A Short History of Women's Rights Part 14

When all these fail, recourse can be had to a dispensation. The Church reserves the right to give dispensations for all impediments. Canon III of the twenty-fourth session of Trent says: "If anyone shall say, that only those degrees of consanguinity and affinity which are set down in _Leviticus_ [xviii, 6 ff.] can hinder matrimony from being contracted, and dissolve it when contracted; and that the Church can not dispense in some of those degrees, or ordain that others may hinder and dissolve it; let him be anathema."

[Sidenote: Inheritance]

The minute and far-fetched subtleties which the Roman Church has employed in the interpretation of these relations.h.i.+ps make escape from the marital tie feasible for the man who is eager to disenc.u.mber himself of his life's partner. The man of limited means will have a hard time of it. The great and wealthy have been able at all periods, by working one or more of these doctrines, to reduce the theory of the Roman Church to nullity in practice. Napoleon had his marriage to Josephine annulled on the ground that he had never intended to enter into a religious marriage with her, although the day before the ceremony he had had the union secretly blessed by Cardinal Fesch. On the basis of this avowed lack of intent, his marriage with Josephine was declared null and void, and he was free to marry Louisa. A plea along the same lines is being worked by the Count de Castellane now. Louis XII, having fallen in love with Anne of Brittany, suddenly discovered that his wife was his fourth cousin, that she was deformed, and that her father had been his G.o.dfather; and for this the Pope gave him a dispensation and his legitimate wife was sent away. The Pope did not thunder against Louis XIV for committing adultery with women like Louise de la Valliere and Madame de Montespan.

It is certainly true that in the case of Philip Augustus of France and Henry VIII of England the Pope did protect injured wives; but both these monarchs were questioning the Vatican's autocracy. The matrimonial relations of John of England, Philip's contemporary, were more corrupt than those of the French king; but, while the Pope chastised John for his defiance of his political autonomy, he did not excommunicate him on any ground of morality. The statement of Cardinal Gibbons is not entirely in accordance with history; he does not take all facts into consideration, as is also true of his complacent a.s.sumption that outside of the Roman Church no economic forces and no individuals have had any effect in elevating the moral and economic status of women.

Questions such as those of inheritance belong properly to civil law; but the canon law claimed to be heard in any case into which any spiritual interest could be foisted. Thus in the year 1199 Innocent III enacted that children of heretics be deprived of all their offending parents' goods "since in many cases even according to divine decree children are punished in this world on account of their parents."[392]

[Sidenote: General att.i.tude towards women at the present day]

The att.i.tude of the Roman Catholic Church towards women's rights at the present day is practically the same as it has been for eighteen centuries. It still insists on the subjection of the woman to the man, and it is bitterly hostile to woman suffrage. This position is so well ill.u.s.trated by an article of the Rev. David Barry in the Roman Catholic paper, the Dublin _Irish Ecclesiastical Review_, that I cannot do better than quote some of it. "It seems plain enough," he says, "that allowing women the right of suffrage is incompatible with the high Catholic ideal of the unity of domestic life. Even those who do not hold the high and rigid ideal of the unity of the family that the Catholic Church clings to must recognise some authority in the family, as in every other society. Is this authority the conjoint privilege of husband and wife?

If so, which of them is to yield, if a difference of opinion arises?

Surely the most uncompromising suffragette must admit that the wife ought to give way in such a case. That is to say, every one will admit that the wife's domestic authority is subordinate to that of her husband. But is she to be accorded an autonomy in outside affairs that is denied her in the home? Her authority is subject to her husband's in domestic matters--her special sphere; is it to be considered co-ordinate with his in regulating the affairs of the State? Furthermore, there is an argument that applies universally, even in the case of those women who are not subject to the care and protection of a husband, and even, I do not hesitate to say, where the matters to be decided on would come specially within their cognisance, and where their judgment would, therefore, be more reliable than that of men. It is this, that in the noise and turmoil of party politics, or in the narrow, but rancorous arena of local factions, it must needs fare ill with what may be called the pa.s.sive virtues of humility, patience, meekness, forbearance, and self-repression. These are looked on by the Church as the special prerogative and endowment of the female soul ... But these virtues would soon become sullied and tarnished in the dust and turmoil of a contested election; and their absence would soon be disagreeably in evidence in the character of women, who are, at the same time, almost const.i.tutionally debarred from preeminence in the more robust virtues for which the soul of man is specially adapted."

Cardinal Gibbons, in a letter to the National League for the Civic Education of Women--an anti-suffrage organisation--said that "woman suffrage, if realised, would be the death-blow of domestic life and happiness" (Nov. 2, 1909).

Rev. William Humphrey, S.J., in his _Christian Marriage_, chap. 16, remarks that woman is "the subordinate equal of man"--whatever that means.

A few Roman Catholic prelates, like Cardinal Moran, have advocated equal suffrage, but they are in the minority. The Pope has not yet definitely stated the position of the Church; individual Catholics are free to take any side they wish, as it is not a matter of faith; but the tendency of Roman Catholicism is against votes for women.

SOURCES

I. Corpus Iuris Canonici: recognovit Aemilius Friedberg. Lipsiae (Tauchnitz) Pars Prior, 1879. Pars Secunda, 1881.

II. Sacrosanctum Concilium Tridentinum, additis Declarationibus Cardinalium, Concilii Interpretum, ex ultima recognitione Joannis Gallemart, etc. Coloniae Agrippinae, apud Francisc.u.m Metternich, Bibliopolam. MDCCXXVII.

III. The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York, Robert Appleton Company.

(Published with the _Imprimatur_ of Archbishop Parley.)

IV. Various articles by Catholic prelates, due references to which are given as they occur.

NOTES:

[366] Augustine quoted by Gratian, _Causa_, 33, _Quaest_. 5, chapters 12-16--Friedberg, i, pp. 1254, 1255. Ambrose and Jerome on the same matter, ibid., _c_. 15 and 17, Friedberg, i, p. 1255. Gratian, _Causa_ 30, _Quaest_. 5, _c_. 7--Friedberg, i, p. 1106: Feminae dum maritantur, ideo velantur, ut noverint se semper viris suis subditas esse et humiles.

[367] Gratian, _Distinctio_, 30, _c_. 2--Friedberg, i, p. 107: Quec.u.mque mulier, religioni iudicans convenire, comam sibi amputaverit quam Deus ad velamen eius et ad memoriam subiectionis illi dedit, tanquam resolvens ius subiectionis, anathema sit. Cf. Gratian, _Causa_, 15, _Quaest_. 3--Friedberg, i, p. 750.

[368] Gratian, _Dist_., 30, _c_. 6, Friedberg, i, p. 108. See also _Deuteronomy_ xxii, 5.

[369] Gratian, _Dist_., 23, _c_. 29--Friedberg, i, p. 86: Mulier, quamvis docta et sancta, viros in conventu docere non praesumat.

[370] Id., _Causa_, 15, _Quaest_. 3--Friedberg, i, p. 750.

[371] Id., _Causa_, 20, _Quaest_. 1, _c_. 2--Friedberg, i, pp. 843-844, quoting Gregory to Augustine, the Bishop of the Angles: Addidistis adhuc, quod si pater vel mater filium filiamve intra septa monasterii in infantiae annis sub regulari tradiderunt disciplina, utrum liceat eis, postquam ad p.u.b.ertatis inoleverint annos, egredi, et matrimonio copulari. Hoe omnino devitamus, quia nefas est ut oblatis a parentibus Deo filiis voluptatis frena relaxentur. Id., _c_. 4--Fried., i, p. 844: quoting Isidore--quic.u.mque a parentibus propriis in monasterio fuerit delegatus, noverit se ibi perpetuo mansurum. Nam Anna Samuel puerum suum natum et ablactatum Deo pietate obtulit. Id., _c_. 7--Fried., i, pp.

844-845.

[372] Gratian, _Dist_., 27, _c_. 4 et 9, and _Dist_., 28, _c_.

12--Friedberg, i, pp. 99 and 104. Id., _Causa_, 27, _Quaest_. 1, _c_. 1 and 7--Friedberg, i, pp. 1047 and 1O50.

[373] Gratian, _Causa_, 20, _Quaest_. 2, _c_. 2--Friedberg, i, pp.

847-848.

[374] Cf. Council of Trent, Session 24, "On the Sacrament of Matrimony,"

_Canon_ 6: "If anyone shall say that matrimony contracted but not consummated is not dissolved by the solemn profession of religion by one of the parties married: let him be anathema."

Gratian, _Causa_, 27, _Quaest_. ii, _c_. 28--Fried., i, p. 1071. Id., _c_. 46, 47, 50, 51--Fried., i, pp. 1076, 1077, 1078.

[375] Gratian, _Causa_, 30, _Quaest_. 2--Fried., i, p. 1100: Ubi non est consensus utriusque, non est coniugium. Ergo qui pueris dant puellas in cunabulis et e converso, nihil faciunt, nisi uterque puerorum postquam venerit ad tempus discretionis consentiat, etiamsi pater et mater hoc fecerint et voluerint. Id. _Causa_, 31, _Quaest_. 2--Fried., i, 1112-1114: sine libera voluntate nulla est copulanda alicui.

[376] Gratian, _Causa_, 30, _Quaest_. 5, _c_. 6--Friedberg, i, p. 1106: Nullum sine dote fiat coniugium; iuxta possibilitatem fiat dos, nee sine publicis nuptiis quisquam nubere vel uxorem ducere praesumat.

[377] Gratian, _Causa_, 30, _Quaest_. 5, _c_. 4--Friedberg, i, p. 1105.

[378] Gratian, _Causa_, 30, _Quaest_. 5, _c_. 7--Friedberg, i, p. 1106.

[379] Id., _c_. 1--Friedberg, i, p. 1104.

[380] Id., _c_. 8--Friedberg, i, p. 1107.

[381] Gratian, _Causa_, 30, _Quaest_. 5, _c_. 9--Friedberg, i, p. 1107.

[382] Gratian, _Causa, 28, _Quaest_. i, _c_. 17--Friedberg, i, p. 1089: illorum vero coniugia, qui contemptis omnibus illis solempnitatibus solo affectu aliquam sibi in coniugem copulant, huiuscemodi coniugium non legitimum, sed ratum tantummodo esse creditur.

[383] Sessio xxiv, cap. i--De Reformatione Matrimonii.

[384] See Gratian, _Dist_., v, _c_. 4--Friedberg, i, p. 8, e.g., ... ita ut morte lex sacra feriat, si quis vir ad menstruam mulierem accedat.

[385] Gratian, _Dist_., 31, _c_. 11--Friedberg, i, p. 114.

[386] Gratian, _Causa_, 27, _Quaest_. 2, _c_. 18-22, and 24-26--Friedberg i, pp. 1067-1070.

[387] Gratian, _Dist_., 34, c. 4--Friedberg, i, p. 126. Id., _Causa_, 29, _Quaest_. 1--Friedberg, i, p. 1092. Id., _Causa_, 29, _Quaest_. 2, c. 2.

[388] Id., _Causa_, 29, _Quaest_. 2, c. 1 and 8.

[389] "Divorce," by James Cardinal Gibbons, in the _Century_, May, 1909.

[390] For this and what immediately follows see _Session_ 24 of the Council of Trent "On the Sacrament of Matrimony" and also the Catholic Encyclopedia under "Divorce."

[391] Gratian, _Causa_ 28, _Quaest_. i, c. 5--Friedberg, i, pp.

1080-1081. Licite dimitt.i.tur uxor que virum suum cogere querit ad malum.

Idolatria, quam sec.u.n.tur infideles, et quelibet noxia superst.i.tio fornicatio est. Dominus autem permisit causa fornicationis uxorem dimitti. Sed quia dimisit et non iussit, dedit Apostolo loc.u.m monendi, ut qui voluerit non dimittat uxorem infidelem, quo sic forta.s.sis possit fidelis fieri. Si infidelitas fornicatio est, et idolatria infidelitas, et avaritia idolatria, non est dubitandum et avaritiam fornicationem esse. Quis ergo iam quamlibet illicitam concupiscentiam potest recte a fornicationis genere separate, si avaritia fornicatio est?

[392] Friedberg, ii, pp. 782 and 783: Quum enim secundum legitimas sanctiones, etc.

Lea, in his _History of Confession and Indulgences_, ii, p. 87, quotes Zanchini, _Tract. de Haeret., cap. 33_, to the effect that goods of a heretic were confiscated and disabilities inflicted on two generations of descendants.