Dissertation on the Characteristic Differences between the Sexes, and Woman's Position and Influence in Society, No. II [pp. 621-632]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
punishment for disobedience, merely because his power
enables him to enforce it.
"What god but enters yon forbidden field,
Who yields assistance or but wills to yield;
Back to the skies with shame he shall be driven
Gash'd with dishonest wounds, the scorn of heaven," &c.
And the gods obeyed, not from love or affection to Jupiter, but from absolute terror, inspired by his power.
"The Almighty spoke, nor durst the powers reply,
A reverend horror silenced all the sky;
Trembling they stood before the sov'reign's look," &c.
Poor Juno, the ox-eyed Juno, the unfortunate wife of
the Olympic thunderer, was the mostunhappy ofwomen,
eternally quarrelling with her imperial husband and complaining of his partiality to her enemies. Minerva, too,
more beloved by Jupiter than his own wife, complains of
him as raging with an evil mind, in perpetual opposition to her inclinations. Old Vulcan, it is well known,
got his lameness by being thrown out of heaven by Jupiter in a mad fit, occasioned by Vulcan's interference
in behalf of Juno, when persecuted by her unreasonable
and irascible husband.
The gods, too, are represented as frequently engaged
in actual strife with men, and with one another. In the
20th book of the Iliad, when Jupiter permits the gods to
enter the hitherto forbidden field of Troy, and take
sides according to their inclinations, we have a regular battle between them. Diomed wounds no less than
two gods in the engagement; Venus, who went off
weeping to Jupiter, and Mars, the great god of war.
In the same engagement, we have Neptune pitted
against Apollo, the god of the sun, and Pallas or Minerva, matched with Mars, and actually prostrating him
by a huge rock, a most unfeminine, unlady-like act.
"Thundering he falls: a mass of monstrous size,
And seven broad acres covers, as he lies."
This wise, but most austere and forbidding old maid,
appears truly terrific in this battle of the gods, and
seems an overmatch for all, save the Olympic thunderer.
But again, the morals of the gods were of the most
corrupt and profligate character. Jupiter was the
greatest rake of all the ancient world. How many wives
and maidens was he represented as seducing by the
most unfair means? and so regardless was he of his wife
Juno, that she was obliged to borrow the girdle and
charms of Venus, when she wished to captivate the
thunderer. The historian tells us that the Amphitrion
of Aristophanes, was supposed in Greece, to be very
pleasing to Jupiter-that he was like all rakes, exceedingly fond of the recital of his prowess in the arts of
love and seduction. Venus, the goddess of beauty, as
we might well suppose, after hearing a description of
her ungainly hard favored husband, was no better than
the thunderer. Her levities bred disturbances in heaven,
and heroes on earth.* In view of these circumstances,
no one need wonder at the account which St. Peter gives
of the Gentiles in his time, that "they walked in lasciviousness, lust, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings,
and abominable idolatries.
Besides allthis, the polytheistical religion was entirely
inattentive to all those rules of morality which civilize
* The Trojan wanderer, the hero of the jneid, was the son
of Venus, by Anchises a mortal.
VOL. I.-80
and humanize the race of man, while they bind them
together in peace and harmony like a band of brothers.
Minerva, for example, is represented in the 4th book of
the Iliad, as advising Pandarus to endeavor to bribe
Apollo with the promise of a Hecatomb to assist him
in assassinating Menalaus, contrary to the faith of a
solemn treaty; and even Jupiter himself joins with
that goddess and Juno in promoting so foul a murder.
When we consider the vices and immoralities of the
heavenly host, and then think of the virtues of the first
Romans, we are almost disposed to assert with Rousseau, that virtue seemed to have been banished from
heaven's confines, to take up her residence on earth.
Did human nature in the ancient world, ever appear in
a more stern and dignified attitude, than when Lucretia
was represented as worshipping Venus, and still plunging the dagger in her bosom, because she had lost her
virtue? What a practical rebuke was here given to the
lascivious queen of beauty.
I need scarcely conclude this little episode in which I
have been indulging, by the assertion that such a religion was unsuited to the wants of the human race, but
particularly of woman. She likes to send from her
closet, or from her silent and solitary chamber her
prayers to heaven. She therefore requires an all-seeing,
all-searching eye, which can behold her in the prayerful
momrents of her solitude. She likes to commune with
a God who is omnipotent and able to heal and save.
Her nature shudders at the conflicts and broils of the
gods of the heathen-at their immoralities and vices.
The female deities are all gross, lewd, masculine conceptions, unworthy of the delicacy, chastity, modesty and
grace of the virtuous female. The gods were all unworthy of her confidence and entire trustingaess. Where
is the virtuous woman of the modern world, who, in the
hour of affliction and trial, would unbosom herself be
fore so terrible, so wicked, and so licentious a being as
the Jupiter of the ancients? Or what female could bear
to contemplate the amours of Venus, or to imitate the
acts, and the monstrous immorality of the goddess of wisdom. Well then might the worshippers of such beings
be described as "dead in trespasses and sins," and well
might St. John, in view of such a religion, exclaim "the
whole world lieth in wickedness."
If we turn from the Polytheistic religion of the ancient world, to.the Monotheistic religion of the Mohammedan, we shall find the whole of this system more
gloomy, more revolting, and more repugnant to woman's
feelings, than even the Polytheistical. The fiery warlike character of the prophet, the propagation of the
religion by fire and sword-the total'degradation Of
the female character-the seraglio and the attendant
eunuchs, and the low and sensual offices of the blackeyed Houris in Mohammed's paradise, are all too revolting to the women of christian countries, to be even contemplated with composure for a moment. We are not
to wonder at the implacable hostility of christian
females all over the world towards the moslem. Women
have always attended in considerable numbers the
armies of Europe, when it was threatened with invasion by the devastating armies of the Turks. D'Israeli
in his very interesting collection of the curiosities of
literature, has a chapter on "events, which have not
happened," and gives us some speculations on the fate
of Europe, if the Saracens under Abderaen had beaten
629