held about the female sex in general. Woman is commonly looked upon
as a slight, dainty, and relatively weak creature, destitute of all
nobler qualities. Especially among nations more advanced in culture
she is regarded as intellectually and morally inferior to man. In
Greece, in the historic age, the latter recognized in her no other
end than to minister to his pleasure and to become the mother of
his children.

This author finds the Greek subjection of wives, as you will have
noted, no exception to the universal rule as to the relation of culture
to womanhood. After speaking of the status of woman among the ancient
Hebrews, and the position assigned her by that greatest instrument of
European civilization called the Roman Catholic Church, he repeats his
generalization in these terms:--

Progress in civilization has exercised an unfavorable influence on
the position of woman by widening the gulf between the sexes, as
the higher culture was almost exclusively the prerogative of the
men. Moreover, religion, and especially the great religions of the
world, has contributed to the degradation of the female sex by
regarding woman as unclean.

IX. THE AGE OF THE FOUNDATIONS AT HAND

Is this degradation an inevitable outcome of the animating principle at
the heart of the process whereby sentient beings have thus far been
transformed from beasts into citizens? We are forced to answer "Yes."
Otherwise, why has the relative degradation of woman deepened
universally with the progress of civilization? If Westermarck is right,
it would seem that the lowest foundations of highly developed society
have always consisted of the bodies and souls of women. If such be the
historic fact, it may seem strange that only in our day, but now the
world over, is heard the wail of women crying to be freed. Perhaps the
reason, however, that we for the first time hear the wail is because
never before had the fissures grown wide enough to allow the fainter,
but more piteous, sighs to escape.

The fact, too, of which there is no doubt, that at last in our age even
women are beginning to be revered as responsible moral and spiritual
agents may be a sign that the Day of the Foundations is come, that the
age of civilization is nearing its close, and that a new era, animated
by a fresh principle of human co-ordination, is at hand. There is at
least evidence that many women are asking: "Are the pr