ture eternal torment, the
rights of the people were gradually lost. The control of the
priesthood over all things of a temporal, as well as of a spiritual
nature, tended to make them a distinct body from the laity, and rights
were divided into those pertaining to persons and things, the rights
of persons belonging to the priesthood alone; but inasmuch as every
man, whatever his condition, could become a priest, and no woman,
however learned or pious or high in station, could, the whole tendency
of ecclesiastical law was to separate man and woman into a holy or
divine sex, and an unholy or impious sex, creating an antagonism
between those whose interests are by nature the same. Thus canon law,
bearing upon the business of ordinary life between man and man, fell
with its greatest weight upon woman; it not only corrupted the common
law in England, but perverted the civil law of other countries. The
denial under common law of the right of woman to make a contract, grew
out of the denial of her right of ownership. Not possessing control
over her own property or her future actions, she was held as legally
unable to make a binding contract.

Property is a delicate test of the condition of a nation. It is a
singular fact of history that the rights of property have everywhere
been recognized before the rights of persons, and wherever the rights
of any class to property are attacked, it is a most subtle and
dangerous assault upon personal rights. The chief restrictive element
of slavery was the denial to the slave of the proceeds of his own
labor. As soon as a slave was allowed to hire his time, the door of
freedom began to open to him. The enslavement of woman has been much
increased from the denial of the rights of property to her, not merely
to the fruits of her own labor, but to the right of inheritance.

The great school of German jurists[200] teach that ownership increases
both physical and moral capacity, and that as owner, actual or
possible, man is a more capable and worthy being than he would
otherwise be. Inasmuch as under canon law woman was debarred from
giving testimony in courts of law, sisters were prohibited from taking
an inheritance with brothers, and wives were deprived of property
rights, it is entirely justifiable to say ecclesiastical law injured
civilization by its destruction of the property rights of women.[201]

The worst features of canon law, as Blackstone frankly admits, are
those touching upon th