There was a time in this fair eastern land when women were in a position of respect similar to that among the ancient Hebrews. Husband and wife were equal in all domestic, social and religious life. “The Brahmans have themselves preserved the record of women engaging in philosophical discussions, and disconcerting their most celebrated doctors by the depths of their objections.”[7] Some of the Vedic hymns were composed by women. By degrees the condition of woman has deteriorated until by the law of their religion she is “now consigned to a degradation probably without a parallel in the history of the race.” It is true, Buddha, in the sixth century before Christ, taught that men and women were equal, but even his influence has never been strong enough to reform the Brahmanical laws about women. The Hindus have a saying: “Education is good, as milk is good, but milk given to a snake becomes venom, and education given to a woman becomes poison.”
[7] J. Murray Mitchell, LL. D.
A quotation from the personal experience of Prof. T. M. Lindsay, D. D., so pertinently sums up the Hindu creed about women that I quote it. “I remember asking a learned Vedantist, who had spent two days in teaching me something about his belief—a man who had read Spinoza, Berkeley and Hegel—whether he could give me any definite proposition which all the people who were Hindus could accept. He very readily said, ‘That woman is a wicked animal. That the cow is a holy animal.’” No brilliant presentation of Vedic learning, no poetic picture of Brahman or Buddhist philosophy so recently heard in the Parliament of Religions, will prevent the world from arraigning Hinduism for cherishing, in the sacred name of religion, the grossest vices, and basely degrading woman and all society. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
Religions of China.
In the Empire of China, under a government distinguished for its stability and justness, among a people spoken of before Christ as “Those who dwell apart,” and known from the time of Ptolemy as just, mild, frugal and industrious, comprising one-fourth the human race; three religions of confessed power, not as rivals, but as co-ordinate and supplemental, have for many centuries sought to solve the problem of life, death and immortality. The time has been long enough, the conditions favorable for a perfect experiment. Confucianism, the oldest of the three, gave what is probably the best code of morals man ever gave to men. Confucius was himself an earnest reformer. The late Dr. Legge, professor of Chinese in the University of Oxford, says: “Confucius saw the terrible wretchedness of his people and set himself to find a remedy. Yet to the one principal cause of the misery of the masses, polygamy and the low social condition of women, he gave no thought.” In his treatise on human relations, in that of husband and wife, he regards the wife as the servant of the husband and enjoins absolute obedience. During all these forty-three centuries, while Confucius has done much for good government and has set some high moral standards for men, women have reaped no benefit from the teachings of the sage.
Taoism.
Lao-tsze, the founder of Taoism, a religion of no little power in China, made no effort to elevate the people, and his religious system does not recognize the existence of woman. In the beginning, the work of Taoism, was to repress the passions.
“Not to act is the source of all power,”[8] was an ever present thesis. To-day Taoism is a system of magic and spiritism.
[8] Ten Great Religions. James Freeman Clark.