Marriage and parentage, education, and kindred subjects / O.S. Fowler.

  • Orson S. Fowler
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Marriage and parentage, education, and kindred subjects / O.S. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    marriage. tliaei^itntinnUnfa11 ^ Ve aSreed’ with but few exceptions, in the necessity of the institution of matrimony, in some form or other y by the little that can be learned from the Bible of the history of the ante- as o? h!itTittlP appearS that m the earI^ aSes of the world woman was regarded as of but little consequence except as a wife. In any other light she was ^ f 1011(1 °,fmenial servant, a mere creature of no benefit whatever, in her day and generation, except to render tribute to the other sex. But as a wife, as an instrument or medium for the propagation of her SDecies she became invested with that dignity in reference to the welfare of succeeding generations which her position demanded. s Before the Flood there is evidence of but one instance of polygamy: “Lamech took unto him two wives ! ” As though it were strange uncommon, and worthy of record. And we would here suggest a new interpretation of a passage of Scripture, concerning which no theologian, as far as we have ex- amined, gives an opinion at all satisfactory: “ And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice • ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech ; for I have slain a man to my wounding and a young man to my hurt. This is truly a remarkable passage and must mean something—something too of no trivial importance to his wives. Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech.” It is not generally supposed that he had committed murder; if so, why should he address them in that impressive manner, as though the fact of informing them was of about as much consequence as the fact itself. Would it be a wide stretch of fancy to suppose him acknowledging the injury he had done to some man, of course unknown, and a “young man too, by depriving him of his rights m appropriating two women to himself, and obliging thereby the young man to live a single life ] Matrimony was even at that early day regarded as a, blessing; and thus early there is no other case of polygamy recorded. Might not Lamech have discovered that the number of the sexes was nearly equal, and felt constrained to confess the wrong to his bosom friends ] At a much later period it seems that the inhabitants of the plain entirely abolished the marriage relations, and freely gave themselves up to a licentious- ness at which human nature, with all its frailties, instinctively revolts. It was probably a mercy to them that they were suddenly destroyed ; and God in that instance, as He .has ever done, exhibited his utter abhorrence of the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. He has ever followed it with the most loathsome and degrading diseases. He has thus undertaken to teach mankind that it is a most palpable violation of the laws of the human constitution ; and how much more should he reprobate the inconceivable pollution of the cities of the plain. In ancient Greece, twelve hundred years before Christ, matrimony was viewed of so much importance, and was regarded as so choice a blessing, that the strongest anathema that could be pronounced against a man was to say that “ he deserved not to enjoy the rights of a citizen, the protection of a subject, or the happiness of domestic life.” At this period of Grecian history the violation of the marriage bed was considered a crime of equal enormity with murder, and the guilty criminal seldom escaped death, except by flight. But at a later period in the history of Greece we find that the value of the female sex was estimated like that of the most ignoble objects—merely bv profit or utility. They were perpetually confined to the most retired and secluded apartments, and doomed to the performance of the meanest offices of domestic economy. They were unceremoniously excluded from all the fond delights of social and domestic intercourse, which nature has fitted them so peculiarly to adorn. Before Christ, 333 years, Alexander conquered Persia. Greece was now at the height of its glory, and her inhabitants gave themselves up to all those unbridled and enervating indulgences which are sure presages of a nation's fall. L’ixury, pride, licentiousness, and debauchery had growu with its growth ;
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