And a feeling was born then which to this day constitutes one of the striking differences between the Eastern and the Western worlds:  the respect for womanhood.  It is based on the woman-worship of secular, and the Madonna-worship of ecclesiastical circles.  It is true that Jesus, anticipating the intuition of Europe, had taught the divinity of the human soul and recognised woman—­in this respect—­as on an equality with man, but the instincts of Greece and the Eastern nations had proved to be stronger than his teaching; for twelve hundred years woman was despised, and more than once the question as to whether or no she had a soul—­in other words, as to whether or no she was a human being—­had come under discussion.  The crude and primitively dualistic minds of the period realised in her sex merely an embodiment of their own sensuality, the enemy against whom they fought, and to whom they knew themselves subject.  The strongest argument in her favour which the first millenary could adduce, was the fact that the Saviour of the world had been borne by a woman, and that consequently her sex had a share in the work of salvation; the idea that through the “other Eve” a part of the sin of the first Eve was expiated.  But genuine appreciation and respect were only possible after base sensuality had been contrasted with spiritual love, whose vehicle again was woman.  Now the “eternal-feminine”—­ contrasted with the “earthly-feminine”—­drew the lovers upwards, and this new emotion threw such a glamour over the whole sex, that it never entirely died away; if to-day women are respected and their efforts at emancipation supported, they are not indebted, as they are sometimes told, to Christian ethics, but rather to the mundane culture which had its origin at the courts of the Provencal lords, whose ideals ultimately became the controlling ideals of Europe, and whose inmost essence still influences the world.

The evolution of love had obviously arrived at a stage when respect was considered due to women—­though not perhaps to all women.  I will not go to the courts of the great for evidence, but merely relate an episode from the life of the Dominican friar Suso:  “In crossing a field, Suso met on a narrow path a poor, respectable woman.  When he was close to her, he stepped off the dry path and stood in the mud, waiting for her to pass.  The woman, who knew him, was astonished.  ‘How is it, Sir,’ she said, ’that you, a venerable priest, are humbly standing aside to allow me, a poor woman, to pass, when it were far more meet that I should stand aside and make room for you?’ ‘Why, my good woman,’ replied Suso, ’I like to honour all women for the sake of the gentle Mother of God in Heaven.’”