even affect to "convert" anybody, Catholics have only one enemy -the infidel. This is a vast gain to Catholic countries. Two camps on the Christian side made civil war: there are two camps still in these days—but on opposite sides.

So that, viewing the subject all around, we may conclude, and with gratitude, that the Catholic Church is not losing ground. That her enemies will try to believe that she is doing so, and that they will make war on her to the end of the world, is too absolute a certainty to need discussing. They will be the more boastful, the more persecuting, the more delirious, in the exact proportion of her renewed vigor and her victories. Cardinal Newman, in one of his merry bits of sarcasm, thus laughs at the undying hopefulness of the Church's enemies: “She shall be always worsted in the warfare, ever unhorsed and disarmed, ever running away, ever frustrated, ever smashed and pounded, ever dying, ever dead; and the only wonder is that she has to be killed so often, and the life to be so often trodden out of her, and her priests and doctors to be so often put down, and her monks and nuns to be exposed so often, and such vast sums to be subscribed by Protestants, and such great societies to be kept up, and such millions of tracts to be written, and such persecuting Acts to be passed in Parliament, in order thoroughly, and once for all, and for the very last time, and for ever and ever, to annihilate her once more."

RELATIVE CONDITION OF WOMAN UNDER PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION.

TH

I.

HE family is the source of society; the wife is the source of the family. If the fountain is not pure, the stream is sure to be foul and muddy. Social life is the reflex of family life.

The history of woman in Pagan countries has been, with rare exceptions, an unbroken record of bondage, oppression, and moral degradation. She had no rights that the husband felt bound to respect. In many of the ancient empires of Asia, notably in Babylon, India, Thrace and Lydia, the wife was bought, like meat in the shambles, or like slaves in the market-place.' Every woman, no matter of what rank, had to submit to be dishonored once in her life by some stranger in the temple of Venus.'

Her life was one of abject misery and unrequited toil. Ministering to-day to the capricious passion of her husband, to-morrow she is exposed to all the revulsions of feeling that follow the gratification of animal appetites.3 "Among the Indians," says Strabo, "wives are purchased from their parents for a price equal to that of two head of cattle. They are treated as mere servants by their husbands, who have the right to scourge them as their caprices may dictate." To speak to any one of the wives of the king of Persia, or even to approach too near her chariot while on a journey, was punished with death. And it is worthy of remark that the same law obtains in that country even to this day.

In Scythia, Tartary, and other countries, the wife who had the misfortune to survive her husband was immolated on his tomb.5 The same inhuman custom of self-immolation by widows, or Suttee, as it was popularly called, prevailed in India, till it was abolished by the English government in 1847. Previously to that period, several ineffectual attempts had been made to put an end to the practice. The Brahmins denounced the humane efforts of the English government as an unwarrantable interference with their religion. We may form some idea of the frequency of these human sacrifices from the fact that, between 1815 and 1826, 7154 cases of Suttee were officially reported to have occurred in Bengal alone. Another scourge of woman was polygamy. By its baneful in

'Herodot., I., No. 196.

3 Lecky, Hist. of European Morals.

5 Herodotus, B. I.

2 Ibid., No. 199.

♦ L. XV., p. 68.

fluence, her empire over' the domestic kingdom was divided, and her conjugal rights were violated. No one can read Herodotus, the Father of History, without being painfully impressed with the loose ideas of marriage prevailing in Asia. Throughout that vast continent polygamy might be said to have been universal. The Zend-Avesta (or law-book of the Persians) prescribed no rule limiting the number of wives for each household. A maiden, remaining unmarried till her eighteenth year, was threatened with the most severe punishment in the life to come.' They regarded the strength of the nation as depending more upon the number of children than upon integrity of morals.

The Medes, according to the testimony of Strabo, were compelled by law to have at least seven wives. The Mongols, the Tartars, and the people of the ancient empire of China legally sanctioned community of wives. The same custom prevailed among the Massagetæ, as Herodotus affirms. Polygamy was regarded as honorable among the ancient Huns and Goths. A man's dignity was estimated by the number of his wives. In no country was the domestic life more grossly dishonored than in Great Britain.3

Tacitus represents the domestic life of the Germans in a very favorable light. His honest indignation at the moral corruption of his country-women may have prompted him to embellish the sanctity of marriage among the Germans. Of nearly all barbarous nations, he says that they alone were content with one wife, excepting the nobles, who had a retinue of wives, more from a sense of dignity than from luxury. Swift and severe was the punishment meted out to an adulterous wife. Her hair was cut off, and she was lashed naked through the street by her injured husband.*

"Among the Gauls," says Strabo, “the occupations of the two sexes are distributed in a manner opposite to that which obtains among us. The cultivation of the land and a life of drudgery were imposed on wives, whilst the husbands devoted their time to warlike pursuits."5

Aristotle justly boasts that, in Greece, woman was not degraded to the level of a slave, as in Asia. But it must be added that, if she was not treated as a slave, she was regarded as a minor. She was under a perpetual tutelage, first to her father, who disposed of her for a price; next, to her husband; and, lastly, in her widowhood, to her sons. Even if she had no sons, she was not free; for her husband could appoint a guardian to succeed him after death. The Greek wife lived in almost entire seclusion, she and

1 Döllinger, The Gentile and the Jew, I., p. 407.

3 Cæsar, Comment., I., v.

B. IV., p. 66.

2 B. I., No. 215.

4 German., ch. xix. 6 Politic., I., 1. 5.

her husband occupying separate parts of the house. She never went abroad unless accompanied by a female slave; she received no male visitors in the absence of her husband, and she was not permitted even to eat at her own table when male guests were present; she was denied the luxury of a polite education, her instruction being usually confined to the most necessary household duties, and to a limited knowledge of music and dancing, which was afforded her, not for the entertainment of herself and family, but to enable her to take part in certain religious festivals.

The domestic life of Greece, it is true, was founded on monogamy. But whilst the law restricted the husband to one wife as his helpmate and domestic guardian, it tolerated and even sanctioned the hetairai, who bore to him the relation of inferior wives, and who enjoyed his society more frequently and received more homage from him than his lawful spouse.' And whilst the education of the wife was of a most elementary character, the greatest care was lavished in cultivating the minds of the hetairai, that they might entertain their paramour by their wit while they fascinated him by their charms. The wife was the beast of burden; the mistress was the petted and pampered animal. These hetairai derived additional importance from being legally chosen to offer sacrifice on certain public occasions. This demoralizing system, so far from being deplored, was actually defended and patronized by statesmen, philosophers, and leaders of public opinion, such as Demosthenes, Pericles, Lysias, Aristotle, and Epicurus.

Solon erects in Athens a temple to Venus, the goddess of impure love. Greece is full of such temples, whilst there is not one erected to chaste, conjugal love. No virtuous woman has ever left a durable record in the history of Greece.

The husband could put away his wife according to his capricious humor, and take a fairer, younger, and richer bride. He could dissolve the marriage bond without other formality than an attestation in writing before the archon; and the wife had practically no power to refuse, as she was completely under the dominion of her husband. She was a mere chattel, marketable at will; nor had she any power to dissolve the marriage without her husband's

consent.

Such is the dark but truthful picture of woman exhibited before us in the most polished nation of Pagan antiquity. Now, the sport of man's passions; soon after, she is the victim of his irresponsible hatred. Denied access to her own table in the presence of strangers, she leads a dreary, monotonous life in the society of her slaves. Her very position of wife debars her from a refined edu

cation, which is sedulously bestowed on the mistress. She is doomed to a life of domestic bondage; the other enjoys the widest liberty. How can she give her heart to her husband, since she sees his affections divided among usurping rivals? Conjugal love must be reciprocal. She does not reign as queen and mistress of her household, but serves as a tenant at will. Her wishes are not consulted about her marriage or her divorce. Should her husband precede her to the grave, her condition is not improved.

In a word, the most distinguished Greek writers treat woman with undisguised contempt; they describe her as the source of every evil to man. One of their poets said that marriage brings but two happy days to the husband-the day of his espousals and the day on which he lays his wife in the tomb.

Hesiod calls women "an accursed brood, and the chief scourge of the human race." The daily prayer of Socrates was a thanksgiving to the gods that he was born neither a slave nor a woman. And we have only to glance at the domestic life of Turkey to-day to be convinced that woman fares no better under modern Mohammedanism than she did in ancient Greece.

The Mohammedan husband has merely to say to his wife: "Thou art divorced," and the bond is dissolved. To his followers Mohammed allowed four wives; to himself an unlimited number was granted by a special favor of Heaven.

The moral standard of the Lacedæmonian wives was far lower than that of the Athenians. They were taught, when maidens, to engage in exercises that strengthened the body and imparted grace to their movements, but at the sacrifice of female modesty. The idea of conjugal fidelity was not seriously entertained. Adultery was so common that it was scarcely regarded as a crime. Aristotle says that the Spartan wives lived in unbridled licentiousness.'

Passing from Greece to Italy, we find that monogamy was, at least nominally, upheld in Rome, especially during the earlier days of the Republic. But, while the wife was summarily punished for the violation of the marriage vows, the husband's marital transgressions were committed with impunity.

Toward the end of the Republic, and during the Empire, the disorders of nuptial life increased to an alarming extent. There was a fearful rebound on the part of Roman wives, particularly among the upper classes, from the restraints of former days to the most unlimited license. They rivalled the wantonness of the sterner sex. So notorious were their morals, in the time of Augustus, that men preferred the unfettered life of celibacy to an alliance with partners bereft of every trace of female virtue. The strict

Apud Döllinger, "The Gentile and the Jew," II., 236. Plutarch's Lives, Lycurgus.