no ethical worth, but is valued in marriage only as a means of enjoyment, procreation, and work.
Christianity gave the most powerful impulse to the moral elevation of the sexual relations by raising woman to social equality with man and elevating the bond of love between man and woman to a religio-moral institution.[1]
The fact that in higher civilization human love must be monogamous and rest on a lasting contract was thus recognized. If nature does no more than provide for procreation, a commonwealth (family or state) cannot exist without a guaranty that the offspring shall flourish physically, morally, and intellectually. Christendom gained both mental and material superiority over
- ↑ This generally entertained idea, also held by many historians, requires some limitation, in that the symbolic and sacramental character of marriage was first made clear and unequivocal by the Council of Trent, even though there was ever in the spirit of Christianity that which would free woman and raise her from the inferior position occupied by her in the ancient world and the Old Testament.
That this took place so late may well be due in part to the traditions of Genesis of the secondary creation of woman from the rib of man, and of her part in the Fall, and the consequent curse: “Thy will shall be to thy husband.” Since the Fall, for which the Old Testament made woman responsible, became the corner-stone of the fabric of church-teachings, the wife’s social position could but remain inferior until the spirit of Christianity had gained a victory over tradition and scholasticism.
It is remarkable that, with the exception of the interdiction of putting away a wife (Matt. xix, 9), the gospels contain nothing favoring woman. Gentleness toward the adulteress and the repentant Magdalene does not affect the position of the wife in itself. The Epistles of Paul specifically declare that the position of woman shall not be altered. (II Corinth. xi, 3–12; Ephes. v, 22: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands;” and 33, “And the wife see that she reverence her husband”).
Passages in Tertullian show how the Fathers of the Church were prejudiced against woman by Eve’s guilt: “Woman, thou shouldst forever go in sorrow and rags, thy eyes filled with tears! Thou hast brought man to the ground!” St. Hieronymus has nothing good to say of woman. He says, “Woman is a door for the devil, a way to evil, the sting of the scorpion.” (“De cultu feminarum,” i, 1.)
Canonical Law declares: “Only man was created in the image of God, not woman; therefore, woman should serve him and be his maid!”
The Provincial Council of Macon, in the sixth century, earnestly debated the question whether woman had a soul.
The effect of these ideas in the Church on the peoples embracing Christianity was direct. Among the Germans, after the acceptance of the new faith, for the foregoing reason, the weregild for a wife—the simple expression of her value—decreased (J. Falke, “Die ritterliche Gesellschaft,” p. 49. Berlin, 1862). Concerning the value of each sex among the Jews, vide Leviticus, xxvii, 3 and 4.
Moreover, polygamy, which is expressly recognized in the Old Testament (Deut. xxi, 15), is nowhere explicitly interdicted in the New Testament. Christian princes (e.g., the Marovingian kings, Clotar I, Childebert I, Pepin I, and many of the royal Franks) lived in polygamy; and at that time the Church made no opposition to it (Weinhold, “Die deutschen Frauen im Mittelalter,” ii, p. 15). Comp. also Unger, “Die Ehe,” etc., and the excellent work by Louis Bridel, “La femme et le droit,” Paris, 1884.
