The
established religion was compelled to enter into partnership with the
great emotion of the time, metaphysical love, lest it ran the risk of
losing its sway over humanity.
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.
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