Название: Woman, Church & State
Автор: Gage Matilda Joslyn
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
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Blackstone recognizes as among the remarkable legal events of the kingdom, the great alteration in the laws through the separation of ecclesiastical courts from the civil. Matrimonial causes, or injuries respecting the rights of marriage are recognized by him as quite an undisturbed branch of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, from the Church having so early converted this contract into a sacramental ordinance.185 During many centuries education was denied to woman in Christian countries for reasons connected with her ineligibility to the priesthood. The art of reading is by scholars believed to have been one of the ancient mysteries taught at Eleusis and other olden temples; learning, then, as at later periods, was in the hands of priests; therefore the fact of being able to read was synonymous with the right of entering the priesthood. This right appertained to women in many ancient nations even under the Patriarchate. Higgins shows that the word Liber from which our words liberty, freedom, are derived, is one and the same as liber, a book, and had close connection with the intellectual, literary, and priestly class. As under Christian doctrine the priesthood was denied to woman, so under the same rule learning was prohibited to her.186 To permit woman’s education under Christianity would have been a virtual concession of her right to the priesthood. In not allowing her “benefit of clergy” the priests were but consistent with themselves and their pretensions as to the superior holiness of the male sex. That a woman should be burned alive for a crime whose only punishment for a man was a few months imprisonment, was in unison with the whole teaching of the Christian Church regarding woman. Under Canon Law many of the shields theretofore thrown about women were removed. Punishment for crimes against them lessened, while crimes committed by them were more severely punished. Rape, which in early English history was termed felony, its penalty, death, was regarded in a less heinous light under clerical rule.
Under the political constitutions of the Saxons, bishops had seats in the national council and all laws were prefaced by a formal declaration of their consent. By their influence it became a general law that a woman could never take of an inheritance with a man, unless perhaps by the particular and ancient customs of some cities or towns; while daughters at a father’s death could be left totally unprovided for. A law was enacted in the reign of Edward VI that no son should be passed over in his father’s will unless disinherited in plain terms and a just cause given. In case of daughters, sex was deemed “a just cause” for leaving them in poverty. The earlier laws of the Danish Knut, or Canute, show that the estate was then divided among all the children. Under Canon Law, the testimony of a woman was not received in a court of justice. She was depicted by the Church as the source of all evil, the mother of every ill.187 Legislation had the apparent aim of freeing the clergy from all responsibility to the civil or moral law, and placing the weight of every sin or crime upon woman.
A council at Tivoli in the Soisonnais, A.D. 909, presided over by twelve bishops, promulgated a Canon requiring the oath of seven persons to convict a priest with having lived with a woman; if their oath failed of clearing him he was allowed to justify himself upon his sole oath. Under Canon Law a woman could not bring an accusation unless prosecuted for an injury done to herself. It is less than thirty years since this law was extant in Scotland; and as late as 1878, that through the influence of Signor Morelli, the Italian Parliament repealed the old restriction existant in that country regarding woman’s testimony. Under Canon Law a woman could not be witness in ecclesiastical or criminal suits, nor attest a will.188 To cast doubts upon a person’s word is indicative of the most supreme contempt, importing discredit to the whole character. That a woman was not allowed to attest a will, nor become a witness in ecclesiastical suits, implied great degradation and is a very strong proof of the low esteem in which woman was held both by State and Church. That a priest could clear himself upon his own unsubstantiated oath is equally significative of the respect in which this office was held, as well as showing the degree in which all law was made to shield man and degrade woman. When we find the oath of seven women required to nullify that of one layman, we need no stronger testimony as to woman’s inequality before the law. Canonists laid down the law for all matters of a temporal nature whether civil or criminal. The buying and selling of lands; leasing, mortgaging, contracts; the descent of inheritance; the prosecution and punishment of murder; theft; detection of thieves; frauds; those and many other objects of temporal jurisdiction were provided for by Canon Law. It was intended that the clergy should come entirely under its action, governed as a distinct people from the laity. The principal efforts of the Canon Law towards which all its enactments tended, was the subordination of woman189 and the elevation of the hierarchy. To secure these two ends the church did not hesitate at forgery. For many hundred years a collection of Decretals, or what were claimed as decrees of the early popes, carried great authority, although later investigation has proven them forgeries.190 Civil as well as ecclesiastical laws were forged in the interest of the priesthood; a noted instance, was the once famous law of Constantine which endowed bishops with unlimited power, giving them jurisdiction in all kinds of causes. This law declared that whatever is determined by the judgment of bishops shall always be held as sacred and venerable, and that in all kinds of causes whether they are tried according to the pastoral or civil law that it is law to be forever observed by all.
The famous Seldon known as the “Light of England,” declares it to have been “a prodigious and monstrous jurisdiction” assumed by the priestly order, by means of falsehood and forgery.191 The two classes of temporal affairs that Spiritual Courts especially endeavored to appropriate, were marriages, and wills, with everything bearing upon them. In these the greatest oppression fell upon women.192 Canon Law gradually acquired enormous power through the control it gained over wills, the guardianship of orphans, marriage, and divorce.193 As soon as ecclesiastical courts were divided from the temporal in England,194 СКАЧАТЬ
181
The policy of the church was to persuade mankind that the cohabitation of a man and woman was in itself unholy, and that nothing but a religious bond or sacrament could render it inoffensive in the eyes of God. Pike. —
182
This law held good in Protestant England until within the last decade.
183
The church visited its penalties upon the innocent as well as guilty; when any man remained under excommunication two months, his wife and children were interdicted and deprived of all doctrines of the church but baptism and repentance. Lea. —
184
In England, until the reign of William and Mary, women were refused the benefit of clergy.
185
In the hands of such able politicians it (marriage), soon became an engine of great importance to the papal scheme of an universal monarchy over Christendom. The innumerable canonical impediments that were invented and occasionally dispensed with by the Holy See, not only enriched the coffers of the church, but give it a vast ascendant over persons of all denominations, whose marriages were sanctioned or repudiated, their issue legitimated or bastardized … according to the humor or interest of the reigning pontiff. —
186
The word Liber, free, the solar
187
Woman was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. She should be ashamed of the very thought that she is a woman. She should live in continual penance on account of the curses she had brought upon the world. She should be ashamed of her dress, for it is the memorial of her fall. She should especially be ashamed of her beauty, for it is the most potent instrument of the demon… Women were even forbidden by a provincial council, in the sixth century, on account of their impurity, to receive the eucharist in their naked hands. Their essentially subordinate position was continually maintained. Lecky. —
188
No woman can witness a will in the State of Louisiana today.
189
Blackstone says whosoever wishes to form a correct idea of Canon Law can do so by examining it in regard to married women. —
190
. Blondell, a learned Protestant who died in 1659, fully proved Isidore’s collection of the Decretal Epistles of the popes of the first three centuries, to be all forged and a shameless imposture,
191
The famous law of Constantine, attached to the Theodosian Code, by virtue of which a prodigious and monstrous jurisdiction was formerly attributed to bishops, or to the hieratic order, though in reality that law was never a part of the aforesaid code, at the end of which it is found. Seldon. —
At time of Valentinian neither bishops nor the Consistories could, without the consent of the contracting lay parties, take cognizance of their causes… Because, says that emperor, it is evident that bishops and priests have no court to determine the laws in, neither can they according to the imperial constitutions of Arcadius and Honorius, as is manifest from the Theodosian body, judge of any other matters than those relating to religion. Thus the aforesaid Emperor Valentinian. Neither do I think that the above sanction as extravagant, obtained a place at the end of the Theodosian Code, or was under the title of Episcopis, by any other manner posted into my manuscript, than by the frauds and deceits, constantly, under various pretenses, made use of by the hieratical orders, who endeavored to shape right or wrong, according to the custom of those ages, not to mention others, sovereign princes and republics of their authority and legal power, by this means under the cloak of religion, its constant pretext, most strenuously serving their own ends and ambition. —
192
See Reeves. —
193
Draper. —
194
Reeves.