Woman under socialism. Bebel August
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 this cult, should be the last to lay claim to such a doctrine. The Saints and Fathers of the Church, cited above, and whose utterances could be easily multiplied – and they are the leading Church authorities – express themselves separately and collectively hostile to woman and to marriage. The Council of Macon, which, in the sixteenth century, discussed the question whether woman had a soul, and which decided with a majority of but one vote, that she had, likewise argues against the theory of such a friendly posture towards woman. The introduction of celibacy by Gregory VII32– although resorted to first of all and mainly with the end in view of holding in the unmarried priesthood a power that could not be alienated from the service of the Church through any family interests – was, nevertheless, possible only with such fundamental doctrines as the Church held touching the sinfulness of the lusts of the flesh; and it goes to confirm our theory.
Neither did the Reformers, especially Calvin and the Scotch ministers, with their wrath at the "lusts of the flesh," entertain any doubt touching the hostile posture of Christianity towards woman.33
By the introduction of the cult of Mary, the Roman Catholic Church shrewdly placed the worship of Mary in the place of that of the heathen goddesses, in vogue among all the people over whom Christianity was then extending itself. Mary took the place of the Cybele, the Mylitta, the Aphrodite, the Venus, the Ceres, etc., of the southern races; of the Freia, the Frigga, etc., of the Germanian tribes. She was a mere spiritually-Christian idealization.
The primeval, physically robust, though rude yet uncorrupted races, that, during the first centuries of our reckoning, crowded down from the North and East like a gigantic ocean wave, and swamped the worn-out universal Empire of Rome, where Christianity had gradually been superimposing itself as master, resisted with all their might the ascetic doctrines of the Christian preachers. With good grace or bad, the latter were forced to reckon with these robust natures. With astonishment did the Romans perceive that the customs of those peoples were quite different from their own. Tacitus rendered to this fact the tribute of his acknowledgment, which, with regard to the Germans, he expressed in these words: "The matrimonial bond is, nevertheless, strict and severe among them; nor is there anything in their manners more commendable than this. Almost singly among the barbarians, they content themselves with one wife. Adultery is extremely rare among so numerous a people. Its punishment is instant, and at the pleasure of the husband. He cuts off the hair of the offender, strips her, and in the presence of her relations expels her from his house, and pursues her with stripes through the whole village. Nor is any indulgence shown to a prostitute. Neither beauty, youth, nor riches can procure her a husband; for none there looks on vice with a smile, or calls mutual seduction the way of the world. The youths partake late of the pleasures of love, and hence pass the age of puberty unexhausted; nor are the virgins hurried into marriage; the same maturity, the same full growth is required; the sexes unite equally matched, and robust; and the children inherit the vigor of their parents."
With the object in view of holding up a pattern to the Romans, Tacitus painted the conjugal conditions of the old Germans with rather too rosy a hue. No doubt, the
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.
This was a move that the parish priests of the diocese of Mainz, among others, complained against, expressing themselves this wise: "You Bishops and Abbots possess great wealth, a kingly table, and rich hunting equipages; we, poor, plain priests have for our comfort only a wife. Abstinence may be a handsome virtue, but, in point of fact, it is hard and difficult." – Yves-Guyot: "Les Theories Sociales du Christianisme."
Buckle, in his "History of Civilization in England," furnishes a large number of illustrations on this head.