In Times Like These

by Nellie L. McClung

It is sometimes stated as a reason for excluding women from the highest courts of the church, that Christ chose men for all of his disciples—that it was to men, and men only, that he gave the command: "Go ye into the world and preach the gospel to every creature," but that is a very debatable matter. Christ's scribes were all men, and in writing down the sacred story, they would naturally ignore the woman's part of it. It is not more than twenty years ago that in a well-known church paper appeared this sentence, speaking of a series of revival meetings: "The converted numbered over a hundred souls, exclusive of women and children." If after nineteen centuries of Christian civilization the scribe ignores women, even in the matter of conversion, we have every reason to believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke or John might easily fail to give women a place "among those present" or the "also rans."

Superior physical force is an insidious thing, and has biased the judgment of even good men. St. Augustine declared woman to be "a household menace; a daily peril; a necessary evil." St. Paul, too, added his contribution and advised all men who wished to serve God faithfully to refrain from marriage "even as I." "However," he said, "if you feel you must marry, go ahead—only don't say I did not warn you!" Saint Paul is very careful to say that he is giving this advice quite on his own authority, but that has in no way dimmed the faith of those who have quoted it.

Later writers like Sir Almoth Wright declare there are no good women, though there are some who have come under the influence of good men. Many men have felt perfectly qualified to sum up all women in a few crisp sentences, and they do not shrink from declaring in their modest way that they understand women far better than women understand themselves. They love to talk of women in bulk, all women—and quite cheerfully tell us women are illogical, frivolous, jealous, vindictive, forgiving, affectionate, not any too honest, patient, frail, delightful, inconstant, faithful. Let us all take heart of grace for it seems we are the whole thing!

Almost all the books written about women have been written by men. Women have until the last fifty years been the inarticulate sex; but although they have had little to say about themselves they have heard much. It is a very poor preacher or lecturer who has not a lengthy discourse on "Woman's True Place." It is a very poor platform performer who cannot take the stand and show women exactly wherein they err. "This way, ladies, for the straight and narrow path!" If women have gone aside from the straight and narrow path it is not because they have not been advised to pursue it. Man long ago decided that woman's sphere was anything he did not wish to do himself, and as he did not particularly care for the straight and narrow way, he felt free to recommend it to women in general. He did not wish to tie himself too closely to home either and still he knew somebody should stay on the job, so he decided that home was woman's sphere.

The church has been dominated by men and so religion has been given a masculine interpretation, and I believe the Protestant religion has lost much when it lost the idea of the motherhood of God. There come times when human beings do not crave the calm, even-handed justice of a father nearly so much as the soft-hearted, loving touch of a mother, and to many a man or woman whose home life has not been happy, "like as a father pitieth his children" sounds like a very cheap and cruel sarcasm.

It has been contended by those high in authority in church life, that the admission of women into all the departments of the church will have the tendency to drive men out. Indeed some declare that the small attendance of men at church services is accounted for by the "feminization of the church," which is, in other words, an admission of a very ugly fact that even in the sacred precincts of the church, women are held in mild contempt. Many men will resent this statement hotly, but a brief glance at some of the conditions which prevail in our social life will prove that there is a great amount of truth in it. Look at the fine scorn with which small boys regard girls! You cannot insult a boy more deeply than to tell him he looks like a girl—and the bitterest insult one boy can hand out to another is to call him a "sissy." This has been carefully taught to our small boys, for if they were left to their own observations and deductions they would hold girls in as high esteem as boys. I remember once seeing a fond mother buying a coat for her only son, aged seven years. The salesman had put on a pretty little blue reefer, and the mother was quite pleased with it, and a sale was apparently in sight. Then the salesman was guilty of a serious mistake, for as he pulled down the little coat and patted the shoulders he said: "This is a standard cut, madam, which is always popular, and we sell a great many of them for both boys and girls."

Girls!

Reggie's mother stiffened, and with withering scorn declared that she did not wish Reggie to wear a girl's coat. She would look at something else. Reggie pulled off the coat, as if it burned him, and felt he had been perilously near to something very compromising and indelicate. Thus did young Reggie receive a lesson in sex contempt at the hands of his mother!

Let us lay the blame where it belongs. If any man holds women in contempt—and many do—their mothers are to blame for it in the first place, it began in the nursery but was fostered on the street, and nourished in the school where sitting with a girl has been handed out as a punishment, containing the very dregs of humiliation; where boys are encouraged to play games and have a good time, but where until a few years ago girls were expected to "sit around and act ladylike" in the playtime of the others.

The church has contributed a share, too, in the subjection of women, in spite of the plain teaching of our Lord, and many a sermon has been based on the words of Saint Paul about women remaining silent in the churches, and if any question arose to trouble her soul, she must ask her husband quietly at home.