at different periods. The Cromwellian era exhibited an increase of piety. Puritanism here had its birth, but brought no element of toleration to woman. Lydia Maria Child, in her "History of Woman," says:
A writer about this period, said: "She that knoweth how to compound a pudding is more desirable than she who skillfully compoundeth a poem."
At the time of the Reformation, Luther at first continued celibate, but thinking "to vex the Pope," he suddenly, at the age of forty-two, gave his influence against celibacy by marriage with Catherine Von Bora, a former nun. But although thus becoming an example of priestly marriage under the new order of things, Luther's whole course shows that he did not believe in woman's equality with man. He took with him the old theory of her subordination. It was his maxim that "no gown or garment worse becomes a woman than that she will be wise." Although opposing monastic life, the home under the reformation was governed by many of its rules for woman.
First. She was to be under obedience to the masculine head of the household. Second. She was to be constantly employed for his benefit.
Third. Her society was strictly chosen for her by her master and head.
Fourth. This masculine family head was a general father confessor, to whom she was held responsible in thought and deed.
Fifth. Neither genius nor talent could free woman from such control, without consent.
Luther, though free from the lasciviousness of the old priesthood, was not monogamic in principle. When applied to by the German Elector, Philip,[1] Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, for permission to marry a second wife, while his first, Margaret of Savoy, was
- ↑ One of the powerful German Electors, who formerly made choice of the Emperor of Germany.
