I.

The Scriptural Argument.

To state our faith more definitely, we believe that in Eden woman enjoyed an equality with man; that she took advantage of her privilege, and, transgressing the law of God without consulting her husband, proved treacherous to her high trust, opened the gate of perdition to the enemy of souls, and brought upon man and the race the curse consequent upon sin, and the ruin wrought by the fall.  In consequence of this, God pronounced a curse upon her; gave her sorrow in child-bearing, as he gave to man fatigue in toil; changed the relations hitherto subsisting between man and woman, and compelled her to live henceforth in another; to sink her own individuality, and merge it in that of her husband.  This is the language.  Unto the woman he said, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”  This is her portion of the curse.  This portion endures.  Man from that moment became ruler.  The wife’s desire was to the husband, so that whatever she desires is naturally referred to him.  He became adviser, lawmaker and head.  The right or wrong of God’s action it does not become us to discuss.  It is right because God did it.  Dispute the right who will, but the curse lives.  The serpent crawls on his belly and eats dust.  The wife has sorrow in conception; her desire is to her husband, and he rules her; and man, by the sweat of his brow, eats his bread.

But, says some one, did not the coming of Christ change the status of woman, and place her again on the same equality which she enjoyed when Adam led the beautiful Eve to her nuptial bower, and found it impossible to exist without what the poet describes as

  “Thy likeness, thy fit help, thy other self,
  Thy wish exactly to thy heart’s desire?”

If we have not mistaken the relations subsisting even in Eden between the original pair, woman was not the ruler even there.  Milton has truthfully said,—­

  “For well I understand in the prime end
  Of Nature her the inferior, in the mind
  And inward faculties which most excel,
  In outward, also, her resembling less
  His image who made both, and less expressing
  The character of that dominion given
  O’er other creatures; yet when I approach
  Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,
  And in herself complete, so well to know
  Her own, that what she wills to do or say
  Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best: 
  All higher knowledge in her presence falls
  Degraded; wisdom in discourse with her
  Loses discountenanced, and like folly shows;
  Authority and reason on her wait,
  As one intended first, not after made
  Occasionally; and to consummate all,
  Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat
  Build in her, loveliest, and create an awe
  About her, as a guard angelic placed.”