Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 15.djvu/754

 WOMAN

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WOMAN

some 70,000 girls are annually killed in the Province of Kiangsi. The binding of the feet is in reality only a means to keep the women at home. The absolute dependence of the wife upon the husband was also maintained as an unyielding custom in old Japan until the late reorganization, as is proved by the "Onna Daigaku" of Kaibara Ekken (1630).

The so-called classical nations of antiquity, the Greeks and Romans, show, as contrasted with the East, a decided dislike to polygamy, which legally at least was never recognized among them. This for- tunate natural disposition affected favourably the position of woman without, however, securing for her the social position which naturally belongs to her. Even in the best period of the Greeks and Romans the woman only existed on account of the man. The Homeric descriptions of marital love and devotion show this in the most ideal form. In the later era of degeneration woman had almost entirely lost her in- fluence upon public life, according to the sentence in the oration against the hetjera, "Neara", ascribed to Demosthenes: "We have hetaera for pleasure, con- cubines for the daily care of the body and wives for the production of full-blooded children and as reliable guardians in the house ' ' . The worship of the ' ' virgin Athene" shows probably a dim perception on the part of the Greeks of the exalted position of the virgin independent of man, but led to no practical results favourable to woman. Almost the same is to be said as to the worship of Vesta and of the Vestal virgins among the Romans.

When Christianity appeared it found woman in the Roman world, and Rome itself was by no means an exception, in a position of deep moral degradation, and under the hard patria poleslas of man. This authority had degenerated into tjTanny almost more universally than in China. Originally Roman law, up to the time of the Antonines, limited the power of the father as regards the life and death of his chil- dren, and forbade him to murder the boys and the first-born girl. However, the freedom enjoyed by married woman during the empire had as sole result that divorce increased enormously and prostitution was considered a matter of course. After marriage had lost its religious character the women exceeded the men in hcence, and thus lost even the influence they had possessed in the early, austerely moral Rome (cf. Donaldson, "Woman, Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome and among the Early Christians", 1907).

Among the Jews woman had not the position be- longing to her from the beginning, as Christ said: "Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart per- mitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so" (Matt., xix, 8). A complete reform was not to be expected from the preparatory and temporary importance of the Old Testament legislation. Allowance was made for the inclination of Orientals to polygamy by the allowing of additional wives. The one-sided patria potestas was mitigated; the feeling of reverence for the mother was rigidly impressed upon the children. The laws respecting this remind us of the laws of China. Notwithstand- ing the fame of individual women, as Miriam the sister of Moses, Deborah, and Judith, the Hebrew woman, in general, had no more rights than the women of other nations; marriage was her sole calling in life (cf. Zschokke, "Das Weib im alten Testa- ment", Vienna, 1883; and "Die bibhschen Frauen (lea .\lten Testamentes", Freiburg, 1882). The Se- mitic view of woman without the refining influence of Revelation is evidenced among the followers of Islam who trace back th<'ir descent to Ismael the son of Abraham. Consequently, the Koran with its many laws respecting women is a code that panders to the uncontrolled p;is,sion8 of Semitic man. Outside of marriage, which in the Mphftpimedan view is the duty

of every woman, woman has neither value nor impor- tance. But the conception of marriage as an inti- mate union so as to constitute one moral person, has always been foreign to Mohammedanism (cf. Devas, "Studies of Family Life. A Contribution to Social Science", London, 1886).

The history of the pre-Christian era mentions no far-reaching and successful revolt of women to obtain the improvement of their position. Custom finally became an established habit, and found its strongest defenders among the women themselves. It was the teaching of Christ which first brought freedom to the female sex, wherever this teaching was seriously taken as the guide of life. His words applied as weU to women: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you" (Luke, xii, 31). He restored the original life-long monogamous marriage, raised it to the dignity of a sacrament, and also improved the position of woman in purely earthly matters. The most com- plete personal equaUty is expressed in the Apostolic exhortation: "For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ . . . there is neither male nor female. For ye are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal., iii, 27-28; cf. I Cor., xi, 11). Most decisive, however, for the social position of woman was the teaching of Christ on the nobility of freely chosen virginity as contrasted with marriage, to the embracing of which the chosen of both sexes are invited (Matt., xix, 29). According to Paul (I Cor., vii, 25-40) the virgins and widows do well if they persist in the intention not to marry in order to serve God with undivided mind; they indeed do better than those who must divide their attention be- tween care for the husband and the service of God. By this doctrine the female sex in particular was placed in an independence of man unt bought of before. It granted the unmarried woman value and importance without man; and what is more the virgin who renounces marriage from religious motives, acquires precedence above the married woman and enlarges the circle of her motherly influence upon society. EUsabeth Gnauck-Ktihne says truly: "The esteern of virginity is the true emancipation of woman in the hteral sense".

This elevation of woman centres in Mary the Mother of Jesus, the purest virginity and mother- hood, both tender and strong, united in wonderful sublimity. The history of the Cat hoHc Church hears constant testimony of this position of jMary in the history of civihzation. The respect for woman rises and falls with the veneration of the Virgin Mother of God. Conseqviently for art also the Virgin has become the highest representation of the most noble womanhood. This extraordinary elevation of woman in Mary by Christ is in sharp contrast to the extra- ordinary degradation of female dignity before Chris- tianity." In the renewing of all things in Christ (Eph., i, 10) the restoration of order must be most thorough at that point where the most extreme dis- order had prevailed.

However, this emancipation of woman rests upon the same principles which (^hrist used in His great renewal of nat uro by grace. Nature was not set aside nor destroyed, but was healed and illumined. C^on- sequently the radical natural differences between man and woman and their separate vocations con- tinue to exist. In (Christianized society also man was to act as the lawful representative of authority, and the lawful defender of rights, in the family, just as in the civil, national, and religious community. Thci;c- fore, the social i)Osition of woman remains in Chris- tianity that of subordination to man, wherever the two sexes by necessity find themselves obliged to supple- ment each other in common activity. The woman develops her authority, founded in human dignity, in connexion wit h, and subordinate to, the man in domes-