in her no other end than to minister to his pleasure or to become the mother of his children. There was also a general notion that she was naturally more vicious, more addicted to envy, discontent, evil-speaking, and wantonness, than the man.1 Plato classes women together with children and servants, and states generally that in all the pursuits of mankind the female sex is inferior to the male. Euripides puts into the mouth of his Medea the remark that "women are impotent for good, but clever contrivers of all evil." According to the Vedic singer, again, "woman's mind is hard to direct aright, and her judgment is small." To the Buddhist, women are of all the snares which the tempter has spread for men the most dangerous; in women are embodied all the powers of infatuation which bind the mind of the world." The Chinese have a saying to the effect that the best girls are not equal to the worst boys." Islam pronounces the general depravity of women to be much greater than that of men. According to Muhammedan tradition, the Prophet said:"I have not left any calamity more hurtful to man than woman. O assembly of women, give alms, although it be of your gold and silver ornaments; for verily ye are mostly of Hell on the Day of Resurrection." The Hebrews represented woman as the source of evil and death on earth :-" Of the woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die." 10 This notion passed into Christianity. Says St. Paul, "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. "11 Tertullian maintains that a woman should go about in humble garb, mourning and repentant, in order to expiate that which she derives from Eve, the ignominy

8

of the first sin, and the odium attaching to her as the cause of human perdition. "Do you not know," he exclaims, "that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age; the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway; you are the unsealer of that [forbidden] tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law; you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough. to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert-that is, death-even the Son of God had to die."1 At the Council of Mâcon, towards the end of the sixth century, a bishop even raised the question whether woman really was a human being. He answered the question in the negative; but the majority of the assembly considered it to be proved by Scripture that woman, in spite of all her defects, yet was a member of the human race. However, some of the Fathers of the Church were careful to emphasise that womanhood only belongs to this earthly existence, and that on the day of resurrection all women will appear in the shape of sexless beings.3

Progress in civilisation has exercised an unfavourable influence on the position of woman by widening the gulf between the sexes, as the higher culture was almost exclusively the prerogative of the men. Moreover, religion, and especially the great religions in the world, have contributed to the degradation of the female sex by regarding woman as unclean. During menstruation, or when with child, or at child-birth, she is considered to be polluted, to be charged with mysterious baneful energy, which is a danger to all around her.4 The cause of this notion seems to lie in the

1 Tertullian, De cultu fœminarum, i. 1 (Migne, Patrologia cursus, i. 1305). See also Laurent, Études sur l'histoire de l'humanité, iv. 113.

2 Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, viii. 20.

3 St. Hilar., Commentarius in Malthæum, xxiii. 4 (Migne, op. cit. ix.

1045 sq.). St. Basil,. Homilia in Psalmum cxiv. 5 (Migne, op. cit. Ser. Graeca, xxix. 488).

4 Ploss-Bartels, Das Weib, i. 420 sqq.; ii. 10 sqq., 402 sqq.. Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 325 sq.; iii. 222 sqq. Crawley, op. cit. p. 165 sqq.; Mathew, Eaglehawk and Crow, p. 144 (Austra

superstitious dread of those marvellous processes which then take place, and it reaches its height where there is appearance of blood.' On such occasions woman is shunned not only by men, but in an even higher degree by gods, for the obvious reason that contact with the unclean woman would injure or destroy their holiness. Indeed, the danger is considered so great, that many religions regard women as defiled not only temporarily, but permanently, and on that ground exclude them from religious worship.

In the Society Islands a woman was forbidden to touch whatever was presented as an offering to the gods, so as not to pollute it.2 In Melanesia women are generally excluded from religious rites. Among the Shamanists of Siberia women "are interdicted the worship of the deities, and dare not pass round the common hearth of their habitations, because fire is sacred to the gods.' The women of the Voguls are generally prohibited from approaching idols or holy places.5 A Votyak woman may not be present at the sacrifices made to the lud, or evil spirit. Among the Lapps a woman was not allowed to touch a noaid's, or wizard's, drum; nor, as a rule, to take part in sacrificial rites; nor even to look in the direction of a place where sacrifices were offered. Among the Ainos of Japan, "though a woman may prepare a divine offering, she may not offer it. . . . Accordingly, women are never allowed to pray, or to take any part in any religious lian aborigines). de Rochas, Nouvelle Calédonie, p. 283. Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee,' in Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethn. xix. 469. Sumner, in Jour. Anthr. Inst. xxxi. 96 (Jakuts). Georgi, Russia, iii. 25 sq. (Samoyedes), 245 sq. (Shamanists of Siberia generally); &c.

to

1 Professor Durkheim maintains ('La prohibition de l'inceste et ses origines,' in L'année sociologique, i. especially p. 48 sqq.) that the origin of the occult powers attributed the feminine organism is to be found in primitive ideas concerning blood, any kind of blood, not only menstrual, being the object of similar feelings among savages and barbarians. Mr. Crawley justly remarks (op. cit. p. 212) that there is no flux of blood during pregnancy, when woman is regularly taboo; that

her hair, nail-parings, and occupations can hardly be avoided from a fear of her blood; and that there is also the female side of the question to be taken into account.

Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i. 129. Cf. Wegener, Geschichte der christlichen Kirche auf dem Gesellschafts-Archipel, p. 181.

3

Codrington, Melanesians, p. 127. 4 Georgi, op. cit. iii. 245. Cf. ibid. iii. 25.

5 Abercromby, Pre- and Proto-historic Finns, i. 181.

6 Wichmann, Tietoja Votjaakkien Mytologiiasta, p. 17. See also ibid. p. 27.

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von Düben, Lappland och Lapparne, p. 276. Friis, Lappisk Mythologi, p.

147.

exercise." 1 In China women are not allowed to go and worship in the temples.2

In ancient Nicaragua women were held unworthy to perform any duty in connection with the temples, and were immolated outside the temple ground of the large sanctuaries, and even their flesh was unclean food for the high priest, who accordingly ate only the flesh of males. In Mexico, although some women were employed in the immediate service of the temples, they were entirely excluded from the office of sacrificing, and the higher dignities of the priesthood.*

According to the sacred books of India, "women are considered to have no business with the sacred texts"; 5 and, being destitute of the knowledge of Vedic texts, they "are as impure as falsehood itself, that is a fixed rule." Although, according to a Vedic ordinance mentioned in the Laws of Manu, husband and wife ought to perform religious rites together, they have, among the present Hindus, no religious life in common; the women are not allowed to repeat the Veda, or to go through the morning and evening Sandhya services. If a woman, a dog, or a Sûdra, touch a consecrated image, its godship is destroyed; the ceremonies of deification must therefore be performed afresh, whilst a clay image, if thus defiled, must be thrown away. If women should worship before a consecrated image, they must keep at a respectful distance from the idol.9

i

8

Islam is chiefly a religion for men. Though Muhammed did not forbid women to attend public prayers in a mosque, he pronounced it better for them to pray in private, as the presence of females might inspire in the men a different kind of devotion from that which is requisite in a place dedicated to the worship of God.10 Women are absolutely excluded from many Muhammedan places of worship, and are frowned upon if they venture to appear in others, at any rate while men are there.11

In Christian Europe, as ascetic ideas advanced, the women sat or stood in the church apart from the men, and entered by a separate door.12 They were excluded. from sacred functions.

Howard, op. cit. p. 195.

2 Indo-Chinese Gleaner, iii. 156.

3 Bancroft, op. cit. iii. 494.

4 Clavigero, History of Mexico, i.

4

In the early Church, it is true, there were "deaconesses " and clerical "widows," but their offices were merely to perform some inferior services of the church; 1 and even these very modest posts were open only to virgins or widows of a considerable age. Whilst a layman could in case of necessity administer baptism, a woman could never, as it seems, perform such an act. Nor was a woman allowed to preach publicly in the church, either by the Apostle's rules or those of succeeding ages; and it was a serious complaint against certain heretics that they allowed such a practice. "The heretic women,' Tertullian exclaims, "how wanton are they! they who dare to teach, to dispute, to practise exorcisms, to promise cures, perchance, also, to baptise!"5 A Council held at Auxerre at the end of the sixth century forbade women to receive the Eucharist into their naked hands; and in various Canons women were enjoined not to come near to the altar while was celebrating. To such an extent was this opposition against women carried that the Church of the Middle Ages did not hesitate to provide itself with eunuchs in order to supply cathedral choirs with the soprano tones inhering by nature in women alone.8

mass

6

But the notion that woman is either temporarily permanently unclean, that she is a mysterious being charged with supernatural energy, is not only a cause of her degradation; it also gives her a secret power over her husband, which may be very considerable. During my stay among the country people of Morocco, Arabs and Berbers alike, I was often struck by the superstitious fear with which the women imbued the men. They are supposed to be much better versed in magic, and have also splendid opportunities to practise it to the detriment

1 Zscharnack, Der Dienst der Frau in den ersten Jahrhunderten der christlichen Kirche, p. 99 sqq. Robinson, Ministry of Deaconesses, passim.

2 Ibid. pp. 113, 114, 125.

3 Bingham, Works, iv. 45. Zscharnack, op. cit. p. 93.

Bingham, op. cit. v. 107 sqq. Zscharnack, op. cit. p. 73 sqq..

5 Tertullian, De præscriptionibus adversus hæreticos, 41 (Migne, op. cit. ii. 56). Cf. Tertullian, De baptismo, 17 (Migne, op. cit. i. 1219).