It is one of the noteworthy and distressing facts of late Jewish history that in the later teaching of the rabbis woman is placed upon a distinctly lower plane. Her inferiority to man is frequently emphasized. And yet there was one factor which came into the life of Judaism, after the Babylonian exile, which gave to Jewish women an advantage which they had not previously enjoyed. It was the establishment of the synagogue. The secondary place given to women in the temple worship has already been referred to. The man, as head of the family, was representative of the family and responsible, therefore, for the performance of the ceremonies required of every Hebrew household. With the destruction of the temple and the dispersion of the Jews, the temple rites were rendered impossible. When the synagogue arose to fill the vacancy made by these conditions, women were given a place in attendance at the instruction given in these new centres of Jewish life. And while they were never strictly considered members of the congregation, yet, seated in a separate part of the room, they heard the Scriptures read and expounded; and it was not unknown for women even to read on the Sabbath as among the seven appointees for the day. The _Torah_, or law, however, was considered rather too sacred and important to be committed to their exposition. Judging from a remark in the _Halacha_ it is just to infer that in the days when the Jews had become dispersed throughout the Roman world, there were two facts that had a very powerful influence upon Jewish women, one of them of Hebraic, the other of Greco-Roman origin. For the _Halacha_, in speaking of the women leaving their homes, said that there were two causes which took the women away from their domestic duties: one was the synagogue, the other, the baths,--not, indeed, an altogether uncomplimentary comment upon the women of the times, for it would seem they believed in the oft-coupled virtues of cleanliness and godliness.