CHAPTER II

PAUL AND WOMAN

PERHAPS nowhere else is the Syrian attitude toward woman so clearly stated as in the teachings of St. Paul. The great Apostle deals with the fundamentals of this subject, and speaks freely of both the privileges and the limitations of woman in the Christian East.

In the third chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians, the twenty-eighth verse, Paul says, "There is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." And this equality is not to be understood to be limited to the bestowal of church rites upon men and women alike. It embraces the essential points of conduct of the male and female members of the household toward one another. Fidelity to the marriage vow is to be equally observed by both husband and wife. This the Apostle urges upon his fellow believers, not as a superior authority,

but as a friend. In the seventh chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the fourth verse, he says, "The wife hath not power over her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not power over his own body, but the wife." In the fourteenth verse of this same chapter, the equal potency of the spiritual influence of both the husband and the wife is also recognized. "The unbelieving husband," says the Apostle, "is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband." In the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, the "Apostle to the Gentiles" rises to the noblest height of Eastern thought concerning woman and reveals Christianity's conserving and sanctifying power. Beginning at the twenty-fifth verse, he says: "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it, . . . that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church."

This is precisely what the marriage union in the East always meant to us. By this sacred bond the husband and the wife are made "one flesh." That the Oriental has not definitely succeeded in making his daily conduct always conform to his highest ideals and to the noble precepts of the Gospel is evident, and not at all strange. Here he has succeeded no better than his Anglo-Saxon superior has in conforming his conduct to the command, "Love your enemies." My point is that down deep in the Syrian heart the spirit of Paul's words abides. It serves the son of the East in time of trouble as his quick and tender conscience. The real trouble with him has been his aversion to strictly systematic living. He does love his wife as he loves himself, but in reality he does not fully know how to love himself.

Paul, on the other hand, does not ignore the conventional limitations which Eastern traditions impose upon woman. He recognizes the patriarchal government of the family. In the chapter just quoted, the Apostle says: "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church." Much trouble may be avoided by the unfriendly critics of Paul and Christianity in general, if such critics would keep in mind the conditional nature of this command. Whether as a Syrian or as an American I do not believe in subjecting the wife to the husband, nor the husband to the wife. Domestic life should be based on perfect coöperation of husband and wife, in spiritual as well as in administrative matters. Toward this goal the Americans have made the greatest advance. However, Paul's command can by no means be justly construed as giving the husband unlimited tyrannical authority over the wife. "The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the

Church." The church is not the slave of Christ, but his beloved bride. So the supremacy here is that of loving care and consideration. Therefore, the fact that the traditions of the East give the man conventional supremacy over the woman has never meant to us sons of that land that our mothers and sisters were abject slaves. And it should be borne in mind that the women of Syria are not always so submissive as those traditions would lead a Westerner to believe. I might say that in the majority of cases the man finds it no easy task to make his formal authority over the woman of real effect. The heartfelt complaints of discouraged husbands, that "not even all the angels of heaven can subdue a woman, are not unfrequently heard in

the land of the Bible.

Perhaps the part of Paul's teaching which seems to Westerners to seal the fate of woman is that found in the eleventh chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. Here the Apostle declares: "For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory