-thirds of the membership of that church. A solitary woman who persisted in remaining to listen to the discussions of this body was removed by force; “six stalwart Presbyterians” lending their ungentle aid to her ejection. The same Pan-Presbyterian body in session in Philadelphia, the summer of 1880, laughed to scorn the suggestion of a liberal member that the status to woman in that church should receive some consideration; referring to the work of the Sisters of Charity, in the Catholic church, and that of women among the Quakers. Although this question was twice introduced it was as often “met with derisive laughter,” and no action was taken upon it. But had this liberal member been wise enough to have brought before this body the fact that the Presbyterian church is losing its political influence because of the great preponderance of its women members without the ballot, he would have received more consideration. As all churches seek influence in politics, we may rest assured that when the church as a whole, or any sect thereof, shall be found sustaining the political rights of woman or her religious equality in the church, it will be from the worldly wisdom of a desire to retain fleeting political power. The life or the death of the church largely depends upon its political forethought.

Differing political rights have ever been productive of diverse moral codes. What was considered right for the king and the nobility has ever been wrong for the peasant. The moral rights of the master and the slave were ever dissimilar, while under Christianity two codes of morals have ever been extant, the lax code for man, the strict for woman. This diversity is shown by the different position that society accords to an immoral man and an immoral woman, but nowhere is the recognition of differing codes of morals for man and woman as clearly shown as in the church, as presented in discourses of clergymen. To them adultery in the husband is merely a pastime in which he can indulge without injury to his wife, who is powerless to put him away, nor has she been wronged. But to the contrary, under the same teaching, should the wife prove thus unfaithful she should immediately be cast out. Colored pastors unite with their white brethren in denying woman’s moral, spiritual or personal equality with man. Rev. Alexander Crummel,[21] a colored clergyman of Washington, rector of St. Lukes (Episcopal) church, in 1881, preached a sermon upon the biblical position of woman, which was published in tract form for circulation. He referred to her as having been created inferior to man, with no right, natural or acquired by creation or revelation, to govern herself or hold opinions of her own. This sermon—“Marriage and Divorce”—laid down the following principles:

Marriage is a divine institution. It came from God. It is not, therefore, the creation of legislative action. It is not merely a civil contract. It is not the invention of man. The estate of matrimony is a sacred one; originated by the will of God, and governed by his law. Marriage is indissoluble. Adultery on part of the wife is ground for divorce. Thus far we have considered the case with reference to the unfaithfulness of the wife, and have shown that when a woman violates the covenant of marriage by adultery, her husband has the right to divorce her. But now the question comes, “Is not this a reciprocal right?” When husbands are unfaithful, have not wives the right to divorce them? My reply is that no warrant for such divorce can be found in the Bible. Under both covenants, the right of divorce is given exclusively to husband. The right in all cases is guaranteed to the man only. And so far forth we have the word of God for its specific reservation to husbands. In no case is it even hinted that a woman has the right of divorce, if even her husband be guilty of unfaithfulness. There is a broad, general obligation laid upon woman in the marriage relation. The sum of the matter respecting the woman seems to be this; the woman is bound by the ties of wedlock during the whole period of her husband’s life; and even under distressful circumstances has no right to break them; i. e., by divorce.