active for
their intellectual gifts as well as for physical beauty. No woman, if
bright, witty, and beautiful, was avoided because she was immoral. It
was the immoral women who often aspired to the highest culture. They
sought to reign by making their homes attractive to distinguished men.
Their houses seem to have been what the _salons_ of noble and
fascinating duchesses were in France in the last two centuries. The
homes of virtuous and domestic women were dull and wearisome. In fact,
the modest wives and daughters of most men were confined to monotonous
domestic duties; they were household slaves; they saw but little of what
we now call society. I do not say that virtue was not held in honor. I
know of no age, however corrupt, when it was not prized by husbands and
fathers. I know of no age when virtuous women did not shine at home, and
exert a healthful influence upon men, and secure the proud regard of
their husbands. But these were not the women whose society was most
sought. The drudgeries and slaveries of domestic life among the ancients
made women unattractive to the world. The women who were most attractive
were those who gave or attended sumptuous banquets, and indulged in
pleasures that were demoralizing. Not domestic women, but bright women,
carried away those prizes which turned the brain. Those who shone were
those that attached themselves to men through their senses, and
possibly through their intellects, and who were themselves strong in
proportion as men were weak. For a woman to appear in public assemblies
with braided and decorated hair and ostentatious dress, and especially
if she displayed any gifts of eloquence or culture, was to proclaim
herself one of the immoral, leisurely, educated, dissolute class. This
gives point to Saint Paul's strict injunctions to the women of Corinth
to dress soberly, to keep silence in the assemblies, etc. The modest
woman was to "be in subjection." Those Pagan converts to the "New Way"
were to avoid even the appearance of evil.

Thus under Paganism the general influence of women was to pull men down
rather than to elevate them, especially those who were attractive in
society. Virtuous and domestic women were not sufficiently educated to
have much influence except in a narrow circle. Even they, in a social
point of view, were slaves. They could be given in marriage without
their consent; they were restricted in their intercourse with men; they
were confined to their ho