The Collected Works. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
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Название: The Collected Works
Автор: Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Зарубежная прикладная и научно-популярная литература
isbn: 9788027242702
isbn:
This is the fundamental principle on which the canon and civil laws are based, as well as the English classics. It is only in the galleries of art that we see the foreshadowing of the good time coming. There the divine artist represents the virtues, the graces, the sciences, the seasons, day with its glorious dawn, and night with its holy mysteries, all radiant and beautiful in the form of woman. The poet, the artist, the novelist of our own day, are more hopeful prophets for the mother of the race than those who have spoken in the Scriptures.
E. C. S.
Deuteronomy xvii.
1 Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the Lord thy God any bullock or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evil favouredness: for that is an abomination unto the Lord thy God.
2 If there be found among you, man or woman that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the Lord thy God, in transgressing his covenant:
3 And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or the moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded;
4 And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and inquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel:
5 Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman unto thy gates and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.
This is certainly a very effective way of strengthening religious faith. Most people would assent to any religious dogma, however absurd, rather than be stoned to death. As all their healthy tender lambs and calves were eaten by the priests and rulers, no wonder they were so particular to get the best. To delude the people it was necessary to give a religious complexion to the sacrifices and to make God command the people to bring their choicest fruits and grains and meats. It was very easy for these accomplished prestidigitators to substitute the offal for sacrifices on their altars, and keep the dainty fruits and meats for themselves, luxuries for their own tables.
The people have always been deluded with the idea that what they gave to the church and the priesthood was given unto the Lord, as if the Maker of the universe needed anything at our hands. How incongruous the idea of an Infinite being who made all the planets and the inhabitants thereof commanding his creatures to kill and burn animals for offerings to him. It is truly pitiful to see the deceptions that have been played upon the people in all ages and countries by the priests in the name of religion. They are omnipresent, ever playing on human credulity, at birth and death, in affliction and at the marriage feast, in the saddest and happiest moments of our lives they are near to administer consolation in our sorrows, and to add blessings to our joys. No other class of teachers have such prestige and power, especially over woman.
E. C. S.
Chapter IV.
Deuteronomy xviii.
9 When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn the abominations of those nations.
10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer,
12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord.
One would think that Moses with his rod taking the children of Israel through the Red Sea, bringing water out of a rock and manna from heaven, going up into a mountain and there surrounding himself with a cloud of smoke, sending out all manner of pyrotechnics, thunder and lightning, and deluding the people into the idea that there he met and talked with Jehovah, should have been more merciful in his judgments of all witches, necromancers and soothsayers. One would think witches, charmers and necromancers possessing the same power and manifesting many of the same wonders that he did, should not have been so severely punished for their delusions. Moses had taught them to believe in miracles. When the human mind is led to believe things outside the realm of known law, it is prepared to accept all manner of absurdities. And yet the same people that ridicule Spiritualism, Theosophy and Psychology, believe in the ten plagues of Egypt and the passage of the children of Israel through the Red Sea. If they did go through, it was when the tide was low at that point, which Moses understood and Pharaoh did not. Perhaps the difficulty is to be gotten over in much the same way as that employed by the negro preacher who, when his statement, that the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea on the ice, was questioned on the ground that geography showed that the climate there was too warm for the formation of ice, replied: "Why, this happened before there was any geography!" The Jews, as well as the surrounding nations, were dominated by all manner of supernatural ideas. All these uncanny tricks and delusions being forbidden shows that they were extensively practised by the chosen people, as well as by other nations.
Deuteronomy xx, xxi.
14 But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.
10 When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,
11 And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife;
12 Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails;
13 And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that she shall be thy wife.
14 And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will: but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.
15 If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated:
16 Then it shall be, when he maketh his son to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn:
17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.
All this is done if the woman will renounce her religion and accept the new faith. The shaving of the head was a rite in accepting the new faith, the paring of the nails a token of submission. In all these transactions the woman had no fixed rights whatever. In that word "humbled" is included the whole of our false morality in regard to the equal relations of the sexes. Why in this responsible act of creation, on which depends life and immortality, woman is said to be humbled, when she is the prime factor in the relation, is a question difficult to answer, СКАЧАТЬ