Woman under the ethnic religionsSmith, Moses, Mrs.
Religion
Woman under the ethnic religions
Smith, Moses, Mrs.
Women -- Religious life; Women and religion
A quotation from the personal experience of Prof. T. M. Lindsay, D. D.,
so pertinently sums up the Hindu creed about women that I quote it. “I
remember asking a learned Vedantist, who had spent two days in teaching
me something about his belief――a man who had read Spinoza, Berkeley
and Hegel――whether he could give me any definite proposition which all
the people who were Hindus could accept. He very readily said, ‘That
woman is a wicked animal. That the cow is a holy animal.’” No brilliant
presentation of Vedic learning, no poetic picture of Brahman or
Buddhist philosophy so recently heard in the Parliament of Religions,
will prevent the world from arraigning Hinduism for cherishing, in the
sacred name of religion, the grossest vices, and basely degrading woman
and all society. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”
[Sidenote: Religions of China.]
In the Empire of China, under a government distinguished for its
stability and justness, among a people spoken of before Christ as
“Those who dwell apart,” and known from the time of Ptolemy as just,
mild, frugal and industrious, comprising one-fourth the human race;
three religions of confessed power, not as rivals, but as co-ordinate
and supplemental, have for many centuries sought to solve the problem
of life, death and immortality. The time has been long enough, the
conditions favorable for a perfect experiment. Confucianism, the
oldest of the three, gave what is probably the best code of morals man
ever gave to men. Confucius was himself an earnest reformer. The late
Dr. Legge, professor of Chinese in the University of Oxford, says:
“Confucius saw the terrible wretchedness of his people and set himself
to find a remedy. Yet to the one principal cause of the misery of the
masses, polygamy and the low social condition of women, he gave no
thought.” In his treatise on human relations, in that of husband and
wife, he regards the wife as the servant of the husband and enjoins
absolute obedience. During all these forty-three centuries, while
Confucius has done much for good government and has set some high moral
standards for men, women have reaped no benefit from the teachings of
the sage.
[Sidenote: Taoism.]
Lao-tsze, the founder of Taoism, a religion of no little power in
China, made no effort to elevate the people, and his religious system
does not recognize the existence of woman. In the beginning, the work
of Taoism, was to repress the passions.
“_Not to act_ is the source of all power,”[8] was an ever present
thesis. To-day Taoism is a system of magic and spiritism.
[8] Ten Great Religions. James Freeman Clark.
[Sidenote: Buddhism.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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