Men, Women, and Gods; and Other Lectures. Gardener Helen Hamilton

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СКАЧАТЬ take an active part in teaching it to the heathen, to show them how good Jehovah is to his daughters. But if he is, he has been unusually unfortunate in his choice of executors.

      Nor is it only in the Old Testament that such morals and such justice are taught. The clergy put that part off by saying – "Oh, that was a different dispensation, and God, the Unchangeable, has changed his mind." That is the sole excuse they give for all the "holy" men, who used to talk personally with God, practicing polygamy and all the other immoralities. They maintain that it was God's best man who upheld polygamy then, and that it is the Devil's best man who does it now. Odd idea, isn't it? Simply a question of time and place; and as Col. Ingersoll says, you have got to look on a map to see whether you are damned or not. But it does seem to me that a God that did not always know better than that, is not a safe chief magistrate. He might take to those views again, They say history is likely to repeat itself. Anyhow, I would rather be on the safe side and just fix the laws so that he couldn't. It would be just as well.

      But now we have come to "St." Paul and his ideas on the woman question. He worked the whole problem by simple proportion and found that man stands in the same relation to woman as God stands to man. That is, man is to woman as God is to man – and only a slight remainder. I'm not going to misrepresent this gifted saint. I shall let him speak for himself. He does it pretty well for a saint, and much more plainly than they usually do.

      33 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord,

      33 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.

      – Ephesians v.

      The husband is the saviour of the wife! Pretty slim hold on heaven for most women, isn't it? And then suppose she hasn't any husband? Her case is fatal.

      34 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

      – Ephesians v.

      Paul was a modest person in his requirements.

      9 In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array.

      – 1 Timothy ii.

      It does seem as if anybody would know that braided hair was wicked; and as to "gold and pearls and costly array," all you have to do to prove the infallibility of Paul – and what absolute faith Christians have in it! – is to go into any fashionable church and observe the absence of all such sinfulness:

      10 But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.

      11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

      12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

      13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

      14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

      – 1 Timothy ii.

      According to the reasoning of verse 13 man should be subject to all the lower animals, because they were first formed, and then Adam. Verse 14 tells us that Adam sinned knowingly; Eve was deceived, so she deserves punishment. Now I like that. If you commit a crime understandingly it is all right. If you are deceived into doing it you ought to be damned. The law says, "The criminality of an act resides in the intent;" but more than likely St. Paul was not up in Blackstone and did not use Coke.

      This next is St. Peter, and I believe this is one of the few topics upon which the infallible Peter and the equally infallible Paul did not disagree:

      Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives;

      2 While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.

      – 1 Peter iii.

      I should think that would be a winning card. If the conversation of a wife, coupled with a good deal of fear, would not convert a man, he is a hopeless case.

      But here is Paul again, in all his mathematical glory, and mortally afraid that women won't do themselves honor.

      3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

      4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoreth his head.

      5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered, dishonoreth her head; for that is even all one as if she were shaven.

      6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.

      7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man:

      8 For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man.

      9 Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.

      – 1 Cor. xi.

      And that settles it, I suppose. But what on earth was man created for? I should not think it could have been just for fun.

      34 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, as also saith the law.

      35 And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.

      – 1 Cor. xiv.

      That is a principle that should entitle St. Paul to the profound admiration of women. And yet, when I come to think of it, I don't know which one gets the worst of that either. Whenever you want to know anything, ask your husband, at home! No wonder most husbands don't have time to stay at home much. No wonder they have to see a man so often. It would unseat any man's reason if he lived in constant fear that he might, any minute, be required to explain to a woman of sense, how death could have been brought into this world by Eve, when every one knows that long before man could have lived upon this earth animals lived and died. It would make any man remember that he had to "catch a car" if he were asked suddenly to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. I would not blame the most sturdy theologian for remembering that it was club night, if his wife were to ask him, unexpectedly, how Nebuchadnezzar, with his inexperience, could digest grass with only one stomach, when it takes four for the oxen that are used to it. That may account, however, for his hair turning to feathers.

      I don't believe St. Paul could have realized what a diabolical position he was placing husbands in, when he told wives to ask them every time they wanted to know anything – unless he wanted to make marriage unpopular. There is one thing certain, he was careful not to try it himself, which looks much as if he had some realizing sense of what he had cut out for husbands to do, and felt that there were some men who would rather be drafted – and then send a substitute.

      But why are his commands not followed to-day? Why are not the words, sister, mother, daughter, wife, only names for degradation And dishonor?

      Because men have grown more honorable than their religion, and the strong arm of the law, СКАЧАТЬ