Letters on the equality of the sexes, and the condition of womanGrimké, Sarah
Religion
Letters on the equality of the sexes, and the condition of woman
Grimké, Sarah
Women -- History; Women -- United States; Women's rights -- United States
Independent of the fact, that Jehovah could not, consistently with his
character as the King, the Lawgiver, and the Judge of his people, give
the reins of government over woman into the hands of man, I find that
all his commands, all his moral laws, are addressed to women as well as
to men. When he assembled Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai, to issue
his commandments, we may reasonably suppose he gave all the precepts,
which he considered necessary for the government of moral beings. Hence
we find that God says,--‘Honor thy father and thy mother,’ and he
enforces this command, by severe penalties upon those who transgress
it: ‘He that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to
death’--‘He that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put
to death’--Ex. 21: 15, 17. But in the decalogue, there is no direction
given to women to obey their husbands: both are commanded to have no
other God but Jehovah, and not to bow down, or serve any other. When
the Lord Jesus delivered his sermon on the Mount, full of the practical
precepts of religion, he did not issue any command to wives to obey
their husbands. When he is speaking on the subject of divorce, Mark 16:
11, 12, he places men and women on the same ground. And the Apostle,
1st Cor. 7: 12, 13, speaking of the duties of the Corinthian wives and
husbands, who had embraced Christianity, to their unconverted partners,
points out the same path to both, although our translators have made a
distinction. ‘Let him not put her away,’ 12--‘Let her not leave him,’
13--is precisely the same in the original. If man is constituted the
governor of woman, he must be her God; and the sentiment expressed to
me lately, by a married man, is perfectly correct: ‘In my opinion,’
said he, ‘the greatest excellence to which a married woman can attain,
is to worship her husband.’ He was a professor of religion--his wife a
lovely and intelligent woman. He only spoke out what thousands think
and act. Women are indebted to Milton for giving to this false notion,
‘confirmation strong as proof of holy writ.’ His Eve is embellished
with every personal grace, to gratify the eye of her admiring husband;
but he seems to have furnished the mother of mankind with just
intelligence enough to comprehend her supposed inferiority to Adam, and
to yield unresisting submission to her lord and master. Milton puts
into Eve’s mouth the following address to Adam:
‘My author and disposer, what thou bidst,
Unargued I obey; so God ordains--
God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more,
Is woman’s happiest knowledge and her praise.’
This much admired sentimental nonsense is fraught with absurdity and
wickedness. If it were true, the commandment of Jehovah should have run
thus: Man shall have no other gods before ME, and woman shall have no
other gods before MAN.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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