But the Church has always taught woman that there is but one "sphere," one hope, one occupation, one life for her. If she fails in that, what wonder that with broken hope comes broken virtue or despair? Every woman who has fallen or lost her way has been previously taught by the Church that she had and has but one resource; that there is open to her in life but one path; that whether that path be legally crooked or straight, she was created for but one purpose; that _man is to decide for her what that purpose is; and that she must under no circumstances set her own judgment up against his_. The legitimate fruits of such an education are too horribly apparent to need explanation. Every fallen woman is a perpetual monument to the infamy of a religion and a social custom that narrow her life to the possibilities of but one function, and provide her no escape--a system that trains her to depend wholly on one physical characteristic of her being, and to neglect all else. That system teaches her that her mind is to be of but slight use to her; that her hands may not learn the cunning of a trade nor her brain the bearings of a profession; that mentally she is nothing; and that physically she is worse than nothing only in so far as she may minister to one appetite. I hold that the most legitimate outcome of such an education is to be found in the class that makes merchandise of all that woman is taught that she possesses that is of worth to herself or to this world. No system could be more perfectly devised to accomplish this purpose.* * See Lea's "Sacerdotal Celibacy." AS WIVES. We are told that women owe honorable marriage to Christianity;* that the more beautiful and tender relations of husband and wife find their root there; that Christianity protects and elevates the mother as no other law or religion ever has. Let us see. * See Appendix I, 1-2. On this subject I find in Maine's "Ancient Law" these facts: "Although women had been objects of barter and sale, according to barbaric usages, between their male relatives, the later Roman [Pagan] law having assumed, _on the theory of Natural Law, the equality of the sexes_, control of the _person_ of women was quite obsolete when Christianity was born. Her situation had become one of great personal liberty and proprietary independence, even when married, and the arbitrary power over her of her male relations, or her guardian, was reduced to a nullity, while the form of _marriage conferred on the husband no superiority_." Thus as a daughter and as a wife had she grown to be honored and recognized as an equal under Pagan rule. "_But Christianity tended from the first to narrow this remarkable liberty...._ The latest Roman [Pagan] law, _so far as touched by the constitutions of the Christian emperors, bears marks of reaction against these great liberal doctrines._" --Maine.