Chapter III

Summary

The laws instituted for the protection, the position, the duties, of the wives of Israel, were more peculiar to the manners and customs of the East only, than those relative to mothers, which can be obeyed and attended to in every age and clime. Still much was instituted, even with regard to wives, which marked and fixed their position, and decidedly elevated woman in the scale of being, and proved that, though, as was just and wise, “her desires must bow to her husband, and he should rule over her,” yet that this rule was to be one of perfect confidence and love.

It has always appeared a mystery, how any person, even among the Gentiles, who has seriously reflected on, and studied the word of God, can assert that it was only through the preaching of Jesus and his apostles that woman took her proper station, and those ordinances were given, which restrained the passions of men, and made marriage a pure and holy tie. Centuries before the advent of Christianity, those laws were given, which, regarding and prohibiting too near consanguinity in marriage, are acknowledged and obeyed by the whole civilised world. Where do we find, amid the Gentile nations, the purity, the chastity, the stainless virtue of woman, to the extent which is still the glory of Israel, and which owes its origin simply to the laws which were issued by the Lord through Moses; seeming, indeed, most terribly severe, but blessed in their very severity by the beautiful purity in Israel which they wrought? Were the law of Moses universally received, how different would be the aspect of the world!