Page:The old paths, or The Talmud tested by Scripture.djvu/376

 (Hilchoth Eduth., c. ix. 1.) Now, it will be observed that these ten classes may be reduced to two—those who are disqualified by physical or intellectual infirmity, as children, idiots, deaf and blind persons; and secondly, those whose moral integrity is exposed to suspicion, as slaves, wicked and despised persons, relations, and those who have an interest in the cause. To one of these two classes women must belong: they are disqualified either because of incapacity, or because their moral feeling may not be trusted, and in either case are treated with a most unmerited contempt. It is true, that the rabbies endeavour to prove that the law of Moses excludes women from giving testimony, saying—

"Women are disqualified by the law from giving testimony, for it is said, 'At the mouth of two witnesses,' where the word witness is of the masculine, not the feminine gender;" but this proof is altogether inconclusive; on the same principle it might be proved that women might break all the ten commandments, for they are all given in the masculine gender. Indeed it is self-evident that God could not have given a law so absurd. There are thousands of cases, where, if women could not give evidence, all the ends of justice would be defeated. Take, for instance, the famous judgment of Solomon, where the two women laid claim each to the living child. In this case there could be no testimony but that of the women themselves, and Solomon did not send them away because they were women. Take also the case of Boaz and Ruth. When Boaz wished to marry Ruth, it was necessary first to redeem the inheritance, and for this it was absolutely necessary to prove that Ruth was the wife of Naomi's son. But there was no testimony but that of the women themselves. Elimelech, Chilion, and Mahlon, were all dead, and the marriage had taken place in a foreign land, yet we do not read of any difficulties being raised. Boaz himself, Naomi's kinsman, and the elders of Israel, appear all to have been perfectly satisfied. The disqualification of women, therefore, was not ordained by Moses, but is the invention of the rabbies, and shows that the rabbies had so low an opinion of the intellect or the integrity of women, as to think either that women are so half-witted as not to be fit to give testimony, or so dishonest as not to be trusted in the testimony which they may give.

But this degradation of the female character is not confined to the rabbinic courts of law. They have dared to carry it even into the house of God, and to make it prominent in the public worship of the Creator. The oral law has ordained that no public worship, nor indeed many religious solemnities,