ere special and incidental.
He received consideration always as a person. He _might_ be dealt with
as husband or father.

But ignoring all her mental life and denying that she had any, and
ignoring all her physical possibilities, ambitions, desires, and
capabilities as a person, the Church narrowed woman's life and
restricted her energies into a compass where its power over her became
absolute and her subjection certain. Nor has the loss been wholly
to woman, for any influence which cripples the mother's capacity of
endowment takes cruel revenge on the race.*

* "It is not impossible but that a more correct
understanding of the laws of life and heredity may establish
the fact that because of the subjection of woman, the entire
race has been mentally dwarfed and physically weakened."
--Gamble.

From this outlook the debt of civilization to the Church is heavy
indeed. Is it a debt of gratitude?

Under this head there is space for but one point farther, out of the
great store at hand.

The clergy were licensed to commit crime. They got up a neat little
scheme called "benefit of clergy" by which they were secure from
the punishment meted out to other criminals. The relief offered did
sometimes reach other men, but as learning was largely confined to the
clergy they were the chief beneficiaries, as the name implies and as was
the intent of the law. Any man who could read was allowed "benefit
of clergy;" in other words, his punishment was lightened or entirely
omitted. But a woman, though she were a perfect mine of wisdom and could
read in any number of languages, could receive no such benefit, _because
she could not take holy orders_. They first enacted that she should
not take orders, and then they denied to her the relief which only that
ability could give. So great a favorite was woman with the Church!

The ordinary male criminal received the ordinary punishment, the clergy
received none; and in order that the requisite gross amount of suffering
for crime should be inflicted on somebody, the clergy enacted that woman
should receive _their_ share vicariously in addition to her own,
and then to this they added such interest as would make the
twenty-per-cent-a-month men of Wall street ashamed of their stupid
financiering.

Thus the Church arrogated to itself the exclusive right to commit crime
with impunity, and also claimed and exercised the right to prevent women
from learning to read. If