ISLAM

208 1ST AM VERSUS CHRISTIANITY
lower legal position than in the Pagan Empire."*
"Every husband," says Beanmanoir, "may beat his
wife if she refuses to obey his will ;
or if she curse
him, or gives him the lie, provided the chastisement
be moderate and death does not ensue." An old
English doggerel will indicate the status of women
in the English society thus :
"A woman, a dog and a walnut tree,
The more you beat them, the better they be."
The condition of women in another Christian
country, Russia, may be ascertained from what
Maxim Gorky has recently said : "I believe that
women are nowhere else so pitilessly and terribly
beaten as in the Russian villages." He says that
children also are thoroughly beaten in Russia. It
was in great anguish of the heart that Thomas Hood
uttered his memorable lament :
"Alas for the rarity
Of Christian Charity
Under the Sun !"
One most disagreeable feature of the Christian
social system is the practice known in England as
"Baby-farming." A writer in the Nation has stated :
"In the course of many years visiting in a prison,
I have met with various cases where women
have deliberately set themselves to dispose of
unwanted children, *not by open and violent
measures but by the safer means of slow torture.
It must be understood that I do not refer to
* European Morals^ Vol. II, Chap. V.