(Abridged from Vol. 2 of the Rev. F. A. Cor's Female Scripture Biography. For our recommendation of which very valuable Work,' see our Review Department, vol. 26, p. 250.) .

6

An original disparity between the sexes either did not perhaps at all exist, or was only constitutional. The authority which revelation has conceded to the man, seems the result of the Fall. A help-meet for him,' appears rather to refer to suitability than subserviency, and to indicate the companion rather than the servant, and much less the slave of man. The fitness of one being to promote the happiness of another, depends on its adaptation, not on its subjection, as in the case of friends. Subjection to her husband is part of the sentence pronounced on the woman for having been first in the transgression.

But in whatever respects the sexes were originally, equal or unequal, sin has done much to depress the feebler. Prompted by it, power will assume authority over weakness. Resistance is the natural result. This again generates dislike, which advances a step farther in the career of evil, and, joined to power, ends in oppression. Hence the female sex, unbefriended by Christianity, have uniformly become the victims of power. An induction of facts will shew what women are without Christianity, in very affecting colours; it will also exhibit the religion of Christ as an angel of mercy, lifting them to

XXVIII.

their proper station in the scale of society, and laying them under the most influence for its general difgreatest obligations to use their utfusion.

1. View the Pagan nations of antiquity. :

The Egyptians held their women in the greatest servitude. Having absurdly determined it indecent for women to go abroad without shoes, they added injury to insult by depriving them of the means of wearing them, inhumanly threatening with death any one who should make shoes for a woman. Lest it should add any attraction to the female character, music was also forbidden their women.

Among the Celtic nations the nobles were allowed a plurality of wives. The labours of the field, as well as domestic, toil, devolved on their women. Their great Odin excluded from his paradise all who did not by some violent death follow their deceased husbands. In time they sunk so low, that, by an old Saxon law, he that hurt or killed a woman was to pay only half the fine exacted for injuring or killing a man. Sometimes they rushed into the opposite extreme, raising their women to heroines and goddesses. Whereas, Christianity assigns women their proper place in society: neither suffering them to be tyrannized over by despotic authority, nor impiously honoured by a ridiculous adulation.

Amidst all the refinement of the Greeks, the female sex were nearly equally debased. Homer and subse

2 T

AN ESSAY

ON WHAT CHRISTIANITY HAS

DONE FOR WOMEN.

(Abridged from Vol. 2 of the Rev. F. A. Cor's Female Scripture Biography. For our recommendation of which very valuable Work,' see our Review Depart-' ment, vol. 26, p. 250.)

6

An original disparity between the sexes either did not perhaps at all exist, or was only constitutional. The authority which revelation has conceded to the man, seems the result of the Fall. A help-meet for him,' appears rather to refer to suitability than subserviency, and to indicate the companion rather than the servant, and much less the slave of man. The fitness of one being to promote the happiness of another, depends on its adaptation, not on its subjection, as in the case of friends. Subjection to her husband is part of the sentence pronounced on the woman for having been first in the transgression.

But in whatever respects the sexes were originally, equal or unequal, sin has done much to depress the feebler. Prompted by it, power will assume authority over weakness. Resistance is the natural result. This again generates dislike, which advances a step farther in the career of evil, and, joined to power, ends in oppression. Hence the female sex, unbefriended by Christianity, have uniformly become the victims of power. An induction of facts will shew what women are without Christianity, in very affecting colours; it will also exhibit the religion of Christ as an angel of mercy, lifting them to

XXVIII.

their proper station in the scale of society, and laying them under the most influence for its general difgreatest obligations to use their utfusion.

1. View the Pagan nations of antiquity. :

The Egyptians held their women in the greatest servitude. Having absurdly determined it indecent for women to go abroad without shoes, they added injury to insult by depriving them of the means of wearing them, inhumanly threatening with death any one who should make shoes for a woman. Lest it should add any attraction to the female character, music was also forbidden their women.

Among the Celtic nations the nobles were allowed a plurality of wives. The labours of the field, as well as domestic, toil, devolved on their women. Their great Odin excluded from his paradise all who did not by some violent death follow their deceased husbands. In time they sunk so low, that, by an old Saxon law, he that hurt or killed a woman was to pay only half the fine exacted for injuring or killing a man. Sometimes they rushed into the opposite extreme, raising their women to heroines and goddesses. Whereas, Christianity assigns women their proper place in society: neither suffering them to be tyrannized over by despotic authority, nor impiously honoured by a ridiculous adulation.

Amidst all the refinement of the Greeks, the female sex were nearly equally debased, Homer and subse

2 T

quent writers often speak of them as mere articles of property. Hence they were bought and sold, obliged to perform the most menial offices, and exposed to all the degradation and miseries of concubinage. Daughters, of even the highest rank, had never their inclinations consulted in the article of marriage. After marriage some time elapsed before they ventured to speak to their husbands. At no time were they permitted to appear in mixed society, to know their husbands' affairs, or to interpose with their opinion or advice. Xenophon, one of the most polished of the Athenians, admitted that he had few friends with whom he conversed so seldom as with his wife. Solon, their prodigy of wisdom, made laws relative to females at which humanity must blush. He took no notice of their education, forbade their going abroad in the day time, except in full dress, in which they could not have been known even to their husbands; or at night, but with torches, and in a chariot; and prohibited their taking eatables out of their husbands' houses of more lue than an obolus, or carrying a basket of more than a cubit in length. Their greatest men paid the highest honour to common strumpets, such as Aspasia; and were even so sottish as to regard them as their most successful intercessors with the gods!

va

declared to be in a state of servitude, though in name a Roman citizen. She had no right to make a will, nor durst she prefer a complaint against her husband. In fact, the husband could even put his wife to death, not merely for gross immoralities, but even for excess in wine!

The morals of women shew, alone, the state of society, and the degree of estimation in which they themselves are held. If men treat them as slaves, they will become servile and contemptible; a certain degree of self-respect being essential to the preservation of real dignity of character. Hence their vices indicate their condition; and on this principle, wretched indeed was the state of female degradation. Like many other heathens, the Romans were remarkable for their capriciousness towards their wives. Now their principal slaves have the right of chastising their wives; anon, the husbands themselves pay them dis tinguished deference! Christianity alone places woman in her proper state, and protects her there. 2. Behold the state of women in savage, superstitious, and in Mahomedan countries.

In EUROPE; we may begin with Greenland. The situation of fe males in this country might well justify the exclamation of an an cient philosopher, who thanked God that he was born a man, and not a woman. It is common for the men to stand by while the women are carrying the heaviest materials for building. They never consult their daughters' wishes respecting mar riage. Crantz says, 'from their twentieth year, the usual period of their marriage, their lives are a continued series of hardships and misery.

The Greenlanders have two kinds of boats, one of them is the great woman's boat, from 12 to 18 yards long, and 4 wide. This is rowed

by four women, and steered by a fifth, without any help from the men, except in great emergencies. If the coast will not allow them to pass, six or eight women take the boat upon their heads, and carry it over land to a navigable place.Wives may be corrected or divorced at pleasure. Friendless widows are robbed by those who pretend to condole with them, and have no redress. After a precarious subsistence in different families, and being driven from one hut to another, they are suffered to expire without help and without notice. When aged women are suspected of witchcraft, if the wife or child of a Greenlander happen to die— if his fowling-piece miss fire-or his arrow the mark at which it was shot, the supposed sorceress is instantly stoned, thrown into the sea, or cut to pieces by the male magicians. Some kill their mothers, and others their sisters. Aged women are sometimes voluntarily, and at other times forcibly, buried alive by their own children.

Russia. The Siberians regard women as impure beings, and odious to the gods; hence they do not suffer them to approach the sacred fire, or the places of sacrifice. In the Eastern islands, their husbands treat them as slaves and beasts of burden. They will sell them for a little train-oil. At an advanced age, the women frequently seek younger wives for their husbands, and devote themselves to domestic drudgery. Among the Slavonian nations of Europe, the daughters were formerly dragged by the hair to the altars. Brides are still purchased, and instantly become slaves.

Italy and Spain. In both, the education of women is totally neglected, and they are not ashamed of committing the grossest blunders in conversation. In youth they are left to the care of ignorant and im

moral servants; their mothers are little better; while they are com→ monly objects of jealousy to their husbands.

Portugal. Even those young women who belong to respectable families are never instructed in any thing truly useful or ornamental, and are often ignorant of reading and writing. They are kept in the most rigid confinement, often not allowed even to go to Church, and never, unattended. They are ex cluded from all young persons of the other sex, who are not permit ted to visit families where there are unmarried females. The whole leads to endless intrigue, cunning and deceit.

Turkey. Here, women are confined in seraglios for life, or shut up in their apartments. They are not permitted to appear in public without a vail. They are slaves, in fact, and the power of life or death is in the hands of the husband,

ASIA.

Tartary. The Mahomedan Tar tars are continually waging war with their neighbours, for the purpose of procuring slaves. They steal chil dren to sell, and scruple not to sell their own daughters, or even their wives in case of disgust. They generally dismiss their wives at or previous to the age of forty. Among the Crim Tartars, even the mothers of Sultans neither eat with their sons, nor sit in their presence; they are often ill treated by them, and sometimes put to death.

The Georgians and Circassians consider all their children, which are commonly very beautiful, in the light of property, exposing them to sale as they would their cattle.Their daughters, according to their beauty, are bought for from 207. to 1007. by the agents of despotism and depravity.

China. Here, forced marriages and sales of women are universal.