"I accept the challenge," said Oliphant, "and thank you for the post which you allot to me, as the laurel of victory already circles round my brow; but I must hear my adversary state his case."
Thus forced into a tilting match with the tutor, I laughed, and assured him that I had never presumed upon encountering so formidable an enemy; but as it would be a tacit confession that my cause was weak, were I to remain silent, "I must own," said I, "that Mrs. Douglas precisely hit upon what I was going to urge, namely, that however modern manners, to which my aunt discovers so little gratitude, have raised women to the pedestal on which they stand, the Bible tells a different tale; and were it even true that female pride had got a fall through fashion's fiat, would not such depreciation be exact conformity with holy writ?"
"Were it so," answered the giant of learning, "Mrs. Douglas would neither lament nor contend against her fate, but the Bible is peculiarly her sanctuary of refuge, from which, when driven to its sacred shelter by the taunts of the world, she might proudly exclaim, 'it was not thus, when we came from the hands of God.'"
"No, my dear sir, man was created in God's own image; 'male and female created he them.' Eve (the meaning of which word is life) was formed after, and out of man. She was not given to him as property, but given 'to be with him,' as a companion, because he would have been a cheerless, as also a useless animal without her. The original Hebrew implies no superiority, nor inferiority. Adam and Eve were the counterparts of each other. Eve was bone of bone, flesh of flesh, to her husband, both endowed with immortality, both invested with rule over all creatures of the earth. The word woman is from the Hebrew Ish, signifying man, which, when simply altered by two letters to Ishau, literally means she-man. Andris is the female form of Aner, man, in the Greek; and in Arabic we have Imrat, she-man, from Imree, man. Every man should consider woman as a part of himself; and when, as a punishment for her disobedience, the heavy denunciation was issued that Eve should be subject to her husband, it was not required by their Maker that she should resign any part of that understanding, any prerogative of heart or intellect, which had originally been bestowed, when she was formed his equal in power. Both man and woman were deprived of immortality. Death came into the world with sin, and with these, woman's legal bondage to her husband; but beyond this limit you cannot proceed. On the contrary, though the brutal habits of eastern tyranny debased the sex, to which inferior bodily strength had been from the first communicated, yet was it exalted in the moment of depression by Him who called it into being, and inflicted the curse. The woman was to bruise the serpent's head. She was the first destroyer, and was permitted to be the first in the chain of restoration, by being the appointed medium, the sole earthly parent of the Saviour. When Abraham was entitled Father of the faithful, Sarah received like honour, and was named their Mother; and when our blessed Lord came upon earth, from one end to the other of his ministry, there is not a syllable to be found derogatory of the female sex. He loved Mary as a sister; and upon various occasions distinguished certain women by particular expressions of affectionate approbation. There is no authority in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation for the opinion that you hold; and with respect to punishment inflicted by Deity for transgression, a generous feeling would naturally suggest the desire of lightening rather than aggravating its infliction, especially when we reflect that the only difference between the culprits lay in the measure of delinquency. Adam and his sons have no cause of triumph; and I never read the story of the fall without considering with humiliation the first proof afforded of a lowered nature in our common progenitor, when to save himself from the principal condemnation, he selfishly consigned his partner to the wrath of offended divinity. When our Saviour arose from the dead, it was to his faithful female followers that he first revealed himself; and, as a concluding remark, permit me to observe, that if, as we are assured unequivocally, women are equal inheritors of the skies, it ill befits us to refuse them their rights on earth. No, sir, depend upon it, when men cannot support themselves, except by asserting that power which the laws have conferred upon them, they are hard run, and the edifice is tottering when it requires a buttress. The nobler animals are all quiescent. The lion reposes in his strength, and knowing how much he can command, is slow at making exhibition of his force; but "man, proud man!"
"Dressed in a little brief authority, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, As make the angels weep."
"I remember, sir," said I, "to have seen once, in the library of a gentleman, who, by the bye, was a most complete domestic despot, an odd sort of a book, entitled "Rights of Women."
"Are you acquainted with, and an approver of that work?"—"No, young gentleman, that is a book which has long ago found its resting-place amid dust and cobwebs. When new, it was a wretched thing, and is now forgotten; but you found it, as the mineralogists express themselves, in situ, when you discovered a stray copy on the shelves of a tyrant. The brawlers about liberty are generally fond of keeping it all to themselves. The French revolution, which was before your time, set many heads distracted, and loosened the whole frame-work of our morals; but we are sobered, and have consigned to oblivion the grosser absurbities of that disjointed period.
"Women have real and substantial rights, natural as well as civil, which no one attempts to dispute; and they are fools when they part with them, unless to secure a greater good than they relinquish; but marriage is the rock upon which multitudes make shipwreck, because from the present constitution of things, that solemn act of life is performed with less consideration than people commonly employ in the purchase of a field. Men, after a career of folly, begin to look about them, and think it wise to settle, before time has thinned their locks and scattered silver over the flowing honours of youth. Women sigh for what are called establishments; and happiness slides out of a scheme in which no provision has been made for its entertainment. Take an old man's advice, Mr. Howard, be as deliberate in your selection as you please, and I hope that you will not marry till you know your own mind; but when you do become a Benedick, let your Beatrice be the friend of your bosom, the companion of your life, and a partner in all your pains, pleasures, and pursuits."
I was not prepared to contradict, for the truth is, that Domine told me more in half a dozen sentences than I ever heard before. However, not to appear as if I had suddenly lost my speech, I gently hinted, "that Solomon was usually thought a wise man, upon the authority of the Scriptures; and he declares that, in his search after wisdom, he had never found one woman to reward his pains."
"Truly, that is not very wonderful," said Oliphant. "When the men, who possessed all the advantages that superior power bestowed, made so little use of it towards the cultivation of knowledge and virtue, that Solomon complains of not finding a man of worth in a thousand, no wonder that amongst the weaker sex, who were kept in the lowest state of slavery and degradation, he should not discover any who, deprived of the benefit of education, and shut out from the light of truth, had broken her bonds, and soared above the horrible debasement to which females were condemned by their rulers. The Christian Religion, of which that Bible that you lately quoted as authority for the servitude of women, is the sacred repository, is in fact the charter of female liberty; and in proportion as the Sun of Righteousness shines with more or less refulgence in any land, in such proportion is woman respected."