St. Peter exclaims with energy: “Wives, obey your husbands!” St. Paul writes to the Ephesians: “The husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church.” And to the Corinthians: “The man is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of the man.” According to this any fool of a man may deem himself better than the most excellent woman, and as a matter of fact it has been so in practice until this day. Against the higher education of women St. Paul also raises his voice. In the first Epistle to Timothy 2, 11, etc., he says: “Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness”; and in the Epistle to the Corinthians, 14, 34 and 35: “Let the women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak. But let them be in subjection as also saith the law. And if they would learn anything let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for a woman to speak in the church.” St. Thomas of Aquino (1227 to 1274) says: “Woman is a rapidly growing weed, an imperfect being. Her body attains maturity more rapidly only because it is of less value, and nature is engaged less in her making. Women are born to be eternally maintained under the yoke of their lords and masters, endowed by nature with superiority in every respect, and therefore destined to rule.” Such doctrines are not characteristic of Christianity only. As Christianity is a mixture of Judaism and Greek philosophy, and as both are rooted in the more ancient civilizations of India, Babylon and Egypt, the inferior position alloted to woman by Christianity was common to all the civilized nations of antiquity after the passing of the matriarchate. In the Indian book of laws of Manu we find the following: “The cause of dishonor is woman; the cause of hostility is woman; the cause of worldly things is woman; therefore woman should be shunned.” Beside the degradation of woman, the fear of woman is repeatedly naively expressed. Thus it is further stated in Manu: “Women are ever inclined by nature to seduce men; therefore a man should never, even in the company of his closest female relative, sit in a lonely spot.” The Indian conception, the old testament, and the Christian conception, all unite in declaring woman the seducer. Every condition of oppression entails the degradation of the oppressed. The oppression of woman has been maintained until this day; but among the Oriental peoples, whose social development has been retarded, it has been maintained more rigorously than among the Christian nations. Yet the factor that made for improvement in the position of women among Christian nations was not Christianity itself, but ~the civilization of the Western countries attained in the struggles against the Christian conception~.