by no means a lofty one and cannot for a moment compare with the honour
accorded the Roman matron under the Empire. According to _Genesis_ a
woman is the cause of all the woes of mankind. _Ecclesiasticus_ declares
that the badness of men is better than the goodness of women.[215] In
_Leviticus_[216] we read that the period of purification customary
after the birth of a child is to be twice as long in the case of a
female as in a male. The inferiority of women was strongly felt; and
this conception would be doubly operative on men of humble station who
never travelled, who had received little education, and whose ideas were
naturally bounded by the horizon of their native localities. We are to
remember also that the East is the home of asceticism, a conviction
alien to the Western mind. There is no parallel in Western Europe to St.
Simeon Stylites.

We would, therefore, expect to find in the teachings of the Apostles an
expression of Jewish, i.e., Eastern ideals on the subject of women; and
we do so find them. Following the express commands of Christ, they
exhorted to sexual purity and reiterated his injunctions on the matter
of divorce. They went much farther and began to legislate on more minute
details. Paul allows second marriages to women[217]; but thinks it
better for a widow to remain as she is.[218] It is better to marry than
to burn; yet would he prefer that men and women should remain in
celibacy.[219] The power of the father to arrange a marriage for his
daughter was, under Roman law, limited by her consent; but the words of
Paul make it clear that it was now to be a Christian precept that a
father could determine on his own responsibility whether his daughter
should remain a virgin.[220] Wives are to be in subjection to their
husbands, and "let the wife see that she fear her husband."[221] Woman
is the weaker vessel[222]; she is to be silent in church; if she desires
to learn anything, she should ask her husband at home.[223] Furthermore: