Page:Woman's Position According to the Bible.pdf/6

 Jesus, this extraordinary panegyric of self-mutilation had the most melancholy results, as in the world-famed case of Origen. Paul emulated his master in his exaltation of celibacy: "I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that. I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain let them marry; for it is better to marry than to burn" (1 Cor. vii., 7—9). He contrasts, to the disadvantage of the married, the married and unmarried conditions (32—34), and grudgingly remarks: "If thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry she hath not sinned" (28). To those women who did marry, a condition of the most complete and utter subordination was assigned. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything" (Eph. v., 22—24). Great as the difference between God and man is the difference between man and woman. Paul speaks elsewhere with equal clearness: "I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man" (1 Cor. xi., 3). "Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands" (1 Pet. iii., 1); their conversation is to be "coupled with fear" (2). Happy state, in which the woman is to be a trembling slave and her "lord" (6) a condescending and merciful master, rewarding his submissive serf with such parody of "love" (see Eph. v., 25) as is possible under the odious and revolting conditions of unnatural authority and unnatural obedience.

Whether in the marriage or in other relation woman is in the Bible regarded as man's property—a mere chattel. We have already seen that a man may sell his daughter (Ex. xxi. 7), and the commands about a woman's vows (Numb. xxx) show how devoid she was of any individual rights even in relation to her God. A man's vows were binding, but the vow of an unmarried woman could be set aside by her father and that of a married woman by her husband: "Every vow and every binding oath to afflict the soul, her husband may establish it, or her husband