EQUALITY OF SEXES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18515, 28 March 1922, Page 2

EQUALITY OF SEXES

WOMAN’S DEBT TO CHRISTIANITY. QTbom Our Own Correspondent.! WELLINGTON, March 27. In his sermon at St. Mary’s of the Angels last evening, Bishop Whyte, of Dunedin, said that women should never forget what they owe to Christianity. In the preChristian times women were treated little better than slaves. Even the philosophers and the most learned and polished men in Greece and Rome regarded women as having no claim at all upon the reverence of men. Divorce was granted, and even the most cultivated men of the time had no scruples in putting away their wives, regarding them as below them, in refinement and having no claim at all on their respect, but Christianity changed all that. The Apostles at first, and afterwards the fathers of the Church, dwelt upon the equality of the sexes. Soon it became realised that women held the game important position in the sight of God as men did. By degrees it became clear that all were to look upon woman in her true light. It should not be forgotten then that v, omen owed to Christianity that improvement in their social position which they did not possess in the pre-Christian times.