_Aves_; secular
orders of knighthood placed themselves under the Virgin's protection (La
Chevalerie de Sainte Marie), but the rarest minds, sublimating the
beloved, raised her into Heaven and worshipped her as divine. The
established religion was compelled to enter into partnership with the
great emotion of the time, metaphysical love, lest it ran the risk of
losing its sway over humanity.

And a feeling was born then which to this day constitutes one of the
striking differences between the Eastern and the Western worlds: the
respect for womanhood. It is based on the woman-worship of secular, and
the Madonna-worship of ecclesiastical circles. It is true that Jesus,
anticipating the intuition of Europe, had taught the divinity of the
human soul and recognised woman--in this respect--as on an equality with
man, but the instincts of Greece and the Eastern nations had proved to
be stronger than his teaching; for twelve hundred years woman was
despised, and more than once the question as to whether or no she had a
soul--in other words, as to whether or no she was a human being--had
come under discussion. The crude and primitively dualistic minds of the
period realised in her sex merely an embodiment of their own sensuality,
the enemy against whom they fought, and to whom they knew themselves
subject. The strongest argument in her favour which the first millenary
could adduce, was the fact that the Saviour of the world had been borne
by a woman, and that consequently her sex had a share in the work of
salvation; the idea that through the "other Eve" a part of the sin of
the first Eve was expiated. But genuine appreciation and respect were
only possible after base sensuality had been contrasted with spiritual
love, whose vehicle again was woman. Now the "eternal-feminine"--
contrasted with the "earthly-feminine"--drew the lovers upwards, and
this new emotion threw such a glamour over the whole sex, that it never
entirely died away; if to-day women are respected and their efforts at
emancipation supported, they are not indebted, as they are sometimes
told, to Christian ethics, but rather to the mundane culture which had
its origin at the courts of the Provencal lords, whose ideals ultimately
became the controlling ideals of Europe, and whose inmost essence still
influences the world.

The evolution of love had obviously arrived at a stage when respect was
considered due to women--though not perhaps to all women. I will not go