In comparing the Roman law with the canon or ecclesiastical code, the same writer says that the pagan laws during the Empire were constantly repealing the old disabilities of women; but that it was the aim of the canon law to substitute enactments which should entail on the female sex the greatest personal restrictions and the most stringent subordination.[259] [259] _European Morals_, vol. ii., p. 358. Those who have paid attention to the history of the English Common Law, which forms the basis of our present system of jurisprudence, and who have noted the part played by ecclesiasticism in fixing the status of women therein, will not be surprised at the attitude which the so-called Christian Church has assumed toward women. Referring to the Common Law, an able writer has said: This imperishable specimen of human sagacity is, strange to say, so grossly unjust toward women that a great writer upon that code has well observed that in it women are regarded not as persons but as things; so completely were they stripped of all their rights, and held in subjection to their proud and imperious masters.[260] [260] Buckle’s _Essays_. It has been remarked that in no one particular does the canon law depart so widely from the spirit of secular jurisprudence as in the view it takes of the relations created by marriage. Although the leaven of civilization preserved from Roman institutions was the codified jurisprudence of Justinian, as the chapter of law relating to women was read by the light of canon law, the altruistic principles which had characterized the later Roman code soon became extinct. Upon this subject Mr. Maine remarks: This was in part inevitable since no society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the middle Roman law. And this is doubtless true for the reason that the entire Christian superstructure rests on the dogma of female weakness and female depravity. The doctrine of Original Sin, which depends entirely on the story of the fruit-tree of Genesis being taken in a literal sense, had by canonists been accepted. On her first appearance upon the scene of action, woman is labouring under a curse pronounced upon her by an all-powerful male God for the mischief she had wrought on innocent man; it is only reasonable, therefore, that human law should unite with the divine decree in establishing her complete and final degradation; hence, the return to the ancient Hindu law and the older Roman code for models of legislation concerning her. On this subject Mr. Maine remarks: