tatement of the Christian rule: "Amongst
us [Christians] what is not permitted to women is not permitted to men.
The same obligation is held to rest on equal conditions."[1183] This is
the assertion of a celibate and an ascetic. Perhaps it may be held to
apply to pre-marital duty, but it is doubtful whether he had that in
mind. All the other statements quoted apply only to the mutuality of
conjugal duty. Of all of them it must be said that they are isolated
flights of moral enthusiasm, and by no means present the prevailing code
or the mores of the time. They do not express the life rules which have
ever yet been observed by any but selected and limited classes in any
society. The writings of Chrysostom and Augustine show plainly that the
Christians of Jerome's time did not practice the doctrine which he
uttered. It has never yet been a part of the mores of any society that
the same standards of chastity should be enforced against both sexes
before marriage. "At the present day, although the standard of morals is
far higher than in pagan Rome, it may be questioned whether the
inequality of the censure which is bestowed on the two sexes is not as
great as in the days of paganism."[1184] Conjugal affection has been the
great cause of masculine fidelity in marriage. Laertes refused to take
Eurykleia lest he should hurt his wife's feelings.[1185] Plutarch, in
his tract on "Love," dwells upon its controlling power, its
exclusiveness, and the devotion it cultivates. Observation and
experience of this kind may have produced the modern conviction that a
strong affection between spouses is the best guarantee of happiness and
truth. This conviction, with the code which belongs with it, have spread
further and further, through wider and wider classes, and it is now the
accepted moral principle that there ought to be no sex gratification
except inside of pair marriage. What that means is that no one could
formulate and maintain in public discussion any other rule as more
reasonable and expedient to be the guiding principle of the mores,
although it has not yet become such. Also, "the fundamental truth that
the same act can never be at once venial for a man to demand and
infamous for a woman to accord, though nobly enforced by the early
Christians, has not passed into the popular sentiment of
Christendom."[1186] Passing by the assertion that the early Christians
enforced any such rule, which may well be questioned, we ask: Why are
th