FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87  
88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   >>   >|  
is yet reached? [Footnote 1: Story's _Treatise on the Law of Contracts not under Seal_, sec. 84, p. 89.] OBEY After witnessing the marriage ceremony of the Episcopal Church, the other day, I walked down the aisle with the young rector who had officiated. It was natural to speak of the beauty of the Church service on an occasion like that; but, after doing this, I felt compelled to protest against the unrighteous pledge to obey. "I hope," I said, "to live to see that word expunged from the Episcopal service, as it has been from that of the Methodists. The Roman Catholics, you know, have never had it." "Why do you object?" he asked. "Is it because you know that they will not obey?" "Because they ought not," I said. "Well," said he, after a few moments' reflection, and looking up frankly, "I do not think they ought!" Here was a young clergyman of great earnestness and self-devotion, who included it among the sacred duties of his life to impose upon ignorant young girls a solemn obligation, which he yet thought they ought not to incur, and did not believe that they would keep. There could hardly be a better illustration of the confusion in the public mind, or the manner in which "the subjection of woman" is being outgrown, or the subtile way in which this subjection has been interwoven with sacred ties, and baptized "duty." The advocates of woman suffrage are constantly reproved for using the terms "subjection," "oppression," and "slavery," as applied to woman. They simply commit the same sin as that committed by the original abolitionists. They are "as harsh as truth, as uncompromising as justice." Of course they talk about oppression and emancipation. It is the word _obey_ that constitutes the one, and shows the need of the other. Whoever is pledged to obey is technically and literally a slave, no matter how many roses surround the chains. All the more so if the slavery is self-imposed, and surrounded by all the prescriptions of religion. Make the marriage tie as close as church or state can make it; but let it be equal, impartial. That it may be so, the word _obey_ must be abandoned or made reciprocal. Where invariable obedience is promised, equality is gone. That there may be no doubt about the meaning of this word in the marriage covenant, the usages of nations often add symbolic explanations. These are generally simple, and brutal enough to be understood. The Hebrew ceremony, when the bride
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87  
88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

marriage

 

subjection

 

oppression

 
slavery
 
sacred
 

ceremony

 
Episcopal
 

service

 

Church

 

uncompromising


original
 

abolitionists

 

Whoever

 

constitutes

 

emancipation

 
explanations
 

symbolic

 

justice

 

commit

 
reproved

Hebrew

 
advocates
 

suffrage

 

constantly

 

understood

 

pledged

 

committed

 
simply
 

simple

 

brutal


applied

 

generally

 

matter

 

church

 

promised

 

equality

 

baptized

 

obedience

 

reciprocal

 

abandoned


invariable

 

impartial

 

religion

 

prescriptions

 

usages

 

nations

 
literally
 

covenant

 

surround

 

imposed