se. The learning was exclusively scholastic,
and from any share in that women were barred. When people are kept in
ignorance, there is less inducement for them to believe that they have
any rights or to assert them if they do think so.

We shall do well to bear in mind, in noting the laws relative to women,
that theory is one thing and practice quite another. Hence, although the
doctrines of the Church on various matters touching the female sex were
characterised by the greatest purity, we shall see that in practice they
were not strictly executed. Religion does in fact play a less
considerable part in regulating the daily acts of men than theologians
are inclined to believe. If anything proves this, it is the history of
that foulest stain on Christian nations--prostitution. We might expect
that since the Roman Catholic Church insists so on chastity the level of
this virtue would certainly be higher in countries which are almost
exclusively Catholic, like Spain and Italy, than in Protestant lands;
but no one who has ever travelled in Spain or Italy fails to recognise
that the conduct of men is as lamentably low in these as in England,
Germany, or the United States.

With this brief introduction I shall proceed next to explain the
position of women under the canon law, a code which affected all
countries of Europe equally until the Reformation; and in connection
with this I shall give some idea of the attitude of the Roman Catholic
Church towards women and women's rights at the present day.

NOTES:

[364] French customary law began to be written in the thirteenth century
and was greatly affected by the Roman law.

[365] The succeeding paragraphs are a summary of the account by the
learned Professor Mackeldey, who has investigated Roman law with the
most minute diligence.

CHAPTER VI

THE CANON LAW AND THE ATTITUDE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

[Sidenote: The canon law reaffirms the subjection of women.]

The canon law reaffirms woman's subjection to man in no uncertain terms.
The wife must be submissive and obedient to her husband.[366] She must
never, under penalty of excommunication, cut off her hair, because "God
has given it to her as a veil and as a sign of her subjection."[367] A
woman who assumed men's garments was accursed[368]; it will be
remembered that the breaking of this law was one of the charges which
brought Joan of Arc to the stake. However learned and holy, woman must
never presume to