among the ascetic sects of that country, dreamers, who announced the birth of a new kingdom, that was to bring freedom and happiness to all.
Christ came, and Christianity arose. It embodied the opposition to the bestial materialism that reigned among the great and the rich of the Roman Empire; it represented the revolt against the contempt for and oppression of the masses. But originating in Judaism, which knew woman only as a being bereft of all rights, and biased by the Biblical conception which saw in her the source of all evil, Christianity preached contempt for woman. It also preached abstinence, the mortification of the flesh, then so sinful, and it pointed with its ambiguous phrases to a prospective kingdom, which some interpreted as of heaven, others as of earth, and which was to bring freedom and justice to all. With these doctrines it found fertile ground in the submerged bottom of the Roman Empire. Woman, hoping, along with all the miserable, for freedom and deliverance from her condition, joined readily and zealously. Down to our own days, never yet was a great and important movement achieved in the world without women also having been conspicuously active as combatants and martyrs. Those who praise Christianity as a great achievement of civilization should not forget that it was woman in particular to whom Christianity owes a great part of its success. Her proselyting zeal played a weighty role in the Roman Empire, as well as among the barbarous peoples of the Middle Ages. The mightiest were by her converted to Christianity. It was Clotilde, for instance, who moved Clovis, the King of the Franks, to accept Christianity; it was, again, Bertha, Queen of Kent, and Gisela, Queen of Hungary, who introduced Christianity in their countries. To the influence of the women is due the conversion of many of the great. But Christianity requited woman ill. Its tenets breathe the same contempt for woman that is breathed in all the religions of the East. It orders her to be the obedient servant of her husband, and the vow of obedience she must, to this day, make to him at the altar.
Let us hear the Bible and Christianity speak of woman and marriage. The ten commandments are addressed only to the men; in the tenth commandment woman is bracketed with servants and domestic animals. Man is warned not to covet his neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his. Woman, accordingly, appears as an object, as a piece of property, that the man may not hanker after, if in another's possession. Jesus, who belonged to a sect – the sect which imposed upon itself strict asceticism and even self-emasculation24– being asked by his disciples whether it is good to marry, answers: "All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb; and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men; and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake."25 Emasculation is, according hereto, an act hallowed by God, and the renunciation of love and marriage a good deed.
Paul, who, in a higher degree than even Jesus himself, may be called the founder of the Christian religion; Paul, who first impressed an international character upon this creed, and tore it away from the narrow sectarianism of the Jews, writes to the Corinthians: "Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: "It is good for a man not to touch a woman;" "he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better."26 "Walk in the Spirit and fulfil not the lust of the flesh, for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh;" "they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts."" He followed his own precepts, and did not marry. This hatred of the flesh is the hatred of woman, but also the fear of woman, who – see the scene in Paradise – is represented as the seducer of man. In this spirit did the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church preach; in this spirit did the Church work throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, when it reared its cloisters, and introduced celibacy among the priesthood; – and to this day it works in the same spirit.
According to Christianity, woman is the unclean being; the seducer, who introduced sin into the world and ruined man. Hence Apostles, and Fathers of the Church alike, have ever looked upon marriage as a necessary evil, – the same as is said to-day of prostitution. Tertulian exclaims: "Woman, thou should ever walk in mourning and rags, thy eyes full of tears, present the aspect of repentance to induce forgetfulness of your having ruined the human race. Woman, thou art the Gate of Hell!" Hieronymus says: "Marriage always is a vice; all that we can do is to excuse and cleanse it," hence it was made a sacrament of the Church. Origen declares: "Marriage is something unholy and unclean, a means for sensuality," and, in order to resist the temptation, he emasculated himself. Tertulian declares: "Celibacy is preferable, even if the human race goes to ground." Augustine teaches: "The celibates will shine in heaven like brilliant stars, while their parents (who brought them forth) are like dark stars." Eusebius and Hieronymus agree that the Biblical command, "Increase and multiply," no longer fits the times, and does not concern the Christians. Hundreds of other quotations from the most influential Fathers of the Church could be cited, all of which tend in the same direction. By means of their continuous teaching and preaching, they have spread those unnatural views touching sexual matters, and the intercourse of the sexes, the latter of which, nevertheless, remains a commandment of nature, and obedience to which is one of the most important duties in the mission of life. Modern society is still severely ailing from these teachings, and it is recovering but slowly.
Peter calls out emphatically to women: "Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands."27 Paul writes to the Ephesians: "The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church;"28 and in Corinthians: "Man is the image and glory of God; but the woman is the glory of the man."29 According to which every sot of a man may hold himself better than the most distinguished woman; – indeed, it is so in practice to-day. Also against the higher education of women does Paul raise his weighty voice: "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, out to be in silence;"30 and again: "Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the church."31
Such doctrines are not peculiar to Christianity only. Christianity being a mixture of Judaism and Greek philosophy, and seeing that these, in turn, have their roots in the older civilization of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Hindoos, the subordinate position that Christianity assigned to woman was one common in antiquity. In the Hindoo laws of Manu it is said regarding woman: "The source of dishonor is woman; the source of strife is woman; the source of earthly existence is woman; therefore avoid woman." Beside this degradation of woman, fear of her ever and anon reappears naively. Manu further sets forth: "Woman is by nature ever inclined to tempt man; hence a man should not sit in a secluded place even with his nearest female relative." Woman, accordingly, is, according to the Hindoo as well as the Old Testament and Christian view, everywhere the tempter. All masterhood implies the degradation of the mastered. The subordinate position of woman continues, to this day, even more in force in the backward civilization of the East than among the nations that enjoy a so-called Christian view-point. That which, in the so-called Christian world, gradually improved the situation of woman was, not Christianity, but the advanced culture of the West struggling against the Christian doctrine.
Christianity is guiltless of woman's present improved position to what it was at the start of the era. Only reluctantly, and forced thereto, did Christianity become untrue to its true spirit with regard to woman. Those who rave about "the mission of Christianity to emancipate mankind," differ from us in this, as in other respects. They claim that Christianity freed woman from her previous low position, and they ground themselves upon the worship of Mary, the "mother of God," – a cult, however, that sprang up only later in Christendom, but which they point to as a sign of regard for the whole sex. The Roman Catholic Church, which celebrates
Montegazza "L'Amour dans l'Humanite."
Matthew, ch. 19; 11 and 12.
I. Corinthians, ch. 7; 1 and 38.
Peter I., ch. 3; 1.
Paul: Ephesians, ch. 5; 23.
Paul: I. Corinthians, ch. 11; 7.
I. Timothy, ch. 2; 11 and 12.
I. Corinthians, ch. 14; 34 and 35.
