Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/40

24 took place (in spite of Adam's rib) whether women were human beings. This may give an idea of the then prevailing Christian view and humane feeling. Although the humanity of women was thus called into doubt, it came gradually to be recognized in secret with so much zeal, that in spite of Christianity, the immorality of the tenth and eleventh centuries reached a degree far exceeding that of the Roman emperors, perhaps for the very reason that it was characterized alike by the. most disgusting hypocrisy and the most pious vulgarity. However eagerly they were sought for, women were, in Christian delicacy and apprehension, invested with something unclean and unholy; the unfortunate ones were even deprived the pleasure of touching the altar-cloth, and it was imposed upon them as a duty to wear gloves at communion. Because they could not dispense with them, they avenged themselves for the sake of Christianity by degrading them. Husbands were permitted by law to beat their wives and even to inflict wounds on them, provided they did not disable or maim them thereby. The father could chastise his daughter even after her marriage. In the city of Bourbon a husband could with impunity kill his wife if he only swore that he was heartily sorry for it — all this in consequence of the humane ideas which the unnatural doctrine had caused that preached an unnatural universal love of mankind, while it made a crime of the