結婚における宗教の役割
これは、人間の幸福にとって利益(得)であったか、損失であったのか? どちらか断言することは非常に困難である。小作農(peasant)の間では、既婚女性の生活は、常に非常に厳しいものであったし、全体的に言って文明度の最も低い小作農の間においては、既婚女性の生活は、最大限厳しいものであった。大部分の蛮族(未開種族)の間では、女は25歳で年寄りになり、その年齢では、美の名残りを少しでもとどめようと望むことはできない(無理な願いである)。女性を家畜とみなすのは、疑いもなく、男にとってはとても心地よいものであったが、女性にとっては、困難辛苦(注:toil and hardship 辛苦と困難)にすぎない生活を意味していた。 キリスト教は、特に富裕階級の場合、ある面で女性の地位をいっそうひどいものにしたけれども、(キリスト教は)少なくとも神学上は、男女の平等を認め、女性をまったく夫の財産と見ることを拒否した。既婿女性には、もちろん、夫を捨てて別の男のもとへいく権利はなかったが、宗教生活に入るためであれば、夫のもとを去ることが許された。そして、概ね、大部分の人にとって、女性の地位改善は、キリスト教以前の立場よりも、キリスト教の立場からのほうがより容易になった(のである)。 |
Chapter X: Marriage, n.4With the coming of Christianity this outlook was changed. The part of religion in marriage was very greatly augmented, and infractions of the marriage law came to be blamed on grounds of taboo rather than of property. To have intercourse with another man's wife remained, of course, an offence against that man, but to have any intercourse outside marriage was an offence against God, and this, in the view of the Church, was a far graver matter. For the same reason divorce, which had previously been granted to men on easy terms, was declared inadmissible. Marriage became a sacrament and therefore lifelong.Was this a gain or a loss to human happiness? It is very hard to say. Among peasants the life of married women has always been a very hard one, and on the whole it has been hardest among the least civilized peasants. Among most barbarous peoples a woman is old at twenty-five, and cannot hope at that age to retain any traces of beauty. The view of woman as a domestic animal was no doubt very pleasant for men, but for women it meant a life of nothing but toil and hardship. Christianity, while in some ways it made the position of women worse, especially in the well-to-do classes, did at least recognize their theological equality with men, and refused to regard them as absolutely the property of their husbands. A married woman had not, of course, the right to leave her husband for another man, but she could leave him for a life of religion. And on the whole progress towards a better status for women was easier, in the great bulk of the population, from the Christian than from the pre-Christian standpoint. |