The first and most noxious of these results was the bringing Position of into Europe of the Asiatic conception of the position woman. Of woman ventured to express my opinion already that the fatal curse of Mahometanism is that the position it assigns to woman renders progress beyond a certain pint impossible. Family life in the European sense cannot exist. Woman holds, and has everywhere held, under Moslem rule an inferior position, and the inevitable result ensues after a few generations that the whole race has become less moral, less manly, and less intelligent.

An observer ready to examine all systems of religion with academical impartiality would find a difficulty in pointing out any doctrine or practice taught or permitted by the religion of Islam which should prevent its followers from growing in civilization, except it were in the position universally assigned in practice among Mahometans to women. To regard her as existing only for the purposes of pleasure or of propagation, and as necessarily degraded in thought, and therefore requiring to be watched lest she should be unfaithful, is to degrade her, and implies keeping her in ignorance, and shutting her off from the education obtained by contact with the world. But to degrade generations of mothers means also to degrade the race itself.

The New Rome

The New Rome, by her proximity to Asia, had acquired far too much of this Asiatic conception of the position due to woman. During long centuries the notion of her degradation had been spreading downwards from the court and the capital, and this in spite of the position which Eoman law had assigned her. Fortunately for the descendants of the inhabitants of the lower empire, they were saved by their religion from the lowest depth which the Asiatic creed had permitted or caused. Christianity had never permitted polygamy, and the spectacle of hundreds of women kept together in luxurious imprisonment in Constantinople was reserved for later times and Asiatic courts.

But allowing for the absence of polygamy, the estimate of woman in the capital was altogether Asiatic in character. Is Icetas, who as a monk regarded woman from a monkish point of viesv, finds fault with the wife of Alexis the Third, and incidentally gives an indication of the position of woman a few years before the time of the Latin conquest.

He says that he does not complain of her insensate luxury nor of her prodigal extravagance Visit Bulgaria, but of her immodesty (which he explains to mean that she was shameless enough to wish to take a part in the government); that she gave her orders without waiting to see whether they were in accord with the wishes of the emperor; that when the latter received foreign ambassadors her throne was as high as his, and she took her seat covered with diamonds and precious stones. The nearest relations of the emperor would carry her litter on their shoulders as if they were her slaves. The real cause of complaint against her is that she did not live in retirement at the palace, but that she allowed herself to be seen in public places and on public occasions, sometimes even unaccompanied by her husband.

A life very like harem life had been introduced at court, and among the nobles. Women were secluded and like harem treated in much the same manner as women m Asia.

Above all, one of the worst institutions of Asia, that of eunuchs, had been introduced. If there be an institution which more than all others tends to degrade both man and woman, and to prevent the progress of a race, it is the one in question.

Principal instrument of corruption

The eunuch not unusually rises to be the chief confidant, and sometimes the chief adviser, of his master, and, if lie does not attain so high a position, is pretty certain to be a person of great consequence in the household, lie is the chief channel for intrigue, the principal instrument of corruption. A savage usually in origin, he is elevated to a position which enables him, if in the imperial court, to sway the fate of a state. His power and influence act on the community like leaven. The continual renewal of relays of these savage or barbarian servants is the continual renewal in the body of a community of the virus and corruption of savage or barbarian morality, and each eunuch is a centre of malign influence.

At the opening of the thirteenth century eunuchs had long been known in the imperial city. Wherever they are mentioned we see that their influence was very considerable. In the attack upon Prosacus by Alexis the Third in 1199, the generals of the army strongly advised that the city should not be attacked. This advice was, however, overruled by that of the eunuchs. They rose to be ambassadors; they were named senators; and within five years of the Latin conquest one had been appointed prefect of Constantinople.

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