Later, the nations are found still engaged in war, as if each esteemed the slaughtering of its neighbors the grandest and noblest of human achievements; but their equipments indicate that, meanwhile, manufactures have been making some advancement. Warriors present a more formidable appearance than did those of former ages. They are clad in armor, and guard themselves with breastplates and with shields. Their glittering swords and spears, their battle-axes and their bows, are grasped in hands only too eager to use them; and the combatants press proudly on toward the scene of conflict; while others, equally intrepid, but less military in their tastes, still employ themselves in the chase; and the more indolent pursue pleasures of a less exciting character.
But where, meanwhile, are the counterparts of these—the wives, sisters, and daughters of these grim warriors and sturdy huntsmen, or of these dreaming idlers? In existence they certainly are; but they exist only to drudge and suffer. While their masters are employing or non-employing themselves, according to the bent of their inclination, they are cultivating the fields or watering and herding the flocks, bearing heavy burdens, carrying the luggage of their husbands to facilitate progress on the war-path; or at home rearing up children, who rarely rise up to call them blessed; or they are waiting, in submissive obedience, at the feet of their reclining lords, to be petted and caressed or cursed and kicked, as passion or caprice may dictate—subjected alike to neglect, contempt, and abuse. Exceptions to this general rule doubtless occurred occasionally; for irresponsible power does not of necessity convert every man into an unfeeling tyrant, just as under other systems of slavery, some were fortunate enough to fall into the hands of kind, considerate owners, whose hearts they inspired with love and tenderness; but neither bound wife nor bond slave was treated with kindness, respect, or common justice, because their inherent right to be so treated was recognized. It mattered little to the women of this period whether they were held as wives or concubines; their actual condition was that of slavery.
In none of the countries of antiquity had women more liberty than in Egypt; and yet what was her real condition there? Alexander remarked, it is true, that though "the women promised obedience, men often yielded it;" and, in many instances, it is equally true that the laws respecting women were immeasurably in advance of those of neighboring nations; as, for instance: Each wife had entire control of her own house. Among the princes nearest the throne, women might take their places, and even reign as sovereigns (a regency was frequently committed to their care); or they might rule as joint sovereigns with another party; and as Isis took rank above Osiris, so in such a case the woman might take rank above the man.[[A]]
But notwithstanding this advance beyond other nations, they were still spoken of, and in many instances not only treated as inferiors, but held in hopeless bondage.
Among the Greeks, the wife was at times permitted to take part in public assemblies, but never as the equal of her husband. She neither went with him to dinner, when he dined out, nor sat at table with those whom he invited to his house. Aristotle held that "the relation of men to women is that of governor to a subject." Plato says: "A woman's virtue may be summed up in a few words: for she has only to manage the house well, keeping what there is in it, and obeying her husband." Again, in further proof of the low estimation in which he held women, he says: "Of the men that were born, such as are timid and have passed through life unjustly are, we suppose, changed into women in their second generation." Plutarch tells us that women "were compelled to go barefoot, in order to induce them to keep at home."
The Spartan women were better off than their neighbors; and, in consequence, we get glimpses of a higher type of womanhood. The Spartan mother has furnished a theme for the pen of every ancient Greek historian. Under the Lycurgean system, women were considered "as a part of the State," and not simply household articles belonging to their husbands—chattels to be disposed of according to the supreme pleasure of their masters. Free women were trained for the service of the State with scarcely less severity than men. Lycurgus remarks: "Female slaves are good enough to sit at home, weaving and spinning; but who can expect a splendid offspring—the appropriate mission and duty of free Spartan women toward their country—from mothers brought up in such occupations?" But though, like the Egyptian women, and indeed in advance of them, the Spartan women were treated with, for the times, a marked degree of attention and respect, still, even in Sparta, there were laws in force by which women suffered grievous injustice. With all the apparent freedom accorded to them, fathers claimed and exercised the right of disposing of their daughters in marriage to suit their own views or interests. Though free-born, a girl had no choice, if her father willed it so, in the selection of her husband; and husbands might, if they wished, dispose of their wives by will, at death, as they would of any other piece of property. Though in a measure free, because she was a woman, she was still a slave.
Among the other infringements of the rights of women, and one of the most barbarous, common to the heathen, both ancient and modern, and to the Mohammedans, is early betrothal. In fact, the system of betrothal prevailed to a very great extent among the very earliest nations of which history furnishes any account, the laws affecting it being only slightly modified to suit the circumstances of the various tribes by which it was adopted. The main feature was still the same—the girl had no choice; there was nothing for her but submission.
The lot of woman in China has, from time immemorial, been a hard one. Says a writer in the Westminster Review for October, 1855: "Of all nations, the Chinese carry out the system of early betrothal most completely; parents in China not only bargain for the marriage of their children during their infancy, but while they are yet unborn. If, when a daughter is betrothed during infancy, the contract should not assume the form of actual sale, it is nevertheless usual for the bridegroom, at the time he acquires possession of the bride, to pay into the hands of her father a sum considered equivalent to the current value of a wife." Immortality is denied to woman by them. A Christian, intent on the evangelization of the Chinese, spoke to one regarding the salvation of their women. "Women," replied the Chinaman; "women have no souls. You can't make Christians of them." Few persons born in civilized lands, unless brought into immediate contact with the heathen, can have any idea of the wretched condition of their women, even at this day. Kept in a state of abject bondage, they are compelled to serve with rigor. Controlled as though they were possessed of less intelligence than male children of tender years, it might yet be supposed, from the burdens laid upon them, that they were possessed of far superior strength, physically, than men. In some countries—not all of them heathen or Mohammedan either—the amount of labor imposed upon women of the lower orders in society would task the strength of beasts of burden. The only exercise of reason allowed among such, is a sort of instinct which will enable them to perform all kinds of drudgery, and to act with scrupulous fidelity to their unkind, very often brutal and faithless, husbands—task-masters would be the better name. Of women under such rule, it may truly be said, the grave is their best, their only friend.
Among the Arabs, prior to Mohammed, the women were in a wretchedly debased condition, which has been but slightly improved by the rules of the Koran. By its sanction, wives were bought by their husbands, though it was asserted that it was not lawful for men to exchange their wives. The price paid by Mohammed for his wives, of which he had nine, varied, according to their rank and beauty, from one to one hundred dollars each. The common people procured theirs at a cheaper rate. Specific directions are given, too, for the proper government of women. "Those wives," says Mohammed, "whose perverseness ye may be apprehensive of, rebuke, and remove them into separate apartments, and chastise them."[[B]] When such precepts as these were laid down in the Koran, which was considered a direct revelation from God, it is not surprising that the severest punishment was inflicted on women who attempted to exercise any control over themselves or their households. The will of the proud, insolent Arab was supreme, whether his demands were reasonable or otherwise; having bought his wives cheap, he might maltreat or divorce them at pleasure. Like the Chinese, the Mohammedan women are denied the hope of immortality. "Earthly women, when they die, cease to have any existence; but men, if faithful to Mohammed, are to enter paradise, and be associated with a new race of transcendently beautiful female beings." "The glories of eternity," says the Koran, "will be eclipsed by the resplendent 'women of paradise,' created 'not of clay, as mortal women are, but of pure musk, and free from all natural impurities, defects, and inconveniencies incident to the sex; ... secluded from public view in pavilions of hollow pearl.'"[[C]]
A distinguished European writer observes: "The Hindoos seem to have legislated with the greatest care and detail concerning women. Yet by no people, legally speaking, is her individuality more entirely ignored; and in no country is the slavery in which she lives, at once so systematic, refined, and complete as it is in India, where the lawgiver and the priest are one. The oppressive custom of life-long guardianship is expressly ordained. By a girl, or by a woman advanced in years, nothing must be done, even in her own dwelling-place, according to her mere pleasure. In childhood must a female be dependent on her father, in youth on her husband; her lord being dead, on her sons; if she have no sons, on the near kinsman of her husband; if he left no kinsman, on those of her father; if she have no parental kinsman, on the sovereign. A woman must never seek independence."[[D]] Not permitted to have any discretionary power over her own actions at any period of her life, but held in every respect subject to the will of her husband, or some other male guardian, she is nevertheless to be unswervingly faithful to her lord while he lives; and no matter how cruelly he may have treated her, she is loaded with contumely, reproach, and scorn, if she refuses to lay herself upon the funeral pile, and in the flames pass into another state of being, to do honor to him who through life had been an unrelenting tyrant. Knowing the obloquy which attaches itself to the widow who recoils from such a fearful death-bed, and ignorant, too, of the "better way," the unfortunate creature generally yields to the pressure brought to bear upon her, and terminates a miserable life by an awful death; her horrid shrieks, while burning, mingling with the clamor of sounds raised to drown them by the heartless throng of spectators, and yet sometimes rising with distressing distinctness above them. When the wife of a Hindoo dies, does he sacrifice himself upon a funeral pile, in order to honor her in another state of existence? By no means. His precious body can not be committed to the flames; they are too hot for his manly courage. He burns her corpse with what are termed appropriate offerings; and, if so disposed, adds a new wife to his household, thus soothing his sorrow.