Woman, Church & State. Matilda Joslyn Gage
Читать онлайн книгу.
a priest might do was holy; by their taking part in lasciviousness it became consecration. To disobey a priest was to endanger salvation; it was libellous and treasonable to question the purity of a priest’s motives, hence religion became a screen for all vice and a source of moral degradation to all woman. To such extent was belief carried in the superior purity of a celibate life that but little more than 300 years since a man was burned at the stake in England for asserting the lawfulness of priestly marriage.[80] The action of the council of 1215, so powerfully sustaining the olden claims of the superior holiness of celibacy soon created a belief in the inability of a priest to commit sin. During the middle ages his infallibility was constantly maintained, his superior sanctity in consequence of his celibacy universally asserted. It was impossible not to connect the idea of great wickedness with those incapable of entering this holy office, and as woman by virtue of sex was prohibited priestly functions, and as her marriage had been declared a necessity for the world, these conditions were used as arguments against her. The conscience and morality of tens of thousands were destroyed by these teachings, enforced as they were by all the dread authority of the church. The christian world was under entire control of a class whose aim was chiefly that of personal aggrandizement, and that hesitated at no means for securing wealth and power.
The Inquisition was firmly established; under its reign six hundred methods of torture were known, and it was conducted with such secrecy that not until dragged before it were many of its victims aware they were under suspicion. Even when imprisoned in its torture chambers, the charges against them were kept secret in hopes thereby to compel self-accusation upon other points. The inferiority of woman, her proneness to evil and readiness to listen to all suggestions of Satan, was taught with renewed vigor and power for evil.
The priest regarded himself as the direct representative of divinity; the theory of infallibility was not confined to the pope, but all dignitaries of the church made the same claim. Asserting themselves incapable of wrong doing, maintaining an especial sanctification by reason of their celibacy, priests nevertheless made their holy office a cover for the most degrading sensuality. Methods were taken to debauch the souls as well as the bodies of women. Having first taught their special impurity, it was not maintained that immorality with a priest was not sin, but on the contrary hallowed the woman, giving her particular claim upon heaven. It was taught that sin could only be killed through sin.[81] The very incarnation was used as a means of weakening woman’s virtue. That Christ did not enter the world through the marriage relation, stamped with christian honor a system of concubinage in the church, for whose warrant woman was pointed to the Virgin Mary. As an enforcement of her duty of absolute surrender of soul and body to the will of the priest the course of the Virgin was adduced, “who obeyed the angel Gabriel and conceived without fear of evil, for impurity could not come of a spirit.”[82] The chastity of concubinage and the unchasteness of marriage was constantly asserted by the church, and thus the mysteries upon which its foundations were laid were used by it for the degradation of woman, who was at all times depicted as a being of no self-individuality, but one who had been created solely for man’s pleasure. As late as the seventeenth century, it was taught that a priest could commit no sin. This old doctrine took new strength from the Illumes, who claimed an inner divine light.[83] We find reference to priestly immorality and claim of infallibility among old writers, Boccaccio in many of his stories putting arguments of this kind in the mouth of his priestly characters.[84]
It was asserted too that sin was of the body alone, the soul knowing nothing, partaking nothing of it. As an argument in favor of woman’s throwing herself entirely in the hands of priests for immoral purposes, it was declared that, “The devout having offered up and annihilated their own selves exist no longer but in God; thenceforth they can do no wrong. The better part of them is so divine that it no longer knows what the other is doing.”
In confirmation of this doctrine it was said that Jesus threw off his clothing and was scourged naked before the people. The result of this teaching was the almost universal immorality of christendom. Under such religious doctrine it could but be expected that the laity would closely imitate the priesthood. Europe became a continent of moral corruption, of which proof is overwhelming. Could we but relegate christian immorality to the dark ages we might somewhat palliate it under plea of ignorance. But unfortunately for such claim ample proof is found to show that the enlightenment of modern civilization has not yet been able to overthrow the basic idea upon which this immorality rests. Amid the material and intellectual advancement of the last hundred years we find spiritual darkness still profound in the church and the true foundation of immorality almost unrecognized.
As long as the church maintains the doctrine that woman was created inferior to man, and brought sin into the world rendering the sacrilige of the Son of God a necessity, just so long will the foundation of vice and crime of every character remain. Not until the exact and permanent equality of woman with man is recognized by the church, aye, even more, the greater power and capacity of woman in the creative function, together with the accountability of man to woman in everything relating to the birth of a new being, is fully accepted as a law of nature, will vice and crime disappear from the world. Until that time has fully come, prostitution in its varied forms will continue to exist, together with alms-houses, reformatories, jails, prisons, hospitals and asylums for the punishment, reformation or care of the wretched beings who have come into existence with an inheritance of disease and crime because of church theory and church teaching.
The system of celibacy produced its same effects wherever preached. So constant was the system of debauchery practiced in England during the reign of Henry VII that the gentlemen and farmers of Carnarvonshire laid complaint against the clergy of systematically seducing their wives and daughters.[85] Women were everywhere looked upon as slaves and toys, to obey, to furnish pleasure and amusement, and to be cast aside at will. Under the religious teaching of christendom it could not but be expected that the laity would closely imitate the priesthood, and to victimize women became the custom of all men.[86] When a priest failed to take a concubine his parishoners compelled him to do so in order to preserve the chastity of their own wives and daughters. Draper[87] tells us that in England alone 100,000 women became victims of the priests. Houses of vile character were maintained for especial use of the priesthood. The marriage of a priest was called a deception of the devil who thus led him into an adulterous relation[88] for sake of alienating property from the church.
This mediaeval doctrine that sin can only be killed through sin, finds expression today not alone in religion[89] but in society novels;[90] its origin, like many other religious wrongs, being directly traceable to the teaching of St. Paul.[91]
The incontinence of these celibate priests ultimately became so great a source of scandal to the church that it was obliged to take action. Edicts and bulls were fulminated from the papal chair, although the facts of history prove Rome itself, its popes and its cardinals, to have been sunk in the grossest immorality. Spain, the seat of the Inquisition, and at that period the very heart of Christendom, was the first country toward which investigation was turned, Pope Paul IV issuing a bull against those confessors who solicited women, provoking them to dissolute action. When this bull of investigation first appeared in Spain, it was accompanied by an edict commanding all those who knew of monks or priests that had thus abused the confessional to make it known within thirty days under grievous penalty. The terrible power of the church intimidated those who otherwise for very shame would surely have buried the guilt of their priests in oblivion, and so great was the number of women who thronged the palace of the Inquisition in the city of Seville alone, that twenty secretaries with as many Inquisitors were not sufficient to take the deposition of the witnesses. A second, a third and a fourth thirty days were appointed for investigation, so great were the number of women making complaint.[92] So large a number of priests were implicated that after a four months’ examination, the Holy Tribunal of the Inquisition put a stop to the proceedings, commanding that all those immoralities and crimes against womanhood only rendered possible in the name of religion, and which has been proven by legal evidence, should be buried in eternal oblivion. The deposition of thousands of women seduced by their confessors, was not deemed sufficient evidence for removal of the guilty priests from their holy offices. Occasionally a single priest was suspended for a short time but in a few months restored again to his priestly position.[93]
It was not uncommon for women to be openly carried off by priests, their husbands