Now, women had performed great deeds in Bible times. Miriam had helped to lead Israel out of Egypt. Deborah judged them, and led the army against the enemy, and Huldah instructed them in their duties to the nation. Although Jeremiah and Zephaniah were prophets at this time, yet the king chose Huldah as the oracle. She was one of the ladies of the court, and resided in the second rank of buildings from the royal palace. Marriage, in her case, does not appear to have been any obstacle in the way of individual freedom and dignity. She had evidently outgrown the curse of subjection p.r.o.nounced in the Garden of Eden, as had many other of the Jewish women.
There is a great discrepancy between the character and the conduct of many of the women, and the designs of G.o.d as set forth in the Scriptures and enforced by the discipline of the Church to-day. Imagine the moral hardihood of the reverend gentlemen who should dare to reject such women as Deborah, Huldah and Vashti as delegates to a Methodist conference, and claim the approval of G.o.d for such an indignity.
In the four following books, from Kings to Esther, there is no mention of women. During that long, eventful period the men must have sprung, Minerva-like, from the brains of their fathers, fully armed and equipped for the battle of life. Having no infancy, there was no need of mothers. As two remarkable women flourished at the close of one period and at the dawn of the other, we shall make no record of the masculine dynasty which intervened, satisfied that Huldah and Vashti added new glory to their day and generation--one by her learning and the other by her disobedience; for "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to G.o.d."
E. C. S.
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
Esther i.
2 In those days when King Ahasuerus sat upon the throne in the palace at Shushan,
3 In the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the n.o.bles and princes of the provinces being before him:
4 When he shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty many days.
5 And when these days were expired, the king made a feast unto all the people that were present in Shushan the palace, both unto great and small, seven days, in the court of the garden;
6 Where were white, green and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble.
7 And they gave them drink in vessels of gold, and royal wine in abundance.
9 Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house.
10 On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded:
11 To bring Vashti the queen with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on.
12 But the queen Vashti refused to come: therefore was the king very wroth.
13 Then the king said to the wise men,
15 What shall we do unto the queen Vashti according to the law?
16 And Memucan answered, Vashti the queen hath not done wrong to the king only, but also to all the people that are in the provinces of the king.
17 For this deed shall come abroad unto all women, so that they shall despise their husbands. The king Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not.
18 Likewise shall the ladies of Persia and Media say this day unto all the king"s princes, which have beard of the deed of the queen.
19 If it please the king, let there go a royal command from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, That Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she.
20 And when the king"s decree shall be published throughout his empire, all the wives shall give to their husband"s honor, both to great and small.
21 And the saying pleased the king and the princes; and the king did accordingly to the word of Memucan:
22 For he sent letters into all the provinces, that every man should bear rule in his own house.
The kingdom of Ahasuerus extended from India to Ethiopia, consisting of one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, an overgrown kingdom which in time sunk by its own weight. The king was fond of display and invited subjects from all his provinces to come by turns to behold his magnificent palaces and sumptuous entertainments.
He gave two great feasts in the beginning of his reign, one to the n.o.bles and the princes, and one to the people, which lasted over a hundred days. The king had the feast for the men spread in the court under the trees. Vashti entertained her guests in the great hall of the palace. It was not the custom among the Persians for the s.e.xes to eat promiscuously together, especially when the king and the princes were partaking freely of wine.
This feast ended in heaviness, not as Balshazzar"s with a handwriting on the wall, nor like that of Job"s children with a wind from the wilderness, but by the folly of the king, with an unhappy falling out between the queen and himself, which ended the feast abruptly and sent the guests away silent and ashamed. He sent seven different messages to Vashti to put on her royal crown, which greatly enhanced her beauty, and come to show his guests the majesty of his queen. But to all the chamberlains alike she said, "Go tell the king I will not come; dignity and modesty alike forbid."
This vanity of a drunken man ill.u.s.trates the truth of an old proverb, "When the wine is in, the wit is out." Josephus says that all the court heard his command; hence, while he was showing the glory of his court, he also showed that he had a wife who would do as she pleased.
Besides seven chamberlains he had seven learned counsellors whom he consulted on all the affairs of State. The day after the feast, when all were sober once more, they held a cabinet council to discuss a proper punishment for the rebellious queen. Memucan, Secretary of State, advised that she be divorced for her disobedience and ordered "to come no more before the king," for unless she was severely punished, he said, all the women of Medea and of Persia would despise the commands of their husbands.
We have some grand types of women presented for our admiration in the Bible. Deborah for her courage and military prowess; Huldah for her learning, prophetic insight and statesmanship, seated in the college in Jerusalem, where Josiah the king sent his cabinet ministers to consult her as to the policy of his government; Esther, who ruled as well as reigned, and Vashti, who scorned the Apostle"s command, "Wives, obey your husbands." She refused the king"s orders to grace with her presence his revelling court. Tennyson pays this tribute to her virtue and dignity:
"Oh, Vashti! n.o.ble Vashti!
Summoned forth, she kept her state, And left the drunken king to brawl In Shushan underneath his palms."
E. C. S.
The feast, with the preliminary exhibition of the king"s magnificent palace and treasures, was not a social occasion in which the king and the queen partic.i.p.ated under the same roof. The equal dignity of woman and of queen as companion of the king was not recognized. The men feasted together purely as a physical enjoyment. If there was any intellectual feature of the occasion it is not recorded. On the seventh day, when appet.i.te was satiated and the heart of the king was merry with wine, as a further means of gratifying sensual tastes and exhibiting his power, the king bethought him of the beauty of the queen.
The command to the chamberlains was to bring Vashti. It was such an order as he might have sent to the jester, or to any other person whose sole duty was to do the king"s bidding, and whose presence might add to the entertainment of his a.s.semblage of men. It was not an invitation which anywise recognized the queen"s condescension in honoring the company by her presence.
But Vashti refused to come at the king"s command! An unprecedented act of both wife and queen. Probably Vashti had had previous knowledge of the condition of the king when his heart was merry with wine and when the physical man was under the effects of seven day"s conviviality. She had a higher idea of womanly dignity than placing herself on exhibition as one of the king"s possessions, which it pleased him to present to his a.s.sembled princes. Vashti is conspicuous as the first woman recorded whose self-respect and courage enabled her to act contrary to the will of her husband. She was the first "woman who dared."
This was the more marked because her husband was also king. So far as the record proves, woman had been obedient to the commands of the husband and the father, or, if seeking to avoid them, had sought indirect methods and diplomacy. It was the first exhibition of the individual sovereignty of woman on record. Excepting Deborah as judge, no example had been given of a woman who formed her own judgment and acted upon it. There had been no exhibition of a self-respecting womanhood which might stand for a higher type of social life than was customary among men.
Vashti was the prototype of the higher unfoldment of woman beyond her time. She stands for the point in human development when womanliness a.s.serts itself and begins to revolt and to throw off the yoke of sensualism and of tyranny. Her revolt was not an overt act, or a criticism of the proceedings of the king. It was merely exercising her own judgment as to her own proceeding. She did not choose to be brought before the a.s.sembly of men as an exhibit. The growth of self-respect and of individual sovereignty in woman has been slow. The sequence of Vashti"s refusal to obey the king suggests at least one of the reasons why the law has been made, as it has down to the present day, by men alone. Woman has not been consulted, as she is not consulted to-day about any law, even such as bears especially upon herself, but was and is expected to obey it.
The idea of maintaining the respect of women and of wives by worthiness and by n.o.bility of character and of manner, had not been born in the man of that day. The husband was to be held an authority.
His superiority was his power to command obedience.
"And when the king"s decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his empire, all the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both great and small."
King Ahasuerus was but a forerunner of the more modern lawmaker, who seeks the same end of male rulership, by making the wife and all property the possession of the husband. That every living soul has an inherent right to control its life and activities, and that woman equally with man should enjoy this opportunity, had not dawned upon the consciousness of the men of the times of Ahasuerus.
Vashti stands out a sublime representative of self-centred womanhood.
Rising to the heights of self-consciousness and of self-respect, she takes her soul into her own keeping, and though her position both as wife and as queen are jeopardized, she is true to the Divine aspirations of her nature.