CHAPTER XXXII.

INJUSTICE TO WOMEN--UNKINDNESS TO CHILDREN--CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

Injustice to Women.

I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it has degraded woman.

The holy offices of wife and mother it covers with reproach. Its teachings carried out, as they were during the centuries of Christian rule, leave woman but two paths in which to tread--the one leading into slavery, the other into exile. Servitude in the house of a husband, or self-banishment into a convent--these are the sad alternatives presented for her choice.

"Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee" (Gen. iii, 16).

"Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands" (Col. iii, 18).

"As the church is subject unto Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything" (Eph. v, 24).

"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. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church" (1 Cor. xiv, 34, 35).

"Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.... For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands; even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord" (1 Peter iii, 1-6).

"Let woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression" (1 Tim. ii, 11-14).

Oh! the unspeakable outrage that woman has suffered because of that old Jewish fable!

The teachings of the Bible respecting marriage are an insult to every married woman. Christ discouraged marriage (Matt. xix, 10-12), while a more despicable dissertation on marriage than Paul gives in the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians was never penned.

In contracting matrimonial alliances, woman's rights and choice are not consulted. The father does his daughter's courting, and sells or gives her to whom he pleases. A father is even allowed to sell his daughter for a slave (Ex. xxi, 7). In the Decalogue the wife is classed with slaves and cattle as a mere chattel.

Kidnapping is commanded for the purpose of obtaining wives.

"Therefore they [God's priests] commanded the children of Benjamin, saying, Go and lie in wait in the vineyards; and see, and, behold, if the daughters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.... And the children of Benjamin did so, and took them wives according to their number of them that danced whom they caught" (Jud. xxi, 20-23).

The Levitical law makes motherhood a sin that can be expiated only by offering a sin offering at the birth of every child. The degree of sinfulness depends upon the sex of the child; giving birth to a daughter being esteemed a greater sin than giving birth to a son (Lev. xii).

The laws of the Bible in regard to divorce are most unjust. A husband is permitted to divorce his wife if she displease him, while a wife is not allowed to obtain a divorce for any cause whatever.

"When a man hath taken a wife, and marries her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, ... then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house" (Deut. xxiv, 1).

"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, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to thy wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thine house.... And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will" (Deut. xxi, 10-14).

Wives were compelled to suffer outrage for the sins of their husbands.

"Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun" (2 Sam. xii, 11).

"Their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished" (Is. xiii, 16).

"I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished" (Zech. xiv, 2).

"Let their wives be bereaved of their children and be widows" (Jer. xviii, 21).

The teachings of the Bible have been used by the church to keep woman in a subordinate position.

"There is not a more cruel chapter in history," says Dr. Moncure D. Conway, "than that which records the arrest by Christianity of the natural growth of European civilization regarding woman. In Germany it found woman participating in the legislative assembly, and sharing the interests and counsels of man, and drove her out and away.... Even more fatal was the overthrow of woman's position in Rome. Read the terrible facts as stated by Gibbon, by Milman, and Sir Henry Maine; read and ponder them, and you will see the tremendous wrong that Christianity did to woman."

Even the priceless virtue of chastity, in the name of law and in the name of the Bible, was trampled under foot. Mrs. Gage, in "Woman, Church, and State," says:

"Women were taught by the church and state alike that the feudal lord, or seigneur, had a right to them, not only against themselves, but as against any claim of husband or father. The law known as Marchetta, or Marquette, compelled newly-married women to a most dishonorable servitude. They were regarded as the rightful prey of the feudal lord from one to three days after their marriage.... France, Germany, Prussia, England, Scotland, and all Christian countries where feudalism existed, held to the enforcement of Marquette."

Respecting this law, Michelet writes: "The lords spiritual had this right no less than the lords temporal. The parson, being a lord, expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride" (La Sorcerie, page 62).

In this country, while the most illiterate and depraved man is clothed with the rights of a sovereign, the noblest woman is held in a subordinate position; and from the Bible, priests and politicians have procured the chains that hold her in subjection.

Referring to the Bible, America's greatest woman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, says: "I know of no other books that so fully teach the subjection and degradation of woman" (Eighty Years and More).

Brave Helen Gardener says: "Every injustice that has ever been fastened upon women in a Christian country has been 'authorized by the Bible' and riveted and perpetuated by the pulpit" (Men, Women, and Gods, page 14).

"Women are indebted to-day for their emancipation from a position of hopeless degradation, not to their religion nor to Jehovah, but to the justice and honor of the men who have defied his commandments. That she does not crouch to-day where St. Paul tried to bind her, she owes to the men who are grand and brave enough to ignore St. Paul, and rise superior to his God" (Ibid, page 30).

George W. Foote of England says it will yet be the proud boast of woman that she never contributed a line to the Bible.

Unkindness to Children.

I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because its teachings respecting the treatment of children are cruel and unjust.

It advocates the use of corporal punishment for children.

"Thou shalt beat him with the rod" (Prov. xxiii, 14).

"Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die" (Ibid xxiii, 13).

"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him" (Ibid xxii, 15).

"The rod and reproof give wisdom" (Ibid xxix, 15).

It advocates capital punishment for children:

"If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his mother, and that when they have chastened him will not hearken unto them; then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place.... And all the men of the city shall stone him with stones that he die" (Deut. xxi, 18, 19, 21).

It advocates the indiscriminate and merciless slaughter of little children:

"Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes" (Isa. xiii, 16).

"Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces" (Hosea xiii, 16).

"As he [Elisha] was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him.... And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them" (2 Kings ii, 23, 24).

It advocates the punishment of children for the misdeeds of their parents.

"I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children" (Ex. xx, 5).

"I will stir up the Medes against them, ... their eye shall not spare children" (Isa. xiii, 17, 18).

"I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children" (Lev. xxvi, 22).

David prays that the children of his adversaries may become vagabonds and beggars; and Jeremiah, that the children of his enemies may perish by famine.

God kills Bath-sheba's child:

"And the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bore unto David, and it was very sick.... And it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died" (2 Sam. xii, 15-18).

Poor babe! tortured and murdered for its parents' crime!

Cruelty to Animals.

I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions and enjoins unkindness and cruelty to animals.

Portions of the Old Testament, and particularly those relating to sacrifices, are calculated to foster a spirit of brutality, and a total disregard for animal life. God revels in the blood of the innocent. The offering of fruits made by Cain is rejected by him; the bloody sacrifice of Abel is accepted.

Nearly the entire book of Leviticus is devoted to such laws as these:

"If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he offer it before the Lord. And he shall lay his hand upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the tabernacle of the congregation; and Aaron's sons shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon the altar" (Lev. iii, 7, 8).

"And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the Lord be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtle-doves, or of young pigeons. And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar" (Lev. i, 14, 15).

The minutest directions for conducting these bloody sacrifices come from the lips of Jehovah himself, and are too brutal and disgusting to repeat.

The number of animals sacrificed was incredible. At times whole herds were killed. On one occasion Asa sacrificed 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep. David made an offering of 1,000 bullocks and 2,000 sheep. At the dedication of the temple, 142,000 domestic beasts were sacrificed by Solomon.

And this wholesale slaughter of innocent animals, we are told, was highly pleasing to the Lord. But

"What was his high pleasure in The fumes of scorching flesh and smoking blood, To the pain of the bleating mothers, which Still yearned for their dead offspring? or the pangs Of the sad ignorant victim underneath The pious knife?"

--Byron.

A God of mercy, it would seem, ought to protect the weaker orders of his creation; but the God of the Bible manifests an utter disregard for them. When the being created in his own image proved too true a copy, and he wished to destroy it, he sent a deluge, "and all flesh died that moved upon the earth." To wreak his vengeance upon Pharaoh, he visited with disease and death his unoffending cattle. In times of war, he ordered his followers to "slay both man and beast." Saul's great transgression, the chief cause of his dethronement and death, was that he saved alive some sheep and oxen instead of killing them as God desired. David and Joshua, God's favorite warriors, houghed the horses of their enemies, and thus disabled turned them loose to die.

We teach a child that it is wrong to rob the nests of birds. It opens the Bible and reads:

"If a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young; but thou shalt in any wise let the dam go, and take the young to thee" (Deut. xxii, 6, 7).

Throughout Christendom "man's inhumanity to man" is only equaled by his cruelty to the inferior animals. The Buddhist, who has not the Bible for his guide, considers it a sin to harm the meanest creature. Even the savage kills only what he needs for food, or such as threaten him with danger. But the Christian, whose Bible gives him dominion over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, maims and murders in pure wantonness, and after years of patient service, even turns his beast of burden out to die of hunger and neglect.

For the sake of these dumb creatures, would that our world had less theology, and more humanity; had fewer Moodys, and more Henry Berghs!