een everywhere under various forms of archaic guardianship,
and _the husband pays a money price to her male relations
for her_. The prevalent state of _religious_ sentiment may
explain why it is that _modern_ jurisprudence has absorbed
among its rudiments _much more than usual of those rules_
[archaic] _concerning the position of women which belong
peculiarly to an imperfect civilization._"
--Ibid.

Thus it will be seen that from the first, and extending down to the
present, the Church did all she could to cast woman back into the night
of the race from which in a great measure she had been rescued through
the ages when Natural Law and not "revelation" was the guide of man. The
laws which the Church found liberal and just toward women it discarded,
and it searched back in the ages of night for such as it saw fit to
re-enact for her. Of this Maine says: "The husband now draws to himself
the power which formerly belonged to his wife's male relatives, the only
difference being that he no longer pays anything for the privilege."

As Christians grew economical wives came cheaper than formerly, and it
became a dogma that wives were not worth much anyhow, and then, too,
it enabled persons of limited means to have more of them. Of a somewhat
later date Maine says: "_At this point heavy disabilities begin to be
imposed upon wives_."

That was to make marriage honorable and attractive, no doubt, and, says
Maine: "_It was very long before the subordination entailed on women by
marriage was sensibly diminished." And what diminution it received came
from men who fought against Church law_.*

*See Lecky, Maine, Lea, Milman, Christian, Blackstone,
Morley, and others for ample proof of this fact

It was only the crumbs of liberty, honor, and justice extorted by men
who fought the Church on behalf of wives, that lightened their most
oppressive burdens. It was true then, and it is true to-day, that women
owe what justice and freedom and power they possess to the fact that the
best and clearest-headed men are more honorable than our religion, and
that they have invited Moses and St. Paul to take a back seat Moses has
complied, and St. Paul is half-way down the aisle.

Some of the clergy now explain that although Paul may have written
certain things inimical to women, he did not _mean_ them, so it is all
right. Such passages as 1 Cor. xi. 3-9; xiv. 34-35; and Eph. v. 22-24,
are now explai