At the time when Christianity dawned upon the world, women
had attained great freedom, power and influence in the Roman empire.
Tradition was in favor of restriction, but by a concurrence of
circumstances, women had been liberated from the enslaving fetters of
the old legal forms. They enjoyed freedom of intercourse in society.
They walked in the public thoroughfares with veils that did not hide
their faces. They dined in the company of men. They studied literature
and philosophy. They took part in political movements. They were
allowed to defend their own law cases if they liked, and they helped
their husbands in the government of provinces and the writing of
books."
And again: "One would have imagined that Christianity would have
favored the extension of woman's freedom. In a very short time women
are seen only in two capacities--as martyrs and deaconesses (or nuns).
Now what the early Christians did was to strike the male out of the
definition of man, and human being out of the definition of woman. Man
was a human being made to serve the highest and noblest purposes;
woman was a female, made to serve only one."
Thus the position attained by women of Greece and Rome through the
exercise of family limitation, and in a considerable degree of
voluntary motherhood, was swept away by the rising tide of
Christianity.
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