[3]. “No physical or moral misery, no suffering, however corrupt it may be, should frighten him who has devoted himself to a knowledge of man and the sacred ministry of medicine; in that he is obliged to see all things, let him be permitted to say all things.”
[4]. The Latin is left untranslated.
[5]. The works of Moll and von Schrenck-Notzing have since appeared.—Trans.
[6]. Die Suggestions-Therapie, etc., F. Enke, Stuttgart, 1892.
[7]. Comp. Lombroso, “The Criminal.”
[8]. Comp. Westermarck, “History of Human Marriage.” McMillan & Co., 1891.
[9]. This generally entertained idea, also held by many historians, requires some limitation, in that the symbolic and sacramental character of marriage was first made clear and unequivocal by the Council of Trent, even though there was ever in the spirit of Christianity that which would free woman and raise her from the inferior position occupied by her in the ancient world and the Old Testament.
That this took place so late may well be due in part to the traditions of Genesis of the secondary creation of woman from the rib of man, and of her part in the Fall, and the consequent curse: “Thy will shall be to thy husband.” Since the Fall, for which the Old Testament made woman responsible, became the corner-stone of the fabric of churchteachings, the wife’s social position could but remain inferior until the spirit of Christianity had gained a victory over tradition and scholasticism.
It is remarkable that, with the exception of the interdiction of putting away a wife (Matt. xix, 9), the gospels contain nothing favoring woman. Gentleness toward the adulteress and the repentant Magdalene does not affect the position of the wife in itself. The Epistles of Paul specifically declare that the position of woman shall not be altered (II Corinth. xi, 3–12; Ephes. v, 22: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands;” and 33, “And the wife see that she reverence her husband”).
Passages in Tertullian show how the Fathers of the Church were prejudiced against woman by Eve’s guilt: “Woman, thou shouldst forever go in sorrow and rags, thy eyes filled with tears! Thou hast brought man to the ground!” St. Hieronymus has nothing good to say of woman. He says, “Woman is a door for the devil, a way to evil, the sting of the scorpion.” (“De cultu feminarum,” i, 1.)