Part 77 (2/2)
If we saw women in absolute freedom, with a separate religion devised by women, practiced by women, and remaining unchanged through the centuries; while men, on the other hand, bounded bravely forward, making new ones as fast as they were needed, this belief might be maintained.
But what do we see? All the old religions made by men, and forced on the women whether they liked it or not. Often women not even considered as part of the scheme--denied souls--given a much lower place in the system--going from the service of their father's G.o.ds to the service of their husbands--having none of their own. We see religions which make practically no place for women, as with the Moslem, as rigidly bigoted and unchanging as any other.
We see also this: that the wider and deeper the religion, the more human, the more it calls for practical applications in Christianity--the more it appeals to women. Further, in the diverging sects of the Christian religion, we find that its progressiveness is to be measured, not by the numbers of its women adherents, but by their relative freedom. The women of America, who belong to a thousand sects, who follow new ones with avidity, who even make them, and who also leave them all as men do, are women, as well as those of Spain, who remain contented Romanists, but in America the status of women is higher.
The fact is this: a servile womanhood is in a state of arrested development, and as such does form a ground for the retention of ancient ideas. But this is due to the condition of servility, not to womanhood.
That women at present are the bulwark of the older forms of our religions is due to the action of two cla.s.ses of men: the men of the world, who keep women in their restricted position, and the men of the church, who take every advantage of the limitations of women. When we have for the first time in history a really civilized womanhood, we can then judge better of its effect on religion.
Meanwhile, we can see quite clearly the effect of manhood. Keeping in mind those basic masculine impulses--desire and combat--we see them reflected from high heaven in their religious concepts. Reward!
Something to want tremendously and struggle to achieve! This is a concept perfectly masculine and most imperfectly religious. A religion is partly explanation--a theory of life; it is partly emotion--an att.i.tude of mind, it is partly action--a system of morals. Man's special effect on this large field of human development is clear. He pictured his early G.o.ds as like to himself, and they behaved in accordance with his ideals. In the dimmest, oldest religions, nearest the matriarchate, we find great G.o.ddesses--types of Motherhood, Mother-love, Mother-care and Service. But under masculine dominance, Isis and Ashteroth dwindle away to an alluring Aphrodite--not Womanhood for the child and the World--but the incarnation of female attractiveness for man.
As the idea of heaven developed in the man's mind it became the Happy Hunting Ground of the savage, the beery and gory Valhalla of the Norseman, the voluptuous, many-houri-ed Paradise of the Mohammedan.
These are men's heavens all. Women have never been so fond of hunting, beer or blood; and their houris would be of the other kind. It may be said that the early Christian idea of heaven is by no means planned for men. That is trite, and is perhaps the reason why it has never had so compelling an attraction for them.
Very early in his vague efforts towards religious expression, man voiced his second strongest instinct--that of combat. His universe is always dual, always a scene of combat. Born with that impulse, exercising it continually, he naturally a.s.sumed it to be the major process in life.
It is not. Growth is the major process. Combat is a useful subsidiary process, chiefly valuable for its initial use, to transmit the physical superiority of the victor. Psychic and social advantages are not thus secured or transmitted.
In no one particular is the androcentric character of our common thought more clearly shown than in the general deification of what are now described as ”conflict stimuli.” That which is true of the male creature as such is a.s.sumed to be true of life in general; quite naturally, but by no means correctly. To this universal masculine error we may trace in the field of religion and ethics the great devil theory, which has for so long obscured our minds. A G.o.d without an Adversary was inconceivable to the masculine mind. From this basic misconception we find all our ideas of ethics distorted; that which should have been treated as a group of truths to be learned and habits to be cultivated was treated in terms of combat, and moral growth made an everlasting battle. This combat theory we may follow later into our common notions of discipline, government, law and punishment; here is it enough to see its painful effects in this primary field of ethics and religion?
The third essential male trait of self-expression we may follow from its innocent natural form in strutting c.o.c.k or stamping stag up to the characteristics we label vanity and pride. The degradation of women in forcing them to adopt masculine methods of personal decoration as a means of livelihood, has carried with the concomitant of personal vanity: but to this day and at their worst we do not find in women the _naive_ exultant glow of pride which swells the bosom of the men who march in procession with bra.s.s bands, in full regalia of any sort, so that it be gorgeous, exhibiting their glories to all.
It is this purely masculine spirit which has given to our early concepts of Deity the unadmirable qualities of boundless pride and a thirst for constant praise and prostrate admiration, characteristics certainly unbefitting any n.o.ble idea of G.o.d. Desire, combat and self-expression all have had their unavoidable influence on masculine religions. What deified Maternity a purely feminine culture might have put forth we do not know, having had none such. Women are generally credited with as much moral sense as men, and as much religious instinct; but so far it has had small power to modify our prevailing creeds.
As a matter of fact, no special s.e.x attributes should have any weight in our ideas of right and wrong. Ethics and religion are distinctly human concerns; they belong to us as social factors, not as physical ones. As we learn to recognize our humanness, and to leave our s.e.x characteristics where they belong, we shall at last learn something about ethics as a simple and practical science, and see that religions grow as the mind grows to formulate them.
If anyone seeks for a clear, simple, easily grasped proof of our ethics, it is to be found in a popular proverb. Struggling upward from beast and savage into humanness, man has seen, reverenced, and striven to attain various human virtues.
He was willing to check many primitive impulses, to change many barbarous habits, to manifest newer, n.o.bler powers. Much he would concede to Humanness, but not his s.e.x--that was beyond the range of Ethics or Religion. By the state of what he calls ”morals,” and the laws he makes to regulate them, by his att.i.tude in courts.h.i.+p and in marriage, and by the gross anomaly of militarism, in all its senseless waste of life and wealth and joy, we may perceive this little masculine exception:
”All's fair in love and war.”
COMMENT AND REVIEW
”Inspired Millionaires,” by Gerald Stanley Lee, has certainly inspired one. We read among the quoted letters on the paper cover one from Mr.
Joseph Fels saying, ”I want twenty-five copies of the book to distribute among the millionaires here. If the books are well received I will increase the order.”
The impression to the lay mind, not too profusely acquainted with millionaires, is of amazement at his opportunities; twenty-five among ”the millionaires here,” and a possible demand for more!
The impression deepens as we read Mr. Fels' second letter, ”Please send fifty more copies. I am putting them where they tell.”
Seventy-five millionaires ”here”--wherever that was; and in other places more and more and even more of them! Among so many there must be some common humanity, possibly some uncommon humanity; it would appear as if Mr. Lee might be right.
He believes that a millionaire may be a good man, a social enthusiast, an artist and connoisseur, not in spite of his money, but because of it; not by giving it away, pre- or post mortem; but by using it _in his business_.
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