Woman, Church & State. Gage Matilda Joslyn
show many discussions upon this point, the influence of these old assertions still manifesting themselves.
Until the time of Peter the Great, women were not recognized as human beings in that great division of Christendom known as the Greek church, the census of that empire counting only males, or so many “souls” – no woman named. Traces of this old belief have not been found wanting in our own country within the century. As late as the Woman’s Rights Convention in Philadelphia, 1854, an objector in the audience cried out: “Let women first prove they have souls; both the Church and the State deny it.”
Everything connected with woman was held to be unclean. It is stated that Agathro desired the Sophist Herodes to get ready for him the next morning a vessel full of pure milk, that is to say which had not been milked by the hand of a woman. But he perceived as soon as it was offered to him that it was not such as he desired, protesting that the scent of her hands who had milked it offended his nostrils. In the oldest European churches great distinction was made between the purity of man and woman. At an early date woman was forbidden to receive the Eucharist into her naked hand on account of her impurity,71 or to sing in church on account of her inherent wickedness. To such an extent was this opposition 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 woman alone. One of the principal charges against the Huguenots was that they permitted women to sing in church, using their voices in praise of God contrary to the express command of St. Paul, Catherine de Medicis reproaching them for this great sin.72 The massacre at St. Bartholomew, when 30,000 men, women and children lost their lives, and the entire destruction of many families of purest character took place, with an additional great loss to France from the self-imposed banishment of hundreds more, may be traced to the teaching of St. Paul that woman should keep silence in the church. This doctrine also crossed the ocean with the Puritan Fathers, and has appeared in America under many forms.73
The Christianity of the ages teaching the existence of a superior and inferior sex, possessing different rights under the law and in the church, it has been easy to bring man and woman under accountability to a different code of morals. For this double code the church is largely indebted to the subtle and acute Paul, who saw in the new religion but an enlarged Judaism that should give prominence to Abraham and his seed from whom Christ claimed descent. His conversion did not remove his old Jewish contempt for woman, as shown in his temple service, the law forbidding her entrance beyond the outer court. Nor could he divest himself of the spirit of the old morning prayer which daily led each Jew to thank God that he was not born a heathen, a slave or a woman.
He brought into the new dispensation the influence of the old ceremonial law, which regarded woman as unclean. The Jewish exclusion of forty days from even the outer court of the sanctuary to the woman who had given birth to a son, and of twice that period, or eighty days, if a daughter had been born, was terminated in both religions by a sin-offering in expiation of the mother’s crime for having, at the peril of her own, brought another human being into life.74 This Old Testament teaching degraded the life-giving principle exemplified in motherhood, and in a two-fold way lessened the nation’s regard for womanhood. First, through the sin-offering and purification demanded of the mother; second, by its doubling the period of exclusion from the temple in case a girl was given to the world.75 The birth of girls even under Christianity has everywhere been looked upon as an infliction, and thousands have been immured in convents, there to die of despair or to linger through years,76 the victim alike of father and of priest.
The influence of Judaism extended through Christendom. The custom of purification after maternity inherited by the church from Judaism brought with it into Christianity the same double restriction and chastening of the mother in case her infant proved a girl, a gift as propitiation or expiation being required. Uncleanliness was attributed to woman in every function of her being; the purification of the Virgin Mary, who was not exempt, when after the birth of a God, being used as an incontrovertible argument in proof. A festival of the purification of the Virgin Mary, adopted from paganism, was introduced into Rome at an early date, thus perpetuating a belief in the uncleanliness of motherhood. The Church in the Roman Empire soon united with the State77 in imposing new restrictions upon women. Since the Reformation the mother’s duty of expiation has been confirmed by the Anglican Church, and is known in England as “churching.” Directions as to the woman’s dress at this time was early made the subject of a canon.78 She was to be decently appareled. This term “decently,” variously interpreted, was at times the occasion of serious trouble. In 1661, during the reign of James I, the Chancellor of Norwich ordered that every woman who came to be churched should be covered with a white veil. A woman who refused to conform to this order was excommunicated for contempt. She prayed a prohibition, alleging that such order was not warranted by any custom or Canon of the Church of England. The judges of the civil court, finding themselves incompetent to decide upon such a momentous question, requested the opinion of the archbishop of Canterbury. Not willing to trust his own judgment, that dignitary convened several bishops for consultation. Their decision was against the woman, this Protestant Council upon woman’s dress declaring that it was the ancient usage of the Church of England for women who were to be churched to come veiled, and a prohibition was denied.
The doctrine that woman must remain covered when in the sacred church building shows itself in the United States.79 In many instances under Christianity, woman has been entirely excluded from religious houses and church buildings. When Pope Boniface80 founded the abbey of Fulda he prohibited the entrance of women into any of the buildings, even including the church. This rule remained unbroken during the tenth and eleventh centuries, and even when in 1131 the Emperor Lothair went to Fulda to celebrate Pentecost, his empress was not permitted to witness the ceremonies. When Frederick Barbarossa, 1135, proposed to spend his Easter there, he was not even allowed to enter the house because of having his wife with him. In 1138 Boniface IX, at the request of the abbot, John Merlow, relaxed the rule and permitted women to attend the services of the church. Shortly afterwards the building was destroyed by lightning, which was looked upon as evidence of the divine displeasure at the desecration. The monastery of Athos under the Greek church, situated upon an island, does not permit the entrance of a female animal upon its confines. Even in America woman has met similar experience.81
At certain periods during the middle ages, conversation with women was forbidden. During the Black Death, the Flaggellants, or Brotherhood of the Cross, were under such interdict.82 In this last decade of the XIX century, the Catholic church still imposes similar restrictions upon certain religious houses. Early in 1892 the queen-regent of Spain visited the monastery of Mirzaflores; its rules not allowing a monk to speak to a woman, the queen was received in silence. Her majesty immediately telegraphed to the pope asking indulgence, which was granted, and during four hours the monks were permitted the sin of speaking to a woman. It is curious to note that the first sentence uttered by one of the monks was a compliment upon the simplicity of her majesty’s attire. But the most impressive evidence of the contempt of the church towards all things feminine was shown in a remark by Tetzel the great middle-age dealer in indulgences. Offering one for sale he declared it would insure eternal salvation even if the purchaser had committed rape upon the mother of God.83
A knowledge of facts like these is necessary in order to a just understanding of our present civilization, especially as to the origin of restrictive legislation concerning woman. The civilization of today is built upon the religious theories of the middle ages supplemented by advancing freedom of thought. Lea, declares thus:
The Latin church is the great fact which dominates the history of modern civilization. All other agencies which molded the destinies of Europe were
By a decree of the Council of Auxerre (A.D. 578), women on account of their impurity were forbidden to receive the sacrament into their naked hands.
Catherine reproached the Protestants with this impious license as with a great crime. “Les femmes chantant aux
When part singing was first introduced into the United States, great objection was made to women taking the soprano or leading part, which by virtue of his superiority it was declared belonged to man. Therefore woman was relegated to the bass or tenor but nature proved too powerful, and man was eventually compelled to take bass or tenor as his part, while woman carried the soprano, says the
The mean term of life for these wretched girls under religious confinement in a nunnery was about ten years. From the fifteenth century a sickness was common, known as Disease of the Cloisters. It was described by Carmen. Jewish contempt of the feminine was not alone exhibited in prohibiting her entrance into the holy places of the temple, and in the ceremonies of her purification, but also in the especial holiness of male animals which alone were used for sacrifice. Under Jewish law the sons alone inherited, the elder receiving a double portion as the beginning of his father’s strength. See Deut. 21-15. If perchance the mother also possessed an inheritance that was also divided among the sons to the exclusion of daughters. The modern English law of primogeniture is traceable to Judaism. Even the commandments were made subservient to masculine ideas, the tenth classing a man’s wife with his cattle and slaves, while the penalties of the seventh were usually visited upon her alone.
The reign of Constantine marks the epoch of the transformation of Christianity from a religious into a political system. Draper. —
“The woman that cometh to give thanks must offer accustomed offering in this kingdom; it is the law of the kingdom in such cases.”
In the year 1867 the Right Rev. Bishop Coxe, of the Western Diocese of New York, refused the sacrament to those women patients of Dr. Foster’s Sanitarium at Clifton Springs, N.Y., whose heads were uncovered, although the rite was performed in the domestic chapel of that institution and under the same roof as the patient’s own rooms. During the famous See trial at Newark, N.J., 1876, the prosecutor, Rev. Dr. Craven, declared that every woman before him wore her head covered in token of her subordination.
The Catholic Congress of July, 1892, telegraphing the pope it would strive to obtain for the Holy See the recovery of its inalienable prerogative and territorial independence, was convened at Fulda.
“In the old days, no woman was allowed to put her foot within the walls of the monastery at San Augustin, Mexico. A noble lady of Spain, wife of the reigning Viceroy, was bent on visiting it. Nothing could stop her, and in she came. But she found only empty cloisters, for each virtuous monk locked himself securely in his cell, and afterward every stone in the floor which her sacrilegious feet had touched was carefully replaced by a new one fresh from the mountain top. Times are sadly changed. The house has now been turned into a hotel.”