The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1900-02-25
WOMAN UNDER PAGANIsM AND
CHRISTTANITY.
Tho Influences which Led to the Elevation
Of the Ideal Of womnnhood.

To THE FDrToR OF TIE sUN-Sir; A COM
munication In last Sundays Sun, entitled "A
Woman Controvcrts Cardinal Gibbons" con-
tainsi In O small space 80 much Of half-truth and
untruth that q few words In reply ought not TO
be out Of place.
First-The Cardinal. a. quoted. refers to the
helpless condition OF woman In pagan coun-
tries before the Christian era" Your CORE
spondent harks away to the time OF the Anto-
mines Oatter half OF the second century ADJ
and accuses the Cardinal Of historical lgnor-
ance or OF "presuming on the ignorance and
creduli'y OF his hearers" thereby defying the
claims Of chronology aud logic.
Secondly-It IL known that q respectable
school Of "searchers' maintains that to the in
~fiuences OF Christian life and teaching the great
Roman jurisconsults owed their higher and
nobler views Of man. woman. society. right. ana
| tho like. No one cat read Champigny's works
or the admirable essay Of the French jurist.
Troplong. without being moved by their argu-
ments. 80 s~pecious arc they. This Is so true that
the French Academician. NJ. CASTOR Boissier. in
his RELIGION Romaine" Ill. 81. while he in
clines the other way. admits the serious char
actcr OF these reasons. and that the moral i'm
provement in the Roman Jurisprudence dates
from the appearance OF Christianity. While
the imperial lawyers were excogitating tho
motiyated judgments that have made
them immortal. every Christian community
and such existed in every city OF
the Empire) had its Bishop-Judge. its
priest. assessors. its Monday meeting. It's pecu-
liar procedure. spirit and list Of presidents.
Whoever has followed the work OF German
scholars for the last twenty years on the
earliest monuments OF Church discipline
A A. - -
ton was by the death OF Ulpian. This great
lawyer himself codiled tho laws against the
Christians. while his contemporary. the Em-
Ieror Alexander Severns. commended publicly
IN the imperial consistory thor method OF
clecting Bishops. The points OF local contact
contemporary development. identity OF sub
iects. area, and such like. are 40 strikirR that in
any other cause the Christian influence would
at once be admitted.
Thirdly Even If the Romanized stoicism Of
the second and third centuries DO alone re-
sponsible for the philosophical improvement
OF Jurisprudence. It does not follow. thereby.
that the social conditions Of woman. tho slave,
the child. were nj once. or even during Roman
raganism. substantially bettcred. Every new
work on the third and fourth and nth CEN
turtles shows clearly how dead was paganism
- an tIHl'lI l'AC'I lillN u lHt NpiNlNNlVu VI
Schultze. Boissier. Seeck and Dill. Bishop
Lightfoot has formulated one reason apropos
Of stoicism. Its dogmas and precepts were
barren. Its noblest branches bore neither
flowers nor fruits because there was no parent
stem from which they could draw fresh SAP"
philippians, p. 32sD These philosophers OF
jurisprudence furnished a merely ethical
teaching: tho world waits yet to see a renoya-
ton Of life. a publication OF conduct. based on
absolute reason. Let any one read the clas-
sic work Of Doellinger. Recenshurg, 1857
ipp. 12O-72l, to see what manner Of life the
pagan women led after they had won quasi
total emancipation in all matters OF private
law. and got rii OF aGnate tutors. OF any
hand" above them. and all the other re-
straints Of the rude but purer republican
times. II Il a commo place Of history. tho de-
tails of which may be seen also in Friedlaender.
that n kind OF despair settled on Roman men
as they looked on at tho unspeakable vagaries.
and even degradation. OF many women. Noble
and upright matrOns, Of course. there were.
women OF antique virtue - pOmponia
GrPcinas. TuriaS. and others 49, but the
impression LEFT on every reader OF the
satirists and the historians OF the golden
age OF stoicism-all deductions made-is
that the 'recr legal position Of Roman woman
coincided with the period Of lowest morality.
| find In Won behring's "GciSt des roemiSchen
Rerhts" H., !. 5 32l tho admission that the
decrease Of the fathers power and the hus-
bands right OF control was contemporary with
great "FrivolItaet und Graucnhaf;e Verwilde-
rung ind Iueg"llo~igkcit.' terms 80 strong
that | leave them in the original. The same
unequallcd authority on Roman law adds Il. G
that the better characters OF Rome at that time
saw no advance. but Increasing icmoraliza-
ton" in the great liberty " woman to dispose OF
her person in marriage as against her tutors
and Of her property rs against her husband
Indeed. Seneca. the patriarch OF S'oicism. has
left us a vivid description Of the Roman women
in his DE Benefciis." and in his lost work on
"Matrimony." whose sentiments early Chris
tian writers could praise.
Fourthlv-As:to the condition ofwoman under
the canon law. it may be well to observe that the
principal AMI original source Of the canon law
Is the Sacred Scripture. Old and New. Every
student Of il knows that its spirit and scope
differ from those Of the civil law. though il
aims at working in harmony with the latter.
adopts many OF its provisions and institutions.
and. occasionally. has stepped into the breach
as a "Retter in der Moth OF barbarism or an
archy. The venerable councils Of the earliest
centuries. the wisdom Of the best Churchmen
Of later times. the promptings and analogies OF
reason. philosophy. common sense. experience
and equity. are oil worked into it. II is no
engine o. injustice on the contrary. no nobler
monument Of practical Jurisprudence was ever
lifted by the hands Of men. II has a thousand
martyrs where the civil law counts only
ono. Over il might be written what
Gregory VII. said when dying at Salerno, Il
have loved justice; | have hated inIquity.
therefore | die in exile Now. the position oil
the canon law regarding woman IL based
chiefly on the Christian Scriptures, and the
authentic commentary on them by the Chris
tian Fathers and writer's. When called In
question for is views on woman. IL Is not
the canon law that must stand NJ for defence.
but Christianity itself. as against the very lat
est anti. Christian views OF woman's scope. at. |
tributes and vocation.
As u matter OF fact. tho Objectionable points |
In the canon law seem to be those relating 10 |
woman in her relation as wife. 1t asserts her |
inferiorIty 10 the husband, Just ms IL does that
OF the daughter to the parents, the son TO the
father. Nowhere Is woman treated a. a res"
a thing. a chattel. This IL the language OF
fanaticism. Woman holds an honorable place
under tho rubric OF persons" and the
chapters on '~matrimony" are an evidence,
pace all contradictors. Of the constant and