Female Piety—The Young Woman's Guide through Life to Immortality by John Angell James, (1785—1859)

There is neither Jew nor Greek—there is neither bond nor free; there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28

I can think of no subject with which more appropriately to commence this work, than the influence of Christianity on the condition of woman.

Our first attention must be directed of course to the condition of the female sex beyond the boundaries of Christendom.

It would seem from the words of the original denouncement upon Eve for her transgression in eating the forbidden fruit, that while yet the first pair were innocent, there was a more entire equality of condition and rights between the sexes than there has been after the fall. "Your desire shall be to your husband, and he shall rule over you." This sounds like something penal, though perhaps some would regard it as merely predictive, and intended to describe the cruel and brutalizing tendency of sin, in turning man, who ought to be the loving companion of his wife, into a tyrant. How fearfully, if predictive, this sentence has been fulfilled, the degradation of woman, her wrongs, her sorrows, and her vices, in many cases, most painfully attest.

History, which will ever be found to corroborate revelation, proves that in most Pagan and Mohammedan nations, whether ancient or modern, woman has been cruelly and wickedly sunk below her proper level in social and domestic life, "hated and despised from her birth, and her birth itself esteemed a calamity; in some countries not even allowed the rank of a moral and responsible agent; so tenderly alive to her own degradation that she acquiesces in the murder of her female offspring; immured from infancy; without education; married without her consent; in a multitude of instances sold by her parents; refused the confidence of her husband, and banished from his table; on his death, doomed to the funeral pile, or to contempt that renders life a burden." In such a condition she has been the household drudge, or the mere object of lust. She has ministered to the gratification of man's indolence or sensual appetite, but has not been his companion, his counselor, or his comforter. In barbarous countries she has been a slave; in civilized ones very generally little better than a kept mistress. Her mind has been left untaught, as if incapable or unworthy of instruction. She has been not only imprisoned in seclusion by jealousy, but degraded and rendered inferior and miserable by polygamy. Sometimes worshiped as a goddess; next fondled as a toy; then punished as a victim, she could never attain to dignity, and even with all her brightest charms could rarely appear but as a doll or a puppet.

Exceptions to some extent may be made in favor of the polished Greeks and proud Romans—but only to some extent; for did time permit, and necessity require, it could be shown that neither Athenian refinement nor Roman virtue gave to woman her just rank by the side of her husband, or her proper place in his affection, esteem, and confidence.

"Neither Paganism nor Mohammedanism ever yet understood the female character, or conceded woman's just claims. In many nations the degradation has been excessive. You remember probably the reply of a Pagan mother, who having been expostulated with for the murder of her female child, contended that she had performed an act of mercy in sparing the babe the miseries of a woman's life. All travelers and all missionaries attest the fact of woman's humiliation, beyond the boundaries of Biblical revelation."

If we go to the Bible, we shall learn that it is to Christianity, as contrasted even with Judaism, that woman owes her true elevation. Polygamy is, and ever must be, fatal to female dignity and happiness—this, or at any rate concubinage, was practiced, no doubt under mistaken views, by the patriarchs; not that it was ever positively sanctioned by God, for from the beginning he made one woman for one man, and by the providential and remarkable fact of the general equality of the sexes as to numbers, he still proclaims in unmistakable language the law of monogamy. But to use an expression of the apostle, "he winked at" these things—he did not regard it as innocent or convenient, yet he did not say much about it, or punish it—but left it to punish itself, which it most certainly did. If we examine the Levitical code we shall find that even it, though a Divine dispensation, contained some regulations which evinced that the time of woman's full emancipation from a state of inferiority had not yet arrived—and that it was reserved for the glorious and gracious economy under which we are placed, to raise the female sex to its just position and influence in society.

Christianity as in other things, so in this, is an enlargement of human privileges; and among other blessings which it confers, is its elevation of woman to her proper place and influence in the family and in society.

Let us now consider what there is in Christianity that tends to elevate and improve the condition of woman.

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