Education, Sensibility, and Religion

Abstract

The historical religious ranking of women will be visibly readjusted in this chapter.

O fairest of creation, last and best ofall God’s works.

—John Milton, Paradise Lost

Woman! by Heav’ns the very Name’s a Crime, Enough to blast, and to debauch my Rhime. Sure Heav’n it self (intranc’t) like Adam lay, Or else some banish’d Fiend usurp’t the sway When Eve was form’d; and with her, usher’d in Plagues, Woes, and Death, and a new World of Sin. The fatal Rib was crooked and unev’n, from whence they have their Crab-like Nature giv’n; Averse to all the Laws of Man, and Heav’n. O Lucifer, thy Regions had been thin, Were’t not for Womans propagating Sin.

—Robert Gould, “Love Given O’re”

When Church and State combine, no protest under chains can set the captive free. To my mind, the matter calls not only for discussion, but for outspoken rebellion.

—E. C. Stanton, The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony