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From the accounts, given by Tertullian and other writers about the life of the early Christians, it appears that their conceptions in regard to women gave promise for a better future. But during the Middle Ages, which extend from the downfall of Rome to the discovery of America, Christianity unfortunately failed to realize these promises.

First of all the ancient Oriental prejudice against women again took hold of the minds of many Christian leaders. Instead of making themselves champions of women's rights and interests, they curtailed women's influence in order to subject them to the dominion of their husbands. In these efforts the "Christian Fathers" complied with those commands that Paul the Apostle had given in several of his epistles to the Corinthians, Philippians, and to Timothy. They read as follows:

"The head of every man is Christ, and the head of every woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. For the man is not of the woman but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman but the woman for the man." —

"Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak but they are commanded to be under obedience. And if they would learn anything