The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-05-06
THE CHRISTIAN IDEA OF WOMAN

Good women are the health of hui
man society, as evil women are, sure
ly, its bane. 80"
Woman owes her power for good
or evil chiefly to the sublime Office of
motherhood. Her dear little ones are
as clay in her hands; she is their au-
thority, not only in some things, but
in all things; they ply her with ques-
tons without thought of doubling her
answers they appeal to her as if
she were omnipotent; they bow to her
implicit obedience. AS she molds her
children, so do they mold her. till the
faithful wife and mother becomes the
accepted symbol of all that is upright.
The emancipation of woman dates
from the birth of Christ and came
about by the preaching of the Gospel
and the creation of new social. sense.
Then the pagan world witnessed a
thing beyond all human experience
and belief; it saw slave girls, usually
hardly better than,mere animals, show
in martyrdom virginia. modesty, a
supreme human courage, a sublime
faith. The fiction of woman's inferior
ity in the scale then began to totter,
and it fell, once and for all, with the
paganism which had engendered it.
The Christian idea of woman is
eminently sane and balanced, 1t is
equally removed from the injustice of
the ancients and the silly sentimental
ity of certain people of today who
would make woman an irresponsible
being or a spoiled child; to the Cath
Ollie Church she is what God made her
an object of reverence, rational, free,
accountable for her acts, q participant
in all the graces and promises of re
demption; a helpmate for man, and
thus capable Of entering into. his whole
life, spiritual and intellectual as. well
as physical This quality of nature
regulates their mutual relations and
harmonizes the law of submission with
laws of self-rsspect. In marriage a
wife voluntarily accepts partnership
with her husband. Good sense and
right feeling recognize her husband S
precedence as taught by st. Paul:
Let woman be subject to her hus-
band as to the Lord, because the hus-
band is the head of the wife, as Christ
is the head Of the Church.
In such subordination there is moth
ing serviIe or 'diSlfonorabIe;;- on the
contrary, by their union the wife is
raised to her husbands rank, and her
loss of INDEPENDENCE is more than
compensated for by the gain of his pro-
tective love- Fhe advent. of human
lied civilization based on religion prin-
ciples made the status OF women far
higher and nobler in the world and
even for those who. accepted "the bet
ter part of the religious life the
Church provided systems by which
nuns could find their truest freedom
and the noblest expression of self.
They make their own laws; they
govern themselves through their supe-
riors; they administer their own prop
erty and are even entrusted with a
large measure of ecclesiastical patron
age and jurisdictions In the middle
ages there were two recognized status
for women-tl that of marriage for abe
great majority and that of religion for
those especially called The modern
industrial system has altered a1r-this,
but even here the Church intervenes
on behalf of women.
Under new and changed conditions
the need of many of the old domestic
employments has gone. Women have,
however, invaded the ranks of the
wage earners; in the United States,
one-fifth part of the wage-earning
classes are female; in England more
than one-tenth of the whole popula-
ton of the country earn their liveli-
hood. The result has been in every
country to lead to the cult Of inde-
pendence, and upset the social balance
seriously. A reaction has set in and
that among the thinking women the
movement is active to lead the mod
ernized'' sisters back to the proper
path. Especially has this movement,
under the guidance of the Church, be-
come marked in the Catholic body.
Here again the Church has proved her
title to be the mother, OF civilization.
She has never failed her children, even
in their secular interests, and has man