WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE; A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE STATUS OF WOMAN THROUGH THE CHRISTIAN AGES: WITH REM- INISCENCES OF THE MATR1AR- CHATE: BY MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE. UNIVER CHICAGO: CHARLES H. KEKR & COMPANY, 1893. Copyright 1893 BY MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE This Book is IfUSCttbCb to the Memory of my Mother, who was at once mother, sister, friend: to all Christian women and men, of what- ever creed or name who, bound by Church or State, have not dared to Think for Themselves: to all Persons, who, breaking away from custom and the usage of ages, dare seek Truth for the sake of Truth. To all such it will be wel- come; to all others, aggressive and educational. This work explains itself and is given to the world because it is needed. Tired of the obtuseness of Church and State; indignant at the injustice of both towards woman ; at the wrongs inflicted upon one-half of humanity by the other half in the name of religion; finding appeal and argument alike met by the asser- tion that God designed the subjection of woman, and yet that her position had been higher under Christian- ity than ever before : Continually hearing these state- ments, and knowing them to be false, I refuted them in a slight rtsumt of the subject at the annual conven- tion of the National Woman Suffrage Association, Washington, D. C., 1878. A wish to see that speech in print, having been expressed, it was allowed to appear in The National Citizen, a woman suffrage paper I then edited, and shortly afterwards in "The History of Woman Suf- frage," of which I was also an editor. The kindly re- ception given both in the United States and Europe, to that meager chapter of forty pages confirmed my purpose of a fuller .presentation of the subject in book form, and it now appears, the result of twenty years investigation, in a volume of over five hundred and fifty pages. Read it; examine for yourselves; accept or reject from the proof offered, but do not allow the Church or the State, to govern your thought or dictate your judgment. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE MATRIARCHATE. Tendency of Christianity from the first to restrict woman's liberty. Woman had great freedom under the old civilizations. The Matriarchate; its traces among many nations; it preceded the Patriarchate. The Iroquois or Six Nations under reminiscences of the Matriarchate. Government of the United States borrowed from the Six Nations. To the Matriarchate or Mother-rule, is the world indebted for its first conception of -'inherent rights," and a government estab- lished on this basis. Malabar under the Matriarchate when discovered by the Portuguese. The most ancient Aryans under the Matriarchate. Ancient Egypt a reminiscence of the Matriarchal period. Authority of the wife among the most polished nations of antiquity. As Vestal Virgin in Rome, woman's authority great both in civil and religious affairs. Monogamy the rule of the Matriarchate. Poly- gamy, infanticide and prostitution the rule of the Patriarchate 48. CHAPTER II. CELIBACY. Original sin. Woman not regarded as a human being by the church. Mar- riage looked upon as vile. Celibacy of the clergy; their degrading sensuality. A double Code of Morals. Celibacy confirmed as a dogma of the church. Many notable consequences followed. Wives sold as slaves. Women driven to suicide. Influence of the church unfavorable to virtue. Women of wealth drawn into monastic life. The church in Mexico. President Diaz. Protestant Orders 112. CHAPTER III. CANON LAW. The church makes the legitimacy of marriage depend upon its control of the ceremony. Change from ancient civilization to renewed barbarism at an early age of the Christian era, noted by historians, but its cause unperceived. The clergy a distinct body from the laity; their rights not the same. A holy sex and an unholy one. Rapid growth of Canon law in England. Alteration in the laws through the separation of Ecclesiastical courts from theCivil, recognized byBlack- stone as among the remarkable legal events of Great Britain. Learning prop- hibited to women. The oath of seven persons required to convict a priest. Hus- 7 8 CONTENTS bands prohibited by Canon law from leaving more than one-third of their pro- i rty to wives; might leave them less. Daughters could be disinherited; sons could not be. The Reformation effected no change. Governments catering to Pope Leo XIII., at time of his Jubilee; the President of the United States sends a gift 151. CHAPTER IV. MARQUETTE. Feudalism; its degradation of woman. Jus primcz noctis. Rights of the Lords Spiritual. Peasants decide not to marry. Immorality of the heads of the Greek and the Protestant churches. Breton Ballad of the Fourteenth Century. St. Margaret of Scotland. Pall Mall Gazette's disclosures. Foreign traffic in young English girls. West End. Eton. Prostitution chiefly supported by "Heads of Families." Northwestern Pineries. Governmental crime-makers. Rapid in- crease of child criminals. The White Cross society. Baptism of nude women in the early Christian Church 216 CHAPTER V. WITCHCRAFT. The possession of a pet of any kind dangerous to woman. Black cats and witches. The fact of a woman's possessing knowledge, brought her under sus- picion of the church. The three most distinguishing features of witchcraft. Op- position of the church to the growth of human will. Persecution for witchcraft a continuance of church policy for obtaining universal dominion over mankind. The Sabbat. The Black Masa. Women physicians and surgeons of the middle ages; they discover anaesthetics. Their learning; their persecution by the church. The most eminent legal minds incapable of forming correct judgment. Three nota- ble points in regard to witchcraft. Persecution introduced into America by the "Pilgrim Fathers." First Synod in America convened to try a woman for heresy. Whipping half nude women for their religious opinions. Famine caused by per- secution of women 294. CHAPTER VI. WIVES. "Usus." Disruption of the Roman Empire unfavorable to the personal and proprietary rights of woman. Sale of daughters practiced in England seven hundred years after the introduction of Christianity. The Mundium. The prac- tice of buying wives with cattle or money regulated by law. Evil fame of Chris- tendom. "The Worthier of Blood." Murder of a husband termed petit treason; punished by burning alive. Mrs. Sainio decapitated in Finland, 1892, for crime of petit treason. Husbands control wives' religion. The "Lucy Walker Case;" Judge Dodge decides a husband has a property interest in a wife. Davenport's Rules for his wife. Assaulting wives protected by law. The Ducking Stool; its use in England; brought to America by the "Pilgrim Fathers." Salic law. Gavel- kind. Women not permitted to read the Bible. "Masterless women." Woman CONTENTS 9 not admitted as a surety or witness. The Code Napoleon. Morganatic marriage. Ibsen's "Ghosts." Strindberg's "Giftas." Ancient Slavs. Russia under Greek Christianity. The Domstroi. Marriage forms. Burying wives alive. "Darkest England." Advertising wives. An English clergyman offers 100 reward for the capture and return of his wife. Civil marriage opposed by the church. Action of the Chilian Republic 397- CHAPTER VII. POLYGAMY. Polygamy sustained by the Christian Church and the Christian State. The first Synod of the Reformation convened to sanction polygamy. Favoring views of Luther and the other "principal reformers." Favoring action of the American Board of Foreign Missions. Favoring action of a Missionary Conference in India. Mormons compared to the Puritans. Mormon theocracy similar to that of other Christian sects 43! CHAPTER VIII. WOMAN AND WORK. God's "curse" upon Adam. Opposition of the church to amelioration of woman's suffering as an interference with her "curse." Man's escape from his own "curse." The sufferings of helpless infants and children because of woman's labor. Innutrition and the hard labor of expectant mothers the two great fac- tors in physical degeneration and infantile mortality. Woman's work in Europe and the United States. Woman degraded under Christian civilization to labors unfit for slaves 465. CHAPTER IX. THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY. Sin killed by sin. Woman's inferiority taught from the pulpit to-day. A Pas- toral letter. The See trial. Modern sermons on women. Lenten lectuies of Rev. Morgan A. Dix. The Methodist General Conference of 1880, rejects Miss Oliver's petition for ordination on the plea that woman already has all the rights that are good for her. Resolves itself into a political convention. The General Con- ference of 1888, rejects women delegates. The Catholic Plenary Council of 1884. Mazzini's prophecy. The opposition of the church to woman's education has killed off the inhabitants of the world with greater rapidity than war, famine or pestilence. The present forms of religion and governments essentially mascu- line, 524. CHAPTER X. PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE. The most important struggle in the history of the church. Not self-sacrifice, but self-development woman's first duty in life. The protective spirit; its injury to woman. Christanity of little value to civilization. Looking backward through history; looking forward 5 , 5 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE. CHAPTER I. THE MATRIARCHATE. Woman is told that her present position in society is entirely due to Christianity; that it is superior to that of her sex at any prior age of the world, Church and State both maintaining that she has ever been in- ferior and dependent, man superior and ruler. These assertions are made the basis of opposition to her demands for exact equality with man in all the relations of life, although they are not true either of the family, the church, or the state. Such assertions are due to non-acquaintance with the existing phase of historical knowledge, whose records the majority of mankind have neither time nor opportunity of investi- gating. Christianity tended somewhat from its foundation to restrict the liberty woman enjoyed under the old civil- izations, r Knowing that the position of every human being keeps pace with the religion and civilization of his country, and that in many ancient nations woman possessed a much greater degree of respect and power than she has at the present age, this subject will be presented from a historical standpoint. If in so doing it helps to show man's unwarranted usurpation over woman's religious and civil rights, and the very great difference between true religion and theology, this 11 12 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE book will not have been written in vain, as it will prove that the most grievous wrong ever inflicted upon woman has been in the Christian teaching that she was not created equal with man, and the consequent denial of her rightful place in Church and State. The last half century has shown great advance in historical knowledge; libraries and manuscripts long inaccessible have been opened to scholars, and the spirit of investigation has made known many secrets of the past, brought many hidden things to light. Buried cities have been explored and forced to reveal their secrets; lost modes of writing have been de- ciphered, and olden myths placed upon historic foun- dations. India is opening her stores of ancient liter- ature; Egypt, so wise and so famous, of which it was anciently said; " If it does not find a man mad it leaves him mad," has revealed her secrets; hieroglyph inscribed temples, obelisks and tombs have been interpreted; papyri buried 4,000 and more years in the folds of bandage-enveloped mummies have given their secrets to the world. The brick libraries of Assyria have been unearthed, and the lost civilization of Babylonia and Chaldea imparted to mankind. The strange Zuni's have found an interpreter; the ancient Astec language its Champollion, and the mysteries of even our western continent are becoming unveiled. Darkest Africa has opened to the light; the colossal images of Easter Island hint at their origin; while the new science of philology unfolds to us the history of peoples so completely lost that no other monument of their past remains. We are now informed as to the condition of early peoples, their laws, customs, habits, religion, comprising order and rank in the state, the rules of descent, name, property, the circumstances of THE MA.TRIARCHATE 13 family life, the position of mother, father, children, their temples and priestly orders; all these have been investigated and a new historic basis has been dis- covered. Never has research been so thorough or long-lost knowledge so fully given to the world. These records prove that woman had acquired great liberty under the old civilizations. A form of society existed at an early age known as the Matriarchate or Mother-rule. Under the Matriarchate, except as son and inferior, man was not recognized in either of these great institutions, family, state or church. A father and husband as^such, had no^place either in the social, political or religious scheme; woman was ruler in each. The primal priest on earth, she was also supreme as goddess in heaven. The earliest semblance of the family is traceable to the relationship of mother and\child alone. Here the primal idea of the family had birth. 1 The child bore its mother's name, tracing its descent from her ; her authority over it was regarded as in accordjvnthjnature ; the father having no part in the family remained a wand^rerj Long years elapsed before man, as husband and father, was held in esteem. The son, as child of his mother, ranked the father, the mother taking precedence over both the father and the son. 2 Blood relationship through a common mother preceded that of descent through the father in the development of society. 3 1. The first state of primitive man must have been the mere aggregation. The right of the mother was therefore most natural; upon the relationship of mother and child the remotest conception of the family was based. Wilkin, p. 869. 2. Where a god and goddess are worshiped together they are not husband and wife, but mother and son. Neither does the god take pre-eminence, but the mother or goddess. This condition dates from the earliest days of society, when marriage in our sense of the word was unknown, and when kinship and inheritance were in the female line. The Babylonian Ishtur of the Izdobar legend is a deity of this type. W. Robertson^Sntith : Kinship in Ancient Arabia, 3. Dr. Th. Achelis. Article on Ethnology T^The Open Court.} !4 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE This priority of the mother touched not alone the family, but controlled the state and indicated the form of religion. Thus we see that during the Matriarchate, woman ruled ; she was first in the family, the state, religion, the most ancient records showing that man's subjection to woman preceded by long ages that of woman to man. The tribe was united through the mother; social, political and religious life were all in harmony with the idea of woman as the first and highest power. The earliest phase of life being dependent upon her, she was recognized as the primal factor in every relation/ man holding no place but that of dependant. Every part of the world to-day gives evidence of the system ; reminiscences of the Matriarchate everywhere abound. Livingstone found African tribes swearing by the mother and tracing descent through her. Marco Polo discovered similar customs in his Asiatic voyages, and the same customs are extant among the Indians of our own continent. Baclcofen 5 and numerous in- vestigators 6 agree in the statement that in the earliest forms of society ; the family, government, and religion, were all under woman's control; that in fact society started under woman's absolute authority and power. The second step in family life took place when the father, dropping his own name, took that of his child. This old and wide-spread custom is still extant in many portions of the globe; the primitive peoples of Java, Australia and Madagascar are among those still 4. In a country where she is the head of the family, where she decides the descent and inheritance of her children, both in regard to property and place in society in such a community, she certainly cannot be the servant of her husband, but at least must be his equal if not in many respects his superior. Wilkin. 5. Motherright. 6. Lubbuck. Pre-Historic Tifnes and Origin of Civilization. Wilkin. THE MATRIARCHATE 15 continuing its practice. 7 By this step the father allied himself to both mother and child, although still hold- ing an inferior position to both. The Matriarchal family was now fully established, descent still running in the female line. Thus, as has been expressed, we find that woman's liberty did not begin to-day nor under modern religions or forms or government, but that she was in reajity the founder of civilization, and that in the most remote times woman enjoyed superi- ority of rights in all the institutions of life. 8 And yet so difficult is it to break away from educated thought, so slight a hold have historical facts upon the mind when contrary to pre-conceived ideas, that we find people still expressing the opinion that man's place has always been first in government. Even under those forms of society where woman was undis- puted head of the family, its very existence due to her, descent entirely in the female line, we still hear assertion that his must have been the controlling political power. But at that early period to which we trace the formation of the family, it was also the political unit. And when peoples became aggregated into communities, when tribal relations were ulti- mately recognized, woman still held superior position, and was the controlling power in government, and never was justice more perfect, never civilization higher than under the Matriarchate. Historians agree as to the high civilization even to-day of those nations 7. Among many people the father at birth of a child, especially a son, loses his name and takes the one his child gets. Tylor Primitive Culture, Also see Wilkin. 8. "Thus we see that woman's liberty did not begin at the upper, but at the lower end of civilization. Woman in those remote times w.ere endowed with and enjoyed rights that are denied to her but too completely in the higher phase of civilization This subject has a very important aspect,/, e. the position of woman to man, the place she holds in society, her condition in regard to her private and public (political) rights," 1 6 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE or tribes still preserving traces of Matriarchal customs. Even under its most degenerate form, the family, gov- ernmental and religious rights of women are more fully recognized than under any phase of Christian civilization. In all the oldest religions, equally with the Semetic cults, the feminine was recognized as a component and superior part of divinity, goddesses holding the supreme place. Even at much later periods woman shared equally with man in the highest priestly offices, and was deified after death. In Egypt, Neith the Victorious, was worshiped as mother of the gods, and in the yearly festival held in her honor, every family took part for the time holding a priestly office. To neglect this duty was deemed an omission of great irreverence. 9 The most ancient occultism recognized the creative power as feminine and preceding both gods and men. Under the Matriarchate, monogamy was the rule; neither polyandry or promiscuity existed. 10 For long years after the decline of the Matriarchate we still discover that among many of the most refined nations, woman still possessed much of the power that belonged exclusively to her during that early period. Ancient Egypt, recognized as the wisest nation since the direct historic period, traced descent even to the throne in the female line. To this remin- iscence of the Matriarchate are we indebted for the story of Moses and his preservation by an Egyptian princess in direct contravention of the Pharaoh's orders, as told by the Bible and Josephus. She not alone preserved the child's life but carried him to the 9. "Among the monogamous classic nations of antiquity,the maternal deity was worshiped with religious ceremonies." 10. We find the mother's right exclusively together with a well-estab lished monogamy. Bachofen. TEE MATRIARCHATE 17 king as her son given to her by the bounty of the river and heir to his throne. As showing woman's power in that kingdom, the story is worthy of being farther traced. Josephus says that to please his daughter, the king took the child in his arms, placing his crown on the baby head, but the chief priest at that moment entering the room, in a spirit of prophecy cried aloud, "Oh King; this is the child of whom I fore- told danger; kill him and save the nation, "at the same time striving to take the babe from the king. But the princess caught him away thus setting both kingly and priestly power at defiance, taking this step by virtue of her greater authority, protecting him until he reached manhood and causing him to be educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, in a college under her own control. Nor in the supreme hour of the nation's peril, when the king, too old to lead his armies to battle, demanded Moses as heir to the throne in his place, would she give him up until she had exacted an oath from her father, the potent Pharaoh, that he meant the youth no harm. The famous Iroquois Indians, or Six Nations, which at the discovery of America held sway from the great lakes to the Tombigbee river, from the Hudson to the Ohio, and of whom it has been said that another century would have found them master of all tribes to the Gulf of Mexico on the south, and the Mississippi on the west, showed alike in form of government, and in social life, reminiscences of the Matriarchate. The line of descent, feminine, was especially notable in all tribal relations such as the election of Chiefs, and the Council of Matrons, to which all disputed questions were referred for final adjudication. No sale of lands was valid without consent of the squaws and among IS WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE the State Archives at Albany, New York, treaties are / preserved signed by the "Sachems and Principal Women of the Six Nations." 11 The women also pos- sessed the veto power on questions of war. Sir William Johnston mentions an instance of Mohawk squaws forbidding the war-path to young braves. The family relation among the Iroquois demonstrated woman's superiority in power. When an Indian husband brought the products of the chase to the wigwam, his control over it ceased. In the home, the wife was absolute; the sale of the skins was regulated by her, the price was paid to her. If for any cause the Iroquois husband and wife separated, the wife took with her all the property she had brought into the wigwam; the children also accompanied the mother, whose right to them was recognized as supreme. So fully to this day is descent reckoned through the mother, that blue- eyed, fair-haired children of white fathers are num- bered in the tribe and receive both from state and nation their portion of the yearly dole paid to Indian tribes. The veriest pagan among the Iroquois, the re- nowned and important Keeper of the Wampum, and present sole interpreter of the Belts which give the most ancient and secret history of this confederation, is Ephraim Webster, descended from a white man, who, a hundred or more years since, became affiliated through marriage with an Indian woman, as a member of the principal nation of the Iroquois, the Onondagas. As of yore, so now, the greater and lesser Council Houses of the Iroquois are upon the "mountain" of the Onondaga reservation a few miles from the city of Syracuse, New York. Not alone the Iroquois but most Indians of North America trace descent in the ii. Documentary History of New York. THE MATRIARCHATE IQ female line; among some tribes woman enjoys almost the whole legislative authority and in others a prom- inent share. 12 Lafitte and other Jesuit missionary writers are corroborted in this statement by School- craft, Catlin, Clark, Hubert Bancroft of the Pacific coast, and many students of Indian life and customs. But the most notable fact connected with woman's participation in governmental affairs among the Iroquois is the statement of Hon. George Bancroft that the form of government of the United States, was borrowed from that of the Six Nations. 13 Thus to the Mat- riarchate or Mother-rule is the modern world indebt- ed for its first conception of inherent rights, natural equality of condition, and the establishment of a civil- ized government upon this basis. Although the repu- tation of the Iroquois as warriors appears most prom- inent in history, we nevertheless find their real principles to have been the true Matriarchal one of peace and industry. Driven from the northern portion of America by vindictive foes, compelled to take up arms in self-protection, yet the more peaceful occupa- tions of hunting and agriculture were continually fol- lowed. Their history was preserved by means of wampum, while under their women the science of gov- ernment reached the highest form known to the world. Among the Zunis of Mexico, woman still preserves supreme religious and political authority; the Par- amount Council consisting of six priests under control of a supreme priestess who is the most important functionary of the tribe. 14 This form of govern- ment is traceable to their earliest civilization at which period their cities were grouped in sevens, six of 12. Alexander: History of Women. 13. History of the United States, Vol. I. 14. Gushing. 20 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE them constructed upon a uniform plan; the supreme seventh containing six temples clustered about a supreme central seventh temple. While male priests ruled over the six primal cities the central and superior seventh was presided over by a priestess who not alone officiated at the central temple, but to whom the male priests of the six cities and six inferior temples were subservient. The ancient Lycians, the Sclavs, the Basques of Spain, 15 the Veddas of Ceylon, 16 the inhabitants of Malabar, the aborigines of widely separated lands, all show convincing proof of woman's early superiority in religion, in the state, and in the family. Monogamy was a marked feature of the Mat- riarchate ; Backofen, who has written voluminously upon the Matriarchate, recognizes it as peculiarly char- acteristic of woman's government. He also says the people who possessed the Mother-rule together with Gynaikokraty (girls' rule,) excelled in their love of peace and justice. Under the Matriarchal family and tribal system even long after its partial supercedence by the incoming Patriarachate, the marriage relation was less oppressive to woman than it has been under most centuries of Christian civilization. Daughters were free in their choice of husbands, no form of a force or sale existing. 17 15. "What is most to be considered in this respect are the political rights which women in time of the Matriarchate shared with the men. They had indeed the right to vote in public assemblies still exercised not very long ago among the Basques in the Spanish provinces." 16. That the Veddas are the aborigines of Ceylon may be assumed from the fact that the highly civilized Singalese admit them to be of noble rank. Pre- Historic Times. Lubbuck. 17. "We find in some instances this independence of the maiden in regard to disposing of her hand, or selecting a husband as a memento of the time of the Matriarchate. * * The most remarkable instance of the self-disposition of woman we find among the ancient Arabs and the Hindoos; among the latter the virgin was permitted to select her own husband if her father did not give her in marriage within three years after her maturity." r?/jya THE MATRIARCHATE 21 / One of the most brilliant modern examples of the /Matriarchate was found in Malabar at the time of its discovery by the Portuguese in the XV century. The Nairs i were found to possess a fine civilization, entirely under the control of women, at a period when woman's position in England and on the Continent of Europe, was that of a household and political slave. Of Mala- bar it has been said, that when the Portuguese became acquainted with the country and the people, they were not so much surprised by the opulence of their cities, the splendor of all their habits of living, the great perfection of their navy, the high state of the arts, as they were to find all this under the entire control and government of women. The difference in civilization between Christian Europe and pagan Malabar at the time of its discovery was indeed great. While Europe with its new art of printing, was struggling against the church for permission to use type, its institutions of learning few, its opportunities for education meagre; its terrible inquisition crushing free thought and sending thousands each year to a most painful death, the un- i cleanliness of its cities and the country such as to bring. \ frequent visits of the plague; its armies and its navies \ with but one exception, imperfect; its women forbid- den the right of inheritance, religious, political, or household authority; the feminine principle en- / tirely eliminated from the divinity a purely mascu- line God the universal object of worship, all was directly the opposite in Malabar. Cleanliness, peace,! the arts, a just form of government, the recognition of the feminine both in humanity and in the divinity were found in Malabar. To the question of a Danish\ missionary concerning their opinion of a Supreme Be-1 ing, this beautiful answer was given. 22 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE The Supreme Being has a Form and yet has no Form ; he can be likened to nothing; we cannot define him and say that he is this or that; he is neither Man or Woman; neither Heaven or Earth, and yet he is all; subject to no corruption, no mortality and with neither sleep nor rest, he is Almighty and Omnipotent without Beginning and without End. 18 Under the Missionaries sent by England to intro- duce her own barbaric ideas of God and man, this beautiful Matriarchal civilization of Malabar soon ret- rograded and was lost. The ancient Mound Builders of America, of whom history is silent and science profoundly ignorant, are proven by means of symbolism to have been under Matriarchal rule, and Motherhood religion. Ancient- ly motherhood was represented by a sphere or circle. The circle like the mundane egg which is but an elongated circle, contains everything in itself and is the true microcosm. It is eternity, it is feminine, the creative force, representing spirit. Through its union with matter in the form of the nine digits it is like- wise capable of representing all natural things. 19 The perfect circle of Giotto was an emblem of divine motherhood in its completeness. It is a remarkable fact its significance not recognized, that the roughly sketched diameter within the circle, found wherever boys congregate, is an ancient mystic sign 80 signi- fying the male and female, or the double-sexed deity. It is the union of all numbers, the one within the 18. Account of the Religion, Manners, etc., of the People of Malabar, etc., trans- lated by Mr. Phillips, 1718. 19. Among the illustrative types of interior realities and the elementary geo- metric forms, point, direct line and deflected line, the last of which is a true arc produces the circle when carried to its ultimate, this circle representing the triune order of movement; the point in the line, the line in the curve, and the curve in the circle The Path. 20. The phallus and lingum (or lingum and yoni), the point within the circle or diameter within the circle. Volney's Ruins, THE MATRIARCHATE 23 zero mark comprising ten, and as part of the ancient mysteries signifying God, the creative power, and eternal life; it was an emblem of The All. In many old religions, the generative principle was regarded as the mother of both gods and men. In the Christian religion we find tendency to a similar recog- nition in Catholic worship of the Virgin Mary. The most ancient Aryans were under the Matriarchate, the feminine recognized as the creative power. The word "ma" from which all descendantT~oT~thbse peoples de- rive\ their names for mother, was synonomous with 'Creator.' Renouf, the great antiquarian authority up- on the Aryan's, 21 gives the songs and ceremonies of the wedding. In these, the woman is represented as having descended to man from association with divine beings in whose custody and care she has been, and who give her up with reluctance. In Sanscrit mythology, 22 the feminine is represented by Swrya, the Sun, the source of life, while the masculine is described as Soma, a body. Soma, a beverage of the gods espec- ially sacred to Indra was the price paid by him for the assistance of Vayu, the swiftest of the gods, in his battle against the demon Vritra. A curious line of thought is suggested. The marriage of the man to the woman was symbolized as his union with the gods. Soma, a drink devoted to Indra, the highest god, sig- nified his use of a body, or the union of spirit and body. In the same manner, woman representing spirit, by her marriage to man became united with a body. As during the present dark age, the body has been re- garded more highly than the spirit, we find a non-re- cognition of the woman, although the union of spirit 21. Chips from a German \Vork-Shop. Max Muller. 22. All mythology has pertinently been characterized as ill-remembered history. 24 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE and body is symbolized in the Christian church by the sacrament of bread and wine. During the purest period of Aryan history marriage was entirely optional with woman and when entered into, frequent- ly meant no more than spiritual companionship. Woman equally with man was entitled to the Brah- minical thread; she also possessed the right to study and preach the Vedas, which was in itself a proof of her high position in this race. The Vedas, believed to be the oldest literature extant, were for many ages taught orally requiring years of close application upon part of both teacher and student. The word "Veda" signifies to-know; the latter from "Vidya" m&ai\\ng(wise. Th^ English term widow is tracaBTe to both forms of the word, meaning a wise woman one who knows man. Many ages passed be- fore the Vedas were committed to writing. 23 At that early day the ancestral worship of women departed mothers was as frequent as that of departed fathers, women conducting such services which took place three times a day. In the old Aryan Scriptures the right of woman to hold property, and to her chil- dren, was much more fully recognized, than under the Christian codes of to-day. Many of the olden rights of women are still extant in India. The learned Keshub Chunder Sen vigorously protested against the introduction of English law into India, upon the ground that it would destroy the ancient rights of the 23. In the Rig-Veda, a work not committed to writing until after that move- ment of the Aryans, which resulted in the establishment of Persia and India. * * there is nothing more striking than the status of woman at that early age. Then the departed mothers were served as faithfully by the younger members of the family as departed fathers. The mother quite as often, if not more fre- quently than the father, conducted the services of the dead ancestry, which took place three times a day, often consisting of improvised poetry. Elizabeth Pea- body on the Aryans. THE MATRIARCHATE 25 women of that country. It was primal Indian law that upon the death of the husband the wife should heir all his property. Marriage was regarded as an eternal union, the two, by this act, having so fully be- come one, that upon the husband's death, one half of his body was still living. The property and the child- ren were held as equally belonging to the husband or the wife. Colebrook's Digest of Hindoo Law, compiled from the writings of the Bengal Pundit Jergunnat, 'NaTer- capanchama, from those of Vasist ha, Oatayana, and other Indian authorities says: In the Veda, in Codes of Law, in sacred ordinances, the wife is held as one person with the husband; both are considered one. When the wife is not dead, half the body remains; how shall another take the property when half the body of the owner lives? After the death of the husband the widow shall take his wealth; this is primeval law. Though a woman be dependent, the alienation of female property, or of the mother's right over her son by the gift of a husband alone 24 is not valid in law or reason; The female property of wives like the property of a stranger, may not be given, for there is want of own- ership. Neither the husband, nor the son, nor the father, nor the brother, have power to use or alien the legal property of a woman. We hold it proper that the wife's co-operation shall be required in civil contracts and in religious acts under the text. A gift to a wife is irrevocable. The collection of East Indian laws made under authority of the celebrated Warren Hastings, 1776, 24. There are but few of the United States in which the authority of the father to bind out a living child or to will away an unborn one, is not recognized as valid without the mother's consent. 26 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE is of similar character. The kinds of property a wife can hold separate from her husband at her own dis- posal by will, are specified. During long centuries while under Christian law the Christian wife was not allowed even the control of property her own at the time of marriage, or of that which might afterwards be given her, and her right of the disposition of property at the time of her death was not recognized in Christian lands, the Hindoo wife, under immemorial custom could receive prop- erty by gift alike from her parents, or from strangers, or acquire it by her own industry, and property thus gained was at her own disposal in case of her death. Another remarkable feature of Indian law contrasting with that of Christian lands was preference of woman over man in heirship. In case of a daughter's death, *he mother heired in preference to father, son, or even husband. That is called a woman's property; First. What- ever she owns during the Agamini Shadee, i. e. Days of Marriage; Whatever she may receive from any person as she is going to her husband's home or coming from thence. Whatever her husband may at any time have given her; whatever she has received at any time from a brother; and whatever her father and mother may have given her. Whatever her husband on contracting a second mar- riage may give her to pacify her. Whatever a person may have given a woman for food or clothing. Whatever jewelry or wearing apparel she may have received from any person; also whatever a woman may receive from any person as an acknowledgment of payment for any work performed by her. Whatever she may by accident have found anywhere. THE MATRIARCHATE 27 Whatever she may gain by painting, spinning, needle-work or any employment of this kind. Except from one of the family of her father, one of the family of her mother, or one of the family of her husband, whatever she may receive from any other person. Also if the father or mother of a girl give anything to their son-in-law, saying at the same time: "This shall go to our daughter," and even without any words to this purpose at the time of making the gift, if they merely have it in their intention that the thing thus given should revert to their daughter, all and every one of these articles are called a woman's porperty. Her right of final disposal by will is also specified. Her effects acquired during marriage go to her daugh- ters in preference to her sons, and possessing no daughters, to her mother. When a woman dies, then whatever effects she ac- quired during the Agamini Shadee, even though she hath a son living, shall go first to her unmarried daughter; if there is but one unmarried daughter she shall obtain the whole; if there are several unmarried daughters, they all shall have equal share. Property under the three forms of marriage, if no unmarried daughters and others mentioned here, goes to her mother before to her father; and if neither, to her husband, and if no husband to husband's younger brother, or several younger brothers, (if several). The specification of gifts of intention is remarkable in securing property to the wife that was seemingly given by the parents to the husband alone. An equally remarkable fact is the father's heirship in preference to the husband's, and the heirship of the daughters and mother in preference to any male rela- tive howe-* .r near, and is in striking contrast to Christian law in reference to woman's property. If a husband neglect to provide his wife necessary food and clothing, the East Indian wife is allowed to pro- 28 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE cure them by any means in her power. Maine has not failed to recognize the superior authority of the eastern wife in relation to property over that of the Christian wife. He says: "The settled property of a married woman inca- pable of alienation by her husband, is well known to the Hindoos under the name of Stridham." It is certainly a remarkable fact that the institu- tion seems to have developed among the Hindoos at a period relatively much earlier than among the Romans. The Mitakshara, one of the oldest and most revered authorities of the Hindoo judicial treatises, defines Stridham, or woman's property, as that which is given to the wife by the father, the mother, or a brother at the time of the wedding, before the nuptial fire. But adds Maine: "The compiler of Mitakshara adds a proportion not found elsewhere; also property which she may have acquired by inheritance, purchase, partition, seizure or finding, is denominated woman's property. * * If all this be Stridham, it follows that the ancient Hindoo law secured to married women an even greater degree of proprietary independence than that given to them by the modern English Married Woman's Property Act. Property is common to the husband and the wife. The ample support of those who are entitled to main- tainance, is rewarded with bliss in heaven; but hell is the portion of that man whose family is afflicted with pain by his neglect. Therefore the Hindoo hus- band is taught to maintain his family with the utmost care. Maxims from the sacred books show the regard in which the Hindoo woman is held: "He who despises woman despises his mother." "Who is cursed by woman is cursed by God." "The tears of a woman call down the fire of heaven on those who make them flow." "Evil to him who laughs at woman's sufferings; God shall laugh at his prayers." THE MATRIARCHATE 29 "It was at the prayer of a woman that the Creator pardoned man; cursed be he who forgets it." "Who shall forget the sufferings of his mother at his birth shall be reborn in the body of an owl during three successive transmigrations." "There is no crime more odious than to persecute woman." "When women are honored the divinities are con- tent; but when they are not honored all undertakings fail." "The households cursed by women to whom they have not rendered the homage due them, find themselves weighed down with ruin and destroyed as if they had been struck by some secret power. " "We will not admit the people of to-day are inca- pable of comprehending woman, who alone can regen- erate them." The marriage ceremony is of the slightest kind and under three forms: 1. Of mutual consent by the interchange of neck- laces or strings of flowers in some secret place. 2. A woman says, "I am become your wife," and the man says, "I acknowedge it." 3. When the parents of a girl on her marriage day say to the bridegroom: "Whatever act of religion you perform, perform it with our daughter," and the bridegroom assents to this speech. The comparatively modern custom of suttee origi- nated with the priests, whose avaricious desires created this system in order thereby to secure the property of the widow. The Vedas do not counte- nance either suttee or the widow's relinquishment of her property, the law specifically declaring "If a widow should gi v e all her property and estate to the Brahmins for religious purposes, the gift indeed is valid, but the act is improper and the woman blam- able. " An ancient scripture declares that "All the wisdom of the Vedas, and all that has been written in 30 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE books, is to be found concealed in the heart of a woman." It is a Hindoo maxim that one mother is worth a thousand fathers, because the mother carries and nourishes the infant from her own body, therefore the mother is most reverenced. A Hindoo proverb declares that "Who leaves his family naked and unfed may taste honey at first, but shall afterwards find it poison." Another says, "A wife is a friend in the house of the good." Ancient Egypt worshiped two classes of gods; one purely spiritual and eternal, the other secondary but best beloved, were believed to have been human beings who from the services they had rendered to humanity were upon death admitted to the assembly of the gods. Such deification common in ancient times, is still customary in some parts of the earth. Within the past few years a countryman of our own was thus apotheosized by the Chinese to whom he had rendered valuable service at the time of the Tae-ping rebel- lion. 25 Ancient Egyptians recognized a masculine and feminine principle entering in all things both material and spiritual. Isis, the best beloved and most worshiped of the secondary gods, was believed by them to have been a woman who at an early period of Egyptian history had rendered that people invaluable service. She was acknowledged as their earliest law-maker, through whose teaching the people had risen from barbarism to civilization. She taught 26. Ward, the American who rendered such service to the Chinese Emperor, has been deified. The Emperor, in a recent edict, has placed him among the major gods of China, commanding shrines to be built and worship to be paid to the memory of this American. The people are worshiping him along with the most ancient and powerful deities of their religion as a great deliverer from war and famine as a powerful god in the form of man. In every household, school and temple, his name will be thus commemorated. Newspaper Report, THE MARIARCHATE 3! them the art of making bread 26 from the cereals there- tofore growing wild and unused, the inhabitants at an early day living upon roots and herbs. Egypt soon became the grain growing portion of the globe, her enormous crops of wheat not alone aiding herself, but rendering the long stability of the Roman Empire pos- sible. The science of medicine was believed to have originated with Isis; she was also said to have in- vented the art of embalming, established their litera- ture, founded their religion. The whole Egyptian civilization was ascribed to the .woman-goddess, Isis, whose name primarily Ish-Ish, signified Light, Life. 27 Isis, and Nepthys the Lady of the House were wor- shiped as the Beginning and the End. They were the Alpha and Omega of the most ancient Egyptian relig- ion. The statues of Isis bore this inscription: "I am all that has been, all that shall be, and none among mortals has hitherto taken off my veil." Isis was believed to contain germs within herself for the reproduction of all living things. The most universal of her 10,000 names was, "Potent Mother Goddess." This Egyptian regard for Isis is an ex- tremely curious and interesting reminiscence of the Matriarchal period. Her worship was universal throughout Egypt. Her temples were magnificent. Her priests, consecrated to purity, were required to bathe daily, to wear Ij'ien garments unmixed with animal fibre, to abstain from animal food, and also 26. Diodorus Siculus. 27. "I am nature, the parent of all things, the sovereign of the elements, the primary progeny of time, the most exalted of the deities, the first of the heavenly gods and goddesses, the queen of the shades, the uniform countenance- who dispose with my rod the innumerable lights of heaven." 28. The salubrious breezes of the sea, and the mournful silence of the dead' whose single deity the whole world venerates in many forms with various rites and many names. The Egyptians, skilled in ancient lore, worship me with proper ceremonies and call me by my true name Queen Isis. WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE from those vegetables regarded as impure. 29 Two magnificent festivals were yearly celebrated in her honor, the whole people taking part. During one of these festivals her priests bore a golden ship in the procession. The ship, or arkf is peculiarly signifi- cative of the feminine principle, and wherever found is a reminiscence of the Matriarchate. The most sacred mysteries of the Egyptian religion, whose secrets even Pythagorus could not penetrate, to which Herodotus alluded with awe, and that were unknown to any per- son except the highest order of priests, owed their institution to Isis, and were based upon moral re- sponsibility and a belief in a future life. The im- mortality of the soul was the underlying principle of the Egyptian religion. Isis seems to have been one of those extraordinary individuals, such as occasionally in the history of the world, have created a literature, founded a religion, established a nationality. She was a person of super- ior mentality, with power to diffuse intelligence. Moses, "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyp- tians," borrowed much from Isis. The forms and ceremonies used in her worship were largely copied by him, yet lacked the great moral element immortal life so conspicuously taught as a part of Egyptian religion. The Sacred Songs of Isis were an important part of the literature of Egypt. Plato, who burned his own poems after reading Homer, declared them worthy of the divinity, believing them to be literally 10,000 years old. 31 All orders of the priesthood were open to women in Egypt; sacred colleges existed for 29. Leeks, garlic, onions and beans. 30. All the ancient nations appear to have had an ark or archa, in which to conceal something sacred. Godfrey Higgins, Anacalpsis /, 347. 31. The Sacred Song of Moses and Miriam was an early part of Jewish literature; the idea was borrowed, like the ark from the religion of Isis. THE MATRIARCHATE 33 them, within whose walls dwelt an order of priest- esses known as "God's Hand," "God's Star." Its ranks were recruited from women of the principal families, whose only employment was the service of the gods. "Daughter of the Deity," signified a priestess. Women performed the most holy offices of religion, carrying the Sacred Sistrum and offering sacrifices of milk, both ceremonies of great dignity and import- ance, being regarded as the most sacred service of the divinity. Such sacrificial rites were confined to queens and princesses of the royal household. Ame*s-Nofri- Ari, a queen who received great honor from Egyptians, spoken of as the "goddess-wife of Amun," the supreme god of Thebes, for whose worship the wonderful temple ot Karnak was founded by a Pharaoh of the XII. dynasty, is depicted on the monuments as the Chief High Priest the Sem, whose specific duty was offering sacrifices and pouring out libations in that temple. By virtue of her high office she preceded her husband, the powerful and renowned Rameses II. The high offices of the church were as habitually held by women as by men; Princese Neferhotep, of the fifth dynasty, was both a priestess and a prophetess of the goddesses Hathor and Neith, the representatives of celestial space, in which things were both created and preserved. A priestess and priest in time of the XIII. Pharaoh represented on a slab of limestone, in possession of the Ashmolean Library of Oxford, England, is believed to be the oldest monument of its kind in the world, dating to 3,500, B. C. Queen Hatasu, the light of the brilliant XVIII. dynasty, is depicted upon the monuments as preceding 34 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE in acts of worship, the great Thotmes III, her brother, whom she had associated with herself upon the throne, but who did not acquire supreme power until after her death. 32 The reign of Hatasu was pre-eminent as the great architectural period of Egypt, the engraving upon monuments during her reign, closely resembling the finest Greek intaglio. Egypt so famous for her gardens and her art of forcing blossoms out of season, was indebted to this great queen for the first acclimat- izing of plants. Upon one of her voyages she brought with her in baskets filled with earth several of those Balsam trees from Arabia, which were numbered among the precious gifts of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. The red granite obelisks erected by Hatasu before the gates of Karnak, the most magnificent and loftiest ever erected in Egypt, were ninety-seven feet in height and surmounted by a pyramid of gold. As early as the XI. Pharaoh, II. dynasty, the royal succession became fixed in the female line. A prin- cess was endowed with privileges superior to a prince, her brother, her children reigning by royal prerogative even when her husband was a commoner; the child- ren of a prince of the Pharaonic house making such marriage were declared illegitimate. From the highest to the most humble priestly office, women officiated in Egypt. A class of sacred women were doorkeepers of temples, another order known as "Sacred Scribes" were paid great deference. The Pellices or Pellucidae of Amun were a remarkable body of priestesses whose burial place has but recently been discovered. They were especially devoted to the service of Amun-Ra, the Theban Jove. Egypt was in- 32. The throne of this brilliant queen who reigned 1600 years B. C. has recently been deposited in the British Museum. Her portrait, also brought to light, shows Caucasian features with a dimpled chin. THE MATRIARCHATE 35 debted to priestesses for some of its most important lit- erature. To Penthelia, a priestess of Phtha 33 the God of Fire, in Memphis, Bryant ascribes the author- ship of the Illiad and the Odyssey, Homer 34 in his travels through that country by aid of a suborned priest, having stolen these poems from the archives of the temples of Phtha where they had been deposited for safe keeping. The priestly class of prophetesses was large in Egypt, their predictions not infrequently changing the course of that country's history. To his daughter, the prophet-priestess Athryte, was the great Rameses IE, indebted for the prophesy which led him into his con- quering and victorious career. Known as one of the four great conquerors of antiquity, 35 reigning sixty years, he greatly added to the wealth and renown of Egypt. The class of priestesses called Sibyls, were early known in Egypt, India, and other portions of the an- cient world. They were regarded as the most holy order of the priesthood and held to be in indirect communion 33. Bryant was an English writer of the last century, a graduate of Cambridge who looked into many abstruse questions relating to ancient history. In 1796, eight years before his death, he published "A Dissertation Concerning the War of Troy" 34. That Homer came into Egypt, amongst other arguments they endeavor to prove it especially by the potion Helen gave Telemachus in the story of Menalaus to cause him to forget all his sorrows past, for the poet seems to have made an exact experiment of the potion Nepenthes, which he says Helen received from Polymnestes, the wife of Thonus, and brought it from Thebes in Egypt; and indeed in that city, even at this day, the women use this medicine with good success, and they say that in ancient times the medicine for the cure of anger and sorrow was only to be found among the Diospolitans, Thebes and Diospolis being affirmed by them to the and the same city. Diodorus Sicu- lus, Vol. I, Chap. VII. 35. The remaining three were Cyrns, Nebuchadnezzar and Alexander. Cyrus met defeat and death at the hands of Tomyris, queen of the Scythians, who caused him to be crucified, a punishment deemed so ignominious by the Romans that it was not inflicted upon the most criminal of their citizens. Be- cause of his barbarity, Tomyris caused the head of Cyrus to be plunged into a sack of blood "that he might drink his fill." 36 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE with the gods, who through them revealed secrets to the lower order of priests; the word Sibyl originat- ing from Syros, i. e. God. The learned Beale defines Sibyl as thought, therefore a woman in possession of God's thought. The names of ten renowned Sibyls have come down to our day. The Sibyline Books for many years governed the destinies of Rome. Oracles were rendered from the lips of a priestess known as the Pythia; the famous Delphian Shrine for ages rul- ing the course of kings and nations. Upon the monuments of Egypt, those indisputable historic records, queens alone are found wearing the triple crown, significant of ecclesiastical, judicial and civil power, thus confirming the statement of Diodorus that queens were shown greater respect and possessed more power thari kings: the pope alone in modern times claiming the embJematic triple crown. A comparison between the men and women of the common people of this country, shows no less favor- ably for the latter. Women were traders, buying and selling in the markets while the men engaged in the more laborious work of weaving at home. Woman's medical and hygienic knowledge is proven by the small number of infantile deaths. 36 At the marriage ceremony the husband promised obedience to the wife in all things, took her name, and his property passed into her control; according to Wilkinson great harmony existed in the marriage relation, the husband and wife sitting upon the same double chair in life and resting at death in the same tomb. Montesquieu says: It must be admitted although it shocks our present customs, that among the most polished peoples, wives 36. Very few mummies of children have been found. Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians. THE MATRIARCHATE 37 have always had authority over their husbands. The Egyptians established it by law in honor of Isis, and the Babylonians did the same in time of Semiramis. It has been said of the Romans that they ruled all nations but obeyed their wives. Crimes against women were rare in Egypt and when occuring were most severely punished. 37 Rameses III. caused this inscription to be engraved upon his monuments: To unprotected woman there is freedom to wander through the whole country wheresoever she list with- out apprehending danger. A woman was one of the founders of the ancient Parsee religion, which taught the existence of but a single god, thus introducing monotheism into that rare old kingdom, j Until the introduction of Christianity woman largely preserved the liberty belonging to her in the old civilizations. Of her position under Roman law before this period Maine, (Gaius), says; The juriconsulists had evidently at this time assumed the equality of the sexes as a principle of the law of equity. The situation of the Roman woman whether married or single became one of great per- sonal and proprietary independence; but Christianity tended somewhat from the commencement to narrow this remarkable liberty. The prevailing state of relig- ious sentiment may explain why modern jurisprudence ; has adopted these rules concerning the position of women which belong to an imperfect civilization. No society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by middle Roman law. Canon law has deeply injured civilization. Rome not only secured remarkable personal and 37. In relation to women the laws were very severe; for one that committed a a rape upon a free woman was condemned to have his privy member cut ofl;Jfgr they judged that the three most heinous offenses were included In that one vile act, that is wrong, defilement and bastardy. Diodorus, Vol. I, Chap. VII. 38 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE proprietary rights to woman, but as Vestal Virgin, she held the highest priestly office. No shrine equalled that of the Vestals in sanctity; none was so honored by the state. To their care the sacred Fire was entrusted, and also the Palladium; those unknown arti- cles upon whose preservation not alone the welfare but the very existence of Rome was held to depend. The most important secrets of state were entrusted to them and their influence in civil affairs was scarcely secondary to their religious authority. In troubled times, in civil wars, in extreme emergencies of the commonwealth they acted as ambassdors, or were chosen umpires to restore peace between the parties. In state ceremonies, in the most solemn, civil or religious meetings they performed important duties. They were superior to the common law or the author- ity of the consul. The most important secrets were entrusted to them, wills of the emperors and docu- ments of state confided to their care; offenses against them were punished with death. If meeting a crimi- nal on his way to excution, he was pardoned as a direct intervention of heaven in his behalf. Among their important privileges was exemption from public taxes, the right to make a will, interment within the city walls, the right to drive in the city where no other carriage was allowed; even the consuls were obliged to make room for them to pass. Chosen from noble families when between the ages of six and ten, their terms of service was thirty years. The order of Vestal Virgins flourished eleven hun- dred years having been founded seven hundred years before the Christian era and continuing four hundred years afterwards. But those women all young, all between the ages of six years and forty, so closely THE MATRIARCHATE 39 guarded the secrets of the Penetralia that to this day they still remain as unknown as when in their charge. The order was destroyed in the fourth century, but the ruins of their temple recently discovered, prove that when obliged to flee from the sacred enclosure they first demolished the most holy portion where the secrets of Rome were hidden. 38 Recent important archaeological discoveries at the Atrium Vertse in the Forum, corroborate history in regard to the high posi- tion and extraordinary privileges of the Vestals. Sev- eral statues have been found representing the sacred maiden with the historic fillet about her head and the cord beneath her breast. Medallions worn upon the breast of their horses have also been unearthed. The wealth of the order was extremely great, both its public and private property being exempt from that conscription which in times of war reached all but a few favored individuals. The names by which Imperial Rome was known were all feminine; Roma, Flora, Valentia; nearly its first and greatest goddess was Vesta. 39 Sacred and secret were originally synonymous terms. All learning was sacred, consequently secret, and as only those possessed of learning were eligible to the priestly office it is readily seen that knowledge was a common heritage of primitive women. Letters, numbers, astrology, geography and all branches of science were secrets known only to initiates. The origin of the most celebrated mysteries, the Eleusinian, and those of Isis, were attributed to woman, the most perfect temple of ancient or modern times, the 38. Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries. Chapter on the Vestals. Lanciani. 39. The Anacalypsis II, 241. 40 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE Parthenon, or Temple of the Virgins, was dedicated to the goddess Minerva. Chryseis was priestess of Juno in Argo. This office was of great civil as well as religious importance regulating their dates and chronology. To the present day in China, woman assists at the altar in ancestral worship, the prevailing form of religious adoration. The mother of a family is treated with the greatest respect 40 and the combined male and female principle is represented in god under the name Fou-Fou, that is, Father-Mother.* 1 When the Emperor acting as high priest performs certain rites he is called Father- Mother of the people. Woman is endowed with the same political powers as man.* 2 The wife presides like her husband at family councils, trials, etc. As Regent, she governs the Empire with wisdom, digni- ty, power, as was shown during the co-regency of the Empresses of the East and of the West, their power continuing even after the promotion of a boy-heir to the throne. 40. According to Commissioner of Education, Chang Lai Sin, Chinese women can read and write, and when a husband wishes to do anything he con- sults with his wife, and when the son comes home, although he may be prime minister, he shows his respect to his mother by bending his knee. "I claim that the Chinese institutions and system of education, both with regard to men and women, are far superier to those of any of the neighboring nations for a great many centuries, and that it is only within this century that China, after having been defeated by so many reverses in her arms, has turned to a foreign country to the United States for example and instruction." 41. The Shakers hold that the revelation of God is progressive. That in the first or antediluvian period of human nature God was known only as a Great Spirit; that in the second or Jewish period he was revealed as the Jehovah. He, sheer a dual being, male or female, the "I am that I am;" that Jesus in the third cycle made God known as a father; and that in the last cycle commencing with 1770, A. D., "God is revealed in the character of Mother, an eternal Mother, the bearing spirit of all the creation of God." W. A. Parcelle. 42. In China the family acting through its natural representative is the politi- cal unit. This representative may be a woman. The only body in China that may be said to correspond with our law-making assemblies is the Academy of Science and Letters of Pekin,. and women are not excluded from that learned conclave. La Cite Ckinotse.G. Eugene Simon. THE MATRIARCHAHE 4! A Thibetan woman empire extant between the VI and VII centuries A. D. is spoken of by Chinese writers. An English author, Cooper, seems to have visited this region, meeting with an amusing venture while there. 43 Under the law of the Twelve Tables, founded A. U. C. 300, woman possessed the right of repudiation in marriage. The code itself was ascribed to a woman of that primitive Athens founded and governed by women long years previous to the date of modern Athens. The change in woman's condition for the worse under Christianity is very remarkable and every- where it is noticed. Among the Finns, before their conversion, the mother of a family took precedence of the father in the rites of domestic worship. Un- der the Angles, a wound inflicted upon a virgin was punished with double the penalty of the same injury inflicted upon a man, remarkable as showing the high esteem and reverence in which women were held. Before the introduction of Christianity, the Germans bound themselves to chasdjy in the marriage relation; under Catholocism the wife is required to promise the devotion of her body to the marital rite. German women served as priestesses of Hertha, and during the time of Rome's greatest power, Wala or Valleda, this title being significative of a supremely wise woman, a propnetess, was virtual ruler of the German- ic forces; Druses when about invading Germany was repelled by her simple command to "Go Back." But u mlej^j^&j^sjmrnt^ part in public affairs, education is denied, the most severe and degrading labor of field, streets and mine falls upon her, while in the family she^ is __serf_ tof; at her, brother, husband. $ c- ^ 43. Art Letter*, p. 3 22.-Bachofen. ^ &*' & ** 42 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE The women of ancient Scandinavia were treated with infinite respect; breach of marriage promise, was classed with perjury; its penalty was outlawry. Mar- riage was regarded as sacred and in many instances the husband was obliged to submit to the wife. 4 * Those old Berserkers reverenced their Alruna, or Holy Women, on earth and worshiped goddesses in heaven, where, according to Scandinavian belief, gods and goddesses sat together in a hall without distinction of sex. The whole ancient world recognized a female priest- hood, some peoples, like the Roman, making national safety dependent upon their ministration; others as in Egypt, according them pre-eminence in the priestly office, reverencing goddesses as superior to gods; still other as the Scandinavians, making no distinction in equality between gods and goddesses; others govern- ing the nation's course through oracles which fell from ferninine lips; still others looking to the Sibylline Books for like decision. 45 Those historians anx- ious to give most credit to the humanizing effect of Christianity upon woman are compelled to admit her superiority among pagan nations before the advent of this religion. 46 44. Journal of Jurisprudence , Vol. XVI, Edinburg, 1872. 45. The divine element, according to the idea of the ancient world, was com- posed of two sexes. There were dei femma, and hence temples sacred to god- desses; holy sanctuaries where was celebrated mysteries in which men could not be permitted to participate. The worship of goddesses necessitated priestesses, so that women exercised the sacerdotal office in the ancient world. The wives of the Roman Consuls even offered public sacrifices at certain festivals. The more property the wife had, the more rights she had. M. Derraimes. 46. The superiority of woman's condition in Europe and America is generally attributed to Christianity. We are anxious to give some credit to that influence, but it must not be forgotten that the nations of Northern Europe treated women with delicacy and devotion long before they were converted to the Christian faith. Long before the Christian era women were held in high estimation, and enjoyed as many privileges as they, generally have since the spread of Chris- tianity. Nichols. Women of all Nations. THE MATRIARCHATE 43 The Patriarchate under which Biblical history and Judaism commenced*, was ajrule of rnen_ whose lives and religion were based upon- passions of the grossest kind, showing but few indications of softness or re- finement. Monogamous family life, did not exist, but a polygamy whose primal object was the formation of a clarLPossessin^ hereditary chiefs ruling aristocratically. To this end the dominion of man n^r woman and the birt^ of many children was requisite. To this end polygamy was instituted, becoming as marked a feature of the Patriarchate as monogamy was of the Matriarchate. Not until the Patriarchate were wives regarded as property, the sale of daughters as a legiti- mate means of family income, or their .destruction_at .birth looked upon as a justifiable act. Under the Patriarchate, society became morally revolutionized, the family, the state, the form of religion entirely chang- ed. The theory of a male supreme God in the inter- ests of force and authority, wars, family discord, the scrifice of children to appease the wrath of an offended (male) deity are all due to the Patriarchate. These were practices entirely out of consonance with woman's thought and life. Biblical Abraham binding Isaac for sacrifice to Jehovah, carefully kept his intentions from the mother Sarah. Jeptha offering up his daughter in accordance with his vow, allowing her a month's life for the bewailment of her virginity, are but typical of the low regard of woman under the Patriarchate. During this period the destruction of girl children be- came a widely extended practice, and infantile girl murder the custom of many nations. During the Matri- archate all life was regarded as holy; even the sacri- fice of animals was unknown. 47 The most ancient and 47. WHlUl I fio-baiJl lo llie iliusl'iemulU pel'iods of antiquity into which it is possib'3 to penetrate, I find clear and positive-evidence of several important facts: First, no animal food was eaten; no animals were sacrificed. Higgins. Ana- calypsi* II, p. 147. 44 WOMAN, CHURCH AND STATE purest religions taught sacrifice of the animal passions as the great necessity in self-purification. But the Patriarchate subverted this sublime teaching, material- izing spiritual truths, and substituting the sacrifice of animals, whose blood was declared a sweet smelling i >savor to the Lord of Hosts. / Both infanticide and prostitution with all their attendant horrors are traceable with polygamy, their origin to the Patriarchate or Father-rule, under which Judaism and Christianity rose as forms of religious be- lief. Under the Patriarchate woman has ever been re- garded as a slave to be disposed of as father, husband or brother chose. Even in the most Christian lands, daughters have been esteemed valuable only in pro- portion to the political or pecuniary advantage they brought to the father, in the legal prostitution of an enforced marriage. The sacrifice of woman to man's baser passions has ever been the distinguishing char- acteristic of the Patriarchate. But woman's degreda- tion is not the normal condition of humanity, neither did it arise from a settled principle of evolution, but is a retrogression, due to the grossly material state of the world for centuries past, in which it- has lost the in- terior meaning, or spiritual significance of its own most holy words. Jehovah signifies not alone the masculine and the feminine principles but also the spirit or vivifying in- telligence. It is a compound word indicative of the three divine principles. 48 Holy Ghost although in Hebrew, a noun of either genders, masculine, feminine, neuter, is invariably rendered masculine by Christian translators of the Bible. 49 In the Greek, from whence we obtain 48. Observe that I. H. U. is Jod, male, father; "He" is female, Binah, and U is male, Vau, Son. Sepher Yetzirah. 49. The Perfect Way. Kingsford. THE MATRIARCHATE 45 the New Testament, spirit is of the feminine gender, although invariably translated masculine. The double-sexed word, Jehovah, too sacred to be spoken by the Jews, signified the masculine-feminine God. 50 The proof of the double meaning of Jehovah, the mas- culine and feminine signification, Father-Mother, is undeniable. Lanci, one of the great orientalists, says: Jehovah should be read from left to right, and pro- nounced Ho-Hi; that is to say He-She (Hi pronounc- ed He,) Ho in Hebrew being the masculine pro- noun and Hi the feminine. Ho-Hi therefore denotes the male and female principles, the vis gena- Kingsford says: The arbitrary and harsh aspect under which Johovah is chiefly presented in the Hebrew Script- ures is due not to any lack of the feminine element either in His name or in His nature, or to any failure on the part of the inspired leaders of Israel to recognize their equality but to the rudimen- tary condition of the people at large, and their con- sequent amenability to the delineation of the stern side only of the Divine Character. 52 The Hebrew word