A curious teaching of several wide-spread cults was that women alone were endowed with immortality. Such was the opinion of the natives of the Marquesas Islands, and in Samoa the myth related that the god Supa (paralysis) ordained in the council of creation that the life of a man should be like a torch, which, when blown out, cannot be again lighted by blowing; but that a woman’s soul should live always.[275] No one can doubt that in thus assigning a high and often the highest place in the religious mysteries to woman, many primitive religions surrounded her with a sacredness which was constantly recognised, and thus aided in the improvement of her social relations. The value of virtue and purity was increased, mere animal desires were subjected to religious restraint, and the relations of sex came increasingly to be regarded as instituted by divine wisdom for special purposes. 3. Although the specifications of the ceremonial law were often capricious and absurd, and sometimes positively hurtful, yet it developed the habit of obedience and the respect for authority. In this manner it potently aided the evolution of jurisprudence—that is, of those rules of conduct which grow out of the habit of men living together and which are necessary to preserve amicable relations. These had their origin in other than religious considerations, but when once consciously recognised as beneficial, the religion of the tribe generally adopted them, claimed their creation, and threw around them the garb of its own protective power. Religion then actively aided in the fulfilment of purely social duties, as these were understood by the tribe. In primitive conditions, all laws are God’s laws. As we would say, there is no separation of the civil and criminal from the canon law. To the Mohammedan, the Koran is the source of all jurisprudence. This is a survival from early thought. From this it followed that the punishment of crime and the decisions between litigants were, properly, judgments of God. This universal opinion is reflected in a number of traits in jurisprudence, some of which are still in vogue in civilised lands. The most noteworthy are the ordeal, trial by battle, oaths, and the privilege of sanctuary. Ordeals were universal. They all rested on the belief that the gods would rescue the innocent man from danger. He might be required to hold red-hot iron in his hands; he might be plunged long under water; swallow poison; or in any other way expose himself to pain or death; if he were unjustly accused, the invisible powers would protect him.[276] The trial by battle involved the same opinion. “If the Lord is on my side, why should I fear?” is the confident belief at the basis of every such test of skill and strength.[277]