, 'G-SWJ0LDH7HV');
信心深いキリスト教徒の奴隷所有者
このことから、妻は夫に従うべきであり,浮気(unfaithfulness 不実/不貞)は夫の場合より妻の場合によりいっそう悪い罪となる,ということになる。確かに,キリスト教は,理論の上では,姦通(不義密通)を神に対する罪であるという理由で,両性(男女)どちらの場合にも等しく罪深いと考えている。しかし,このような見解は,実際上,(一般には)あまり流布しなかった,キリスト教以前の時代には,理論上でさえ,考えられたことはなかった。既婚婦人との姦通(不義密通)は邪悪であるとされたが,それはその婦人の夫に対する攻撃だからであった。しかし,女性の奴隷と戦争捕虜は彼らの支配者(ご主人様)の合法的な財産であり,それらの女性と性交することに対しては非難されることはまったくなかった。このような見解は,信心深いキリスト教徒の奴隷所有者によって抱かれており,-ただし、彼らの妻はそのような見解を抱いてはいなかった- 19世紀のアメリカにおいてさえ、抱かれてきたのである。 |
Chapter 15: Power and Moral Codes, n.4The same sort of thing happened in regard to the subjection of women. The superior strength of male animals does not, in most cases, lead to continual subjection of the females, because the males have not a sufficient constancy of purpose. Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages. And the subjection is always reinforced by morality. A man, says St. Paul, "is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man" (I Corinthians xi.7-9) It follows that wives ought to obey their husbands, and that unfaithfulness is a worse sin in a wife than in a husband. Christianity, it is true, holds, in theory, that adultery is equally sinful in either sex, since it is a sin against God. But this view has not prevailed in practice, and was not held even theoretically in pre-Christian times. Adultery with a married woman was wicked, because it was an offence against her husband; but female slaves and war-captives were the legitimate property of their master, and no blame attached to intercourse with them. This view was held by pious Christian slave-owners, though not by their wives, even in nineteenth-century America. |