Part 15 (1/2)

Women who support the clergy with one hand, and hold out the other for the ballot; who one day express indignation at the refusal to them of human recognition, and the next day intone the creeds, will have to learn that there is nothing which has so successfully stood, and still so powerfully stands, in the way of the individual liberty, human rights, and dignity of wives, as the Church which they support.

Blackstone says: ”In times of popery a great _variety_ of impediments to marriage were made, which impediments might, however, be _bought off with money_.”

You could, for instance, buy a more distant relations.h.i.+p to your future wife for so much cash down to the Church. If your inamorata were your first cousin, you could remove her several degrees with five hundred dollars, and make her no relation at all for a little more. Such little sleight-of-hand performances are as nothing to a well-trained clergyman.

Slip a check into one hand, and a request to marry your aunt into the other, let a clergyman shake them up in the coffers of the Church, and when one comes out gold, the other will appear as a blus.h.i.+ng bride not even related to her own father, and not more than third cousin to herself.

Of the claim made by the early Christian Fathers, that it was because of the mental inferiority and incapacity of women that the more unjust and binding laws were enacted for them, thus doing all they could to create and intensify by law the incapacity which they a.s.serted was imposed by G.o.d, Maine says: ”But the proprietary disabilities of married females _stand on quite a different basis from personal incapacity_, and it is by the tendency of their doctrines to keep alive and consolidate the former, that the expositors of the _Canon Law have deeply injured civilization_.”

He adds that there are many evidences of a struggle between _secular principles in favor of justice for wives_, and _ecclesiastical principles against it_, ”but the Canon Law nearly everywhere prevailed.

The systems which are _least indulgent_ to married women are invariably those which have followed the _Canon Law exclusively_.... It enforced the complete legal subjection of wives.”

Lecky says: ”Fierce invectives against the s.e.x form a conspicuous and grotesque portion of the writings of the Fathers. Woman was represented as the door of h.e.l.l, as the mother of all human ills. She should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman.... Women were even forbidden, in the sixth century, on account of their impurity, to receive the Eucharist into their naked hands. Their essentially subordinate position was continually maintained. This teaching in part determined the principles of legislation concerning the s.e.x.* The Pagan laws during the empire had been continually _repealing the old disabilities_ of women, and the legislative movement in their favor continued with unabated force from Constantine to Justinian, and appeared also in some of the early laws of the barbarians. _But in the whole feudal [Christian] legislation women were placed in a much lower legal position than in the Pagan empire_.”

* See Appendix J.

And he adds that the French revolutionists (the infidel party) established better laws for women, ”and initiated a great reformation of both law and opinion, _which sooner or later must traverse the world_.”

And these reformations, being in Christendom, will be calmly claimed in the future, as in the present, as due to the beneficent influence of the Church. The Church always belongs to the conservative party, but after a good thing is established in despite of her, she says: ”Just see what I have done! 'See what a good boy am I!”'

Not many years ago a few great-souled men who were ”heretics” got a glimpse of a principle which has electrified the world. They said that individual liberty is a universal right; they maintained that humanity is a unit, with interests and aims indivisible, and that liberty to use to the utmost advantage all natural abilities cannot be denied one-half of the race without crippling both. A few even went so far as to suggest that the a.s.sumption of the inferiority of women, and the imposition of disabilities upon them, under the claim of divine authority, is the greatest crime in the great calendar of crime for which the Church has yet to render a reckoning to humanity.

To one who reads the history of Canon Law, it is not strange that Christian Judges still decide that women are ”incompetent to practice law,” and that they should not be allowed to study it. A woman well versed in the history of ancient and modern law might easily be an uncomfortable advocate for such a judge to face. He would probably feel the need of an umbrella.

It is not strange that Columbia College, with its corps of clergymen, ”fails to see the propriety” of opening its doors to women. The few clergymen who have for some little time past taken the side of fair-play in this and like matters have simply deserted their colors and come over to the side they are worldly-wise enough to see is to be the side of the future. When it comes to diplomacy the Church is always on deck in time to gather in the spoils; but she stays safely below during the engagement, and simply holds back and anchors firm until she sees which way it is likely to end.

The moment there is an understanding on the part of women of what they owe to Church Law, that moment will educational clerical monopolists, such as the champion anchor of Columbia, be compelled to earn an honest living in some honest business pertaining to this world. It will be a great day for women when they refuse to longer support these pretenders to divine knowledge, who are willing, at so much a head, to tell what they do not know at the expense of the pale, tired needlewoman, who is in want of almost every comfort that money can buy in this world, together with the surplus gold of the fas.h.i.+onable devotees who minister to the vanity of the clergy, and give to the coffers of the Church that which would save thousands of young girls from degradation and crime, and put the roses of health on the cheek of innocence.

Every dollar that is paid to support the Church is paid to degrade a woman. Every collection that is made to spread ”revelation” is used to suppress enlightenment and r.e.t.a.r.d civilization. Every dollar that is invested in ”another world” is a dollar diverted from useful purposes in this. Every hour that is spent mooning about ”heaven” is that much time taken from needed labor here.

If our energies were wanted in another world we should most likely be in another world. Since we are in this one it is a pretty strong hint that we are expected to attend to business right here. We can't do justice to two worlds at the same time; and since we are a.s.sured that we shall have the whole of eternity to arrange matters in the next one, it leaves very little time by comparison to devote to our duties in this.

There we are to have nothing to do but sing and be happy--tw.a.n.g a harp and smile.

Here we have pain to alleviate, ignorance to dispel, innocence to protect, disease to master, and crime to restrain and prevent. Here we have the helpless to s.h.i.+eld and guard and protect. Here we have homes to make happy, the hearts of husbands and wives to make glad, the light of love and trust to kindle in the eyes of children. Here is old age to cheer and console. Here are orphans to educate and protect, widows to comfort, and oppression to uproot.

There--nothing to do but look after yourself and manage your harp; n.o.body to help--all will be perfect; nothing to learn--all will be wise; no hearts to cheer--all will be happy. All that a mother will have to do if she gets a little tired practicing on her lyre and feels gloomy will be to just take a good look over the wall, and photograph on her eyes the picture of her husband and children freshly dipped in oil and put on the griddle, and she will come back to business perfectly satisfied, take up her song where she left off, and praise the Lamb for his infinite mercy. All eternity to learn how to fly round in a robe and keep time with the orchestra! Why a deaf man could learn to do that in fifty or sixty years, and then have all the rest of the time to spare.

We are here such a little while, there is so much to learn, there is so much to do, there is so much to _undo_, that no man can afford to waste his time on an infinite future of time, s.p.a.ce, and leisure. Men cannot afford to lose your best energies. ”G.o.d” can get on very well without them. Time is short, and needs are pressing; and this thing you know--you can keep busy doing good right here. If there is a hereafter, could there be a better preparation for it than that?

NOT WOMAN'S FRIEND.

After all that has preceded this page I need hardly do more with this count of the last claim of ”Theological Fiction” than simply say, if the Bible is woman's best friend, then the clergy, without authority and in violation of the precepts of their own guide, have been her worst enemy, either through malice or ignorance; in either of which cases they are and have always been unfit to dictate, to lead opinion, or to receive a following as reliable guides for this world or the next.

If they have been so ignorant or so malicious for nearly nineteen hundred years as to thus systematically misconstrue their own authority--their own ”revelation”--to the constant disadvantage of women (and the consequent enfeeblement of the race), surely they can claim no respect for their opinions and no confidence in their divine calling.*

In trying to s.h.i.+eld the Bible the clergy simply convict themselves.**

* See Appendix K.