CHURCH FRANCHISE FOR WOMEN

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 99, 23 October 1913, Page 6

CHURCH FRANCHISE FOR WOMEN

The large majority by which the Anglican Synod at ' Melbourne has decided in favour of conferring the Church franchise on women is a significant fact. The Synod has amended the Assemblies Act in such a way as to enable women to obtain the right to vote for lay v representatives to Synod. Archbishop Clarko describes this step as "a great new departure in Church life," and considers that it will influence tho whole life of the community. Tho wonder is not that this step has been taken, but that it has not been taken before. In the Old Country prejudices die hard, and the best possible course has been taken to inflame them against any extension of the rights of women by tho organisers of the senseless and criminal performances which have recently complicated and obscured tho merits of the question. It is not to be wondered at that 4 the conservatism of Great Britain should have been hardened against the claims of woman by these deplorable tactics on the part of those who profess to speak on her behalf. In the political sphere New Zealand took twenty years ago in a peaceful, businesslike, and matter-of-fact way tho step which is being thus fiercely agitated in the United Kingdom at the present time. How is it that in this respect the Church, as represented by the largest and most influential of the denorainaX tions, has lagged so far behind the State, and still withholds the ecclesiastical franchiso front women all these years after she has received her political enfranchisement? One reason is that tho ecclesiastical mind is slower to move and is fonder of the old paths than the mind of the politician; and another is that this particular Church is endowed with rather more than an average share of the normal conservatism of ecclesiastical bodies. But the action of the Victorian , Synod and the discussions which have recently taken place in several of the Diocesan Synods of New Zealand suggest that a change is likely to take place before long. In the good old days it was easy to quote texts that seemed to be fatal to tho claims of woman to a share in Church government. " Let the women keep silence in the churches," says St. Paul, "for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but let them bo in subjection, as saith the law. And if they would learn anything, let them, ask their own husbands, at home." We no longer think it sufficient to refer a woman to her husband as her teacher and trustee in political matters, and one good reason why we should cease to make this, reference on questions of Church government is that her husband is, as a rule, less deeply concerned in them than she is herself. The politician who, when taxed with his indifference to religion, replied that, though he did not go to church, his wife did, spoke for a very large body of men. Nearly all the great religious leaders have been men, but their followers have as a rule included more women than men. And so it is to-day that m the ordinary activities and exercises of the churches women more than hold their own in point of numbers and of zeal. In argu-iaS-ksfose-t4« Nelaoa DioSSS§S Syaod

last week that the wold " man " should bo altered to " person " in a certain Bill then before the Synod, Mr. Seymour said that the present exclusion of women from the right to vote on Church matters was "a piece of injustice to what was really more than one-half of tho members of the Church." "If anything is wanted to be done for the benefit of the district," said Mr. Seymour, "who aro tho people first called upon and who are the first to respond most nobly?" And he answered his question with the word " Women." But the Bishop of Nelson, while sympathising with the contention, had to rule that the matter 'was one for the General Synod. , It surely cannot be long before that body follows tho lead of Victoria in this matter.