nations went beyond anything decreed_
concerning the olden slavery; that it wrote down as an
actual right the most grievous outrage that could ever wound
_man's_ heart. The Lords Spiritual (clergy) had this right
no less than the Lords Temporal. The _parson_, being a lord,
_expressly claimed the first fruits of the bride, but was
willing to sell_ his right to the husband. The Courts of
Berne openly maintain that this right grew up naturally."--
Michelet, "La Sorcerie," p.62

"The degradation of the _husband_ at this infringement of the lord
spiritual and temporal upon his marital right, has been pictured by many
writers, but history has been quite silent upon the despair and shame
of the wife. No hope appeared for woman anywhere. The Church....
dragged her to the lowest depths, through the vileness of its priestly
customs.... We who talk of the burning of wives upon the funeral pyres
of husbands in India, may well turn our eyes to the records of Christian
countries."--Matilda Joslyn Gage in "Woman, Church, and State."

2. From this point Mrs. Gage calls attention to the various efforts to
throw off this degrading custom. The women held meetings at night, and
among other things travestied the celebration of Mass and other Church
customs; but the end and aim of these meetings being a protest and
rebellion against Marquette, the clergy called those who took part in
them "witches;"* and then and there began the persecution which the
Church carried on against women under this disguise (under Catholic and
Protestant rule alike), which extended down to the latter part of the
last century, with its list of horrors and indignities extending over
all Christian countries and blossoming in all their vigor in our
own eastern States, upheld by Luther, John Wesley, and Baxter, who
unfortunately had not at that time entered into the everlasting rest
of the Saints. And, true to these noble and wise leaders, the Churches
which they founded are to-day expressing the same sentiments (in
principle) in regard to the honor and dignity and position of woman.
The arguments of the Rev. Dr. Craven, the prosecutor in the famous
Presbyterian trial of 1876, which are given by Mrs. Gage, together with
numerous other similar ones, fully establish the fact that woman is to
the Church what she always was--_so far as secular law will permit._ And
numerous instances (such as the Buckley exhibition at the last Meth