Woman, Church & State. Gage Matilda Joslyn
words to this purpose at the time of making the gift, if they merely have it in their intention that the thing thus given should revert to their daughter, all and every one of these articles are called a woman’s property.
Her right of final disposal by will is also specified. Her effects acquired during marriage go to her daughters in preference to her sons, and possessing no daughters, to her mother.
When a woman dies, then whatever effects she acquired during the Agamini Shadee, even though she hath a son living, shall go first to her unmarried daughter; if there is but one unmarried daughter she shall obtain the whole; if there are several unmarried daughters, they all shall have equal share.
Property under the three forms of marriage, if no unmarried daughters and others mentioned here, goes to her mother before to her father; and if neither, to her husband, and if no husband to husband’s younger brother, or several younger brothers, (if several).
The specification of gifts of intention is remarkable in securing property to the wife that was seemingly given by the parents to the husband alone. An equally remarkable fact is the father’s heirship in preference to the husband’s, and the heirship of the daughters and mother in preference to any male relative however near, and is in striking contrast to Christian law in reference to woman’s property. If a husband neglect to provide his wife necessary food and clothing, the East Indian wife is allowed to procure them by any means in her power. Maine has not failed to recognize the superior authority of the eastern wife in relation to property over that of the Christian wife. He says:
“The settled property of a married woman incapable of alienation by her husband, is well known to the Hindoos under the name of Stridham.”
It is certainly a remarkable fact that the institution seems to have developed among the Hindoos at a period relatively much earlier than among the Romans. The Mitakshara, one of the oldest and most revered authorities of the Hindoo judicial treatises, defines Stridham, or woman’s property, as that which is given to the wife by the father, the mother, or a brother at the time of the wedding, before the nuptial fire.
But adds Maine:
The compiler of Mitakshara adds a proportion not found elsewhere; also property which she may have acquired by inheritance, purchase, partition, seizure or finding, is denominated woman’s property… If all this be
Stridham, it follows that the ancient Hindoo law secured to married women an even greater degree of proprietary independence than that given to them by the modern English Married Woman’s Property Act.
Property is common to the husband and the wife. The ample support of those who are entitled to maintenance is rewarded with bliss in heaven; but hell is the portion of that man whose family is afflicted with pain by his neglect. Therefore the Hindoo husband is taught to maintain his family with the utmost care. Maxims from the sacred books show the regard in which the Hindoo woman is held:
“He who despises woman despises his mother.”
“Who is cursed by woman is cursed by God.”
“The tears of a woman call down the fire of heaven on those who make them flow.”
“Evil to him who laughs at woman’s sufferings; God shall laugh at his prayers.”
“It was at the prayer of a woman that the Creator pardoned man; cursed be he who forgets it.”
“Who shall forget the sufferings of his mother at his birth shall be reborn in the body of an owl during three successive transmigrations.”
“There is no crime more odious than to persecute woman.”
“When women are honored the divinities are content; but when they are not honored all undertakings fail.”
“The households cursed by women to whom they have not rendered the homage due them, find themselves weighed down with ruin and destroyed as if they had been struck by some secret power.”
“We will not admit the people of today are incapable of comprehending woman, who alone can regenerate them.”
The marriage ceremony is of the slightest kind and under three forms:
1. Of mutual consent by the interchange of necklaces or strings of flowers in some secret place.
2. A woman says, “I am become your wife,” and the man says, “I acknowledge it.”
3. When the parents of a girl on her marriage day say to the bridegroom: “Whatever act of religion you perform, perform it with our daughter,” and the bridegroom assents to this speech.
The comparatively modern custom of suttee originated with the priests, whose avaricious desires created this system in order thereby to secure the property of the widow. The Vedas do not countenance either suttee or the widow’s relinquishment of her property, the law specifically declaring, “If a widow should give all her property and estate to the Brahmins for religious purposes, the gift indeed is valid, but the act is improper and the woman blamable.” An ancient scripture declares that “All the wisdom of the Vedas, and all that has been written in books, is to be found concealed in the heart of a woman.” It is a Hindoo maxim that one mother is worth a thousand fathers, because the mother carries and nourishes the infant from her own body, therefore the mother is most reverenced. A Hindoo proverb declares that “Who leaves his family naked and unfed may taste honey at first, but shall afterwards find it poison.” Another says, “A wife is a friend in the house of the good.”
Ancient Egypt worshiped two classes of gods; one purely spiritual and eternal, the other secondary but best beloved, were believed to have been human beings who from the services they had rendered to humanity were upon death admitted to the assembly of the gods. Such deification common in ancient times, is still customary in some parts of the earth. Within the past few years a countryman of our own was thus apotheosized by the Chinese to whom he had rendered valuable service at the time of the Tae-ping rebellion.25 Ancient Egyptians recognized a masculine and feminine principle entering in all things both material and spiritual. Isis, the best beloved and most worshiped of the secondary gods, was believed by them to have been a woman who at an early period of Egyptian history had rendered that people invaluable service. She was acknowledged as their earliest law-maker, through whose teaching the people had risen from barbarism to civilization. She taught them the art of making bread26 from the cereals theretofore growing wild and unused, the inhabitants at an early day living upon roots and herbs. Egypt soon became the grain growing portion of the globe, her enormous crops of wheat not alone aiding herself, but rendering the long stability of the Roman Empire possible. The science of medicine was believed to have originated with Isis; she was also said to have invented the art of embalming, established their literature, founded their religion. The whole Egyptian civilization was ascribed to the woman-goddess, Isis, whose name primarily Ish-Ish, signified Light, Life.27 Isis, and Nepthys – the Lady of the House – were worshiped as the Beginning and the End. They were the Alpha and Omega of the most ancient Egyptian religion. The statues of Isis bore this inscription:
I am all that has been, all that shall be, and none among mortals has hitherto taken off my veil.
Isis was believed to contain germs within herself for the reproduction of all living things. The most universal of her 10,000 names was, “Potent Mother Goddess.”28 This Egyptian regard for Isis is an extremely curious and interesting reminiscence of the Matriarchal period. Her worship was universal throughout Egypt. Her temples were magnificent. Her priests, consecrated to purity, were required to bathe daily, to wear linen garments unmixed with animal fibre, to abstain from animal food, and also from those vegetables regarded as impure.29 Two magnificent festivals were yearly celebrated in her honor, the whole people taking part. During one of these festivals her priests bore a golden ship in the procession. The ship, or ark,30 is peculiarly significative of the feminine principle, and wherever found is
Ward, the American who rendered such service to the Chinese Emperor, has been deified. The Emperor, in a recent edict, has placed him among the major gods of China, commanding shrines to be built and worship to be paid to the memory of this American. The people are worshiping him along with the most ancient and powerful deities of their religion as a great deliverer from war and famine – as a powerful god in the form of man. In every household, school and temple, his name will be thus commemorated. —
“I am nature, the parent of all things, the sovereign of the elements, the primary progeny of time, the most exalted of the deities, the first of the heavenly gods and goddesses, the queen of the shades, the uniform countenances who dispose with my rod the innumerable lights of heaven.”
The salubrious breezes of the sea, and the mournful silence of the dead whose single deity the whole world venerates in
Leeks, garlic, onions and beans.
All the ancient nations appear to have had an ark or archa, in which to conceal something sacred. – Godfrey Higgins,