general fact, have produced his particular representation of her social destiny.

Open, for instance, the poems of Pope and Swift, which abound with such coarse, bitter, humiliating satire of the female sex. Are all women, then, without discrimination, utterly destitute of delicacy and purity of sentiment, as those writers would have it? Or was there not some seated distemper in the moral constitution of their minds which jaundiced all their views of woman? The truth in this matter is familiar to every scholar. They were each the object of the devoted but unmerited and unrequited affections of some of the best hearts that ever beat in human bosoms. What men deeply injure, that they deeply hate. Festering in misanthropical celibacy, the mind of each transferred to the canvas its own dark tints of spiteful malignity in place of the reflected image they professed to copy. If we analyze the life and character of Milton and Byron, we shall there in like manner find a key to all the peculiarities in their conception of the social condition of woman. There is one poet and one prose writer, however, each preeminent for his intuitive perception of character, and his marvelous knowledge of human nature, who have written a vast deal concerning the female sex, full of instruction, good sense, good feeling and truth. We mean Shakespeare and Scott. They loved fondly, but wisely, and there was not, therefore, in their domestic history, any great disturbing fact to distort their judgment of the fair sex; and they have recorded woman as she is; rich in the virtues and graces appropriate to her career on earth; if with less of the sustained vigor of active resolution, and less of the analytical comprehensiveness of intellect than man, yet with

more intensity of purpose, and more instinctive quickness and force of thought in a given emergency; when good, in principle better than he, when bad, worse; in a word, neither greater nor less than man, but different, as her natural vocation is different, and both so far equal, that each is superior to the other in their respective departments of thought and action.

sex.

In taking up this topic of the social condition of woman in modern Christendom, we avow in advance that we are not preparing to present a mere panegyric on the female What we propose to ourselves on this occasion is neither a reasoned analysis of the general spirit of the gentler sex, nor a diatribe upon her defects, nor a declamation upon her excellences; but a just deduction and estimate, so far as we are able to give it, of what Christian civilization has done for the condition and character of woman. After speaking of the leading facts of her history, we may best pronounce upon her true rank in the scale of society, and of moral and intellectual beings.

Without covering so much ground as would be needful were we to attempt elucidating at large the condition of woman in societies unconnected with our own, it will suffice if, as preliminary to considering her place in the economy of modern Christendom, we briefly explain what she is in countries highly civilized but not Christian, in a purely barbarous state of society generally, and what she was in those communities which chiefly contributed to form the spirit of Christendom, namely, in Palestine, in Greece, in Rome, and among the ancient Germans.

Of modern countries highly civilized but not Christian we shall take but two examples, China and Hindostan, both

as composing so large a portion of the human race, and as having really attained a high degree of general culture.

In considering the purely savage or hunter stage of human society, notwithstanding there be in different countries great diversities in the condition of the female sex, yet in every case we discover certain marked traits which clearly indicate the deleterious effect of barbarism of manners upon the social position of woman. One is the similarity of savage life, in the nearest of all the social relations, to the condition of brute animals. In the hunter state the supply of the first necessity of life, food, is precarious, and this uncertainty of the means of subsistence counteracts the natural tendency of mankind to a permanent connubial union between the sexes, a tendency which develops itself more and more in proportion as society grows more fixed and stable in its forms. Hence in many such communities children are distinguished with reference to their mother alone, whose name they bear, and not their father's. In some of those tribes of North America which admitted of hereditary sovereignty, royalty of blood was tested by derivation from the mother alone, in reverse of the usage of all civilized nations. Such institutions or usages necessarily imply the degradation of the female sex. Another of the distinctive peculiarities of the savage life is the common fact that women are held as property. In some barbarous communities the wife is purchased, in others she is forcibly seized by her future husband and master. And universally we may say, at all times, in every climate, under whatever circumstances of local situation, savage man regards and treats the feebler sex as born to menial service. Woman is the humble slave of his pleasure, the handmaid of his daily

wants, his laborious drudge of the field, the household, and the journey, consigned to toil and subservience, while he, the proud lord of creation, aspires exclusively to the stirring chances of the chase, or the yet nobler game of war. Nor does this description apply to a class only of savage society. Such is the general condition of women in barbarous communities, however exalted the station of their rude connections, how much soever they happen to be cherished by their untutored lords. Out of innumerable illustrations of this which might be given, we select one for its peculiar fullness, pertinency, and homely force and truth. Samuel Hearne is well known as one of the adventurous explorers of the Arctic coast of North America. He was returning on his way back to Prince of Wales's Fort, unsuccessful from his second expedition, when he met Matonabbee, whom he describes as "a powerful and intelligent chief," and who undertook to explain the cause of his failure, ascribing it to the want of female attendants. "In an expedition of this kind," said Matonabbee, "when all the men are so heavily laden that they can neither hunt nor travel to any considerable distance, in case they meet with success in hunting, who is to carry the produce of their labor?-Women were made for labor; one of them can carry or haul as much as two men can do. They also pitch our tents, make and mend our clothing, rake our fires at night; and, in fact, there is no such thing as traveling any considerable distance or for any length of time in this country without them; and yet, though they do everything, they are maintained at a trifling expense; for, as they always act the cook, the very licking of their fingers in scarce times is sufficient for their subsistence." Under the auspices of Matonabbee, and with

seven of his wives to accompany him, Hearne set out on his third expedition; and in his plain, unvarnished description of the incredible hardships he underwent, and of the excessive toil imposed upon the females of the expedition, we have a vivid representation of the servile and wretched condition of the female sex in the very highest rank of their nation; for such was Matonabbee, as expressly stated by Hearne, and as incidentally apparent throughout his narrative of the journey. And if in some savage societies the condition of woman was better, in others it was worse than represented in the pages of Hearne's "Journey."

While the people of Hindostan, it is true, have made such advances in certain of the forms and fixed improvements of civilization, that they can not be deemed a barbarous people, still the practice of infanticide and the disregard of chastity are facts upon the face of things attesting a barbaric degradation in the social position of woman. Yet there it is that the widow proves how irreparable is her grief by devoting herself on the funeral pile as a burnt-offering to hallow the memory of her deceased lord. But how did he earn such unequaled ardor of love? We may read in the Abbé Dubois an extract from one of the sacred books of the Hindoos, which expressly enjoins upon her not merely that she is to obey her husband as a master, but that she is to revere him as a god. "When in the presence of her husband," are the words, "a woman must keep her eyes upon her master, and be ready to receive his commands. When he speaks she must be quiet, and listen to nothing besides. When he calls she must leave everything else and attend upon him alone. A woman has no other god on earth than her husband. The most excellent of all good works she