o the
infamy of a religion and a social custom that narrow her life to the
possibilities of but one function, and provide her no escape--a system
that trains her to depend wholly on one physical characteristic of her
being, and to neglect all else.

That system teaches her that her mind is to be of but slight use to her;
that her hands may not learn the cunning of a trade nor her brain
the bearings of a profession; that mentally she is nothing; and that
physically she is worse than nothing only in so far as she may minister
to one appetite. I hold that the most legitimate outcome of such an
education is to be found in the class that makes merchandise of all that
woman is taught that she possesses that is of worth to herself or to
this world. No system could be more perfectly devised to accomplish this
purpose.*

* See Lea's "Sacerdotal Celibacy."

AS WIVES.

We are told that women owe honorable marriage to Christianity;* that the
more beautiful and tender relations of husband and wife find their root
there; that Christianity protects and elevates the mother as no other
law or religion ever has. Let us see.

* See Appendix I, 1-2.

On this subject I find in Maine's "Ancient Law" these facts:

"Although women had been objects of barter and sale,
according to barbaric usages, between their male relatives,
the later Roman [Pagan] law having assumed, _on the theory
of Natural Law, the equality of the sexes_, control of the
_person_ of women was quite obsolete when Christianity was
born. Her situation had become one of great personal liberty
and proprietary independence, even when married, and the
arbitrary power over her of her male relations, or her
guardian, was reduced to a nullity, while the form of
_marriage conferred on the husband no superiority_."

Thus as a daughter and as a wife had she grown to be honored
and recognized as an equal under Pagan rule.

"_But Christianity tended from the first to narrow this
remarkable liberty...._ The latest Roman [Pagan] law, _so
far as touched by the constitutions of the Christian
emperors, bears marks of reaction against these great
liberal doctrines._"
--Maine.

And again began the sale of women. Christianity held her as
unclean and in all respects inferior; and "during the era
which begins modern history the women of dominant races are
s