Feminism / by Correa Moylan Walsh.

  • Correa Moylan Walsh
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Feminism / by Correa Moylan Walsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    119/412 page 107
    guardian from her own family), as he of his, with only this re- striction, that neither could make a donation to the other; and divorce was easy at the desire of either. This freedom produced so many irregularities of conduct, destroying domesticity, and impeding the procreation of children, that, although the Roman empire was too large and strong to be immediately deranged, it contributed powerfully, as we have seen, to the gradual decay of society.*7 Against it the Christians revolted, and when the em- pire was overthrown by the Germans, and its highly developed government destroyed, they reverted to the primitive religious institutions of those semi-barbarians, which agreed with many of the marriage customs and laws of the ancient Jews that were pre- served in the Old Testament and repeated in the New, but were stricter with regard to divorce,”* though not yet quite so patri- archal.? Wath these more primitive and healthier ideas prevail- ing, the religious treatment of marriage extending even to the lower classes, the modern cycle began. In the disturbed state of the times women again could hardly own land, although brotherless daughters could again, as before, be the “ conduit ” °° of it; and all daughters were in the power, or under the tutelage, of their male relatives and husbands, and under their protec- tion, needing it, as there was no state organisation with power sufficient to protest them. The old course of things was again to be run through. In the Latin lands, however, some traces of the late Roman 27 Our feminists must of course deny this. Accordingly Ellis in his Studies in the Psychology of Sex, approvingly quoted in W. E. Carson’s The Marriage Revolt, 269, writes that the contractual nature of late Roman marriage and its easy dissolution had not “any evil effects either on the happiness or the morals of Roman women ”—a bold and bald dogmatic asseveration, going against all the evidence. He continues: *‘ Such a system is obviously more in harmony with modern civilised feeling [he means pireent day feministic feeling!] than any system that has been set up in Christendom. t is interesting to note that this enlightened [= feministic] conception of marriage prevailed in the greatest and most masterful empire which has ever dominated the world, at the period of its fullest development ’”— of its culminating and declining pe- riods, he should have said. That Christendom is now running the same course, does not augur any too well for Christendom. , 28 It may be noted that in Genesis the matriarchal precept given to man (in II. 24) that he should leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, becoming with her one flesh, is reported as the status of things in Eden, and precedes the patriarchal in- junction (in III. 16) to woman as a penalty, upon the expulsion from Eden, that her desire should be unto her husband, and he should rule over his wife. Jesus reverted to the first of these, and took their becoming one flesh as if it meant that God had united them, although this is not apparent, and is no more applicable to marriage than to other sexual unions, (cf. I. Cor., VI. 16), nor to mankind than to animals; where- fore, contrary to Moses, he forbade divorce (Matt., XIX. 5-6, Mark, X. 7-9). Paul also quoted it, but drew from it rather the injunction that a man should love his wife as himself (Ephes., V. 28-33) 3 and elsewhere (as here also in vv. 22 and 24) he Se ae patriarchal precept that the wife should be subject to her husband (Colossians, HS) 29 The Germans still had some traces of the mother-age, which were crushed out not many centuries ago in the crushing out of witchcraft: see Pearson, Ethic of Free- thought, 395, Chances of Death, ii. 15-18. 30 Cf. Pearson, Chances of Death, ii. 8, 52.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3