Woman, Church and State

First published in 1893, this classic work is a historical account of the status of woman through the Christian ages with reminiscences of the Matriarchate. Woman is told that her present position in society is ent6irely due to Christianity; that it is superior to that of her sex at any prior age o9f the world, Church and State both maintaining that she has ever been inferior and dependent, man superior and ruler. These assertions are made the basis of opposition to her demands for exact equality with man in all the relations of life, although they are not true either of the family, the church, or t5he state. Such assertions are due to non-acquaintance with the existing phase of historical knowledge, whose records the majority of mankind have neither time nor opportunity of investigating. The authors writes in the Preface: "This work explains itself and is given to the world because it is needed. Tired of the obtuseness of Church and State; indignant at the injustice of both towards woman; at the wrongs inflicted upon one-half of humanity by the other half in the name of religion; finding appeal and argument alike met by the assertion that God designed the subjection of woman, and yet that her position had been higher under Christianity than ever before: Continually hearing these statements and knowing them to be false, I refute them"..